North Coast Cafe, South

Kirbati: Swallowed by the Sea

In 1992 I traveled to Rio de Janeiro to cover the Earth Summit for the television news agency I then worked for. One of the more memorable interviews I conducted was with a minister from a South Pacific nation.  The man was unusually articulate on the matter of global warming and put the then dubious phenomena in context for me. He said that as the sea level rises, his entire country, the whole nation would begin to disappear.  I've aways remembered the  dramatic image his comment fostered in my mind and have occasionally used it anecdotally when writing about or discussing GW--especially with skeptics to refuse to acknowledge reality.  So, now comes this British newspaper report.  Could it be any clearer?

Let's Give a Hand for Wildlife

World  Wildlife Fund

Water: Bad water kills more children than war

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Nuclear Power: A Solution?

For years I've been hiding my suspicion that nuclear energy,  so derided and opposed by my fellow environmentalists, especially those affiliated or following the lead of Greenpeace--an organization I have worked for and admired--might be an answer to the perilous price and dwindling supply of oil.

While it may still be arguable that we've reached peak oil,  that point at which known, accessible deposits of affordable oil have been fully exploited, the specter of global warming spurred by burning fossil fuels is enough to re-examine the benefit of nuclear power generation,  problematic though it may be.

Happily I have discovered that in this too heretical belief I am not alone.

Power to Save the World is a picaresque, flat-out love song to the bad boy of the great American energy debate -- as good a book as we're likely to get on a subject mired in political incorrectness, general unfathomability and essentially limitless gut fears.

It's also the latest plot point for one of the few unassailably positive byproducts of global-warming mania: the quiet emergence of pro-nuke greens, led by such impeccable apostates as Whole Earth founder Stewart Brand and James Lovelock, the British chemist best known for his Earth-is-a-living-organism "Gaia hypothesis."

WSJ review of Power to Save the World

WSJ article on Peak Oil

Interview with Greenpeace co-founder

Northwest Passage

Arctic sea ice shrunk this week to its lowest level since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, so much that it has opened up the most direct route of the Northwest Passage--a legendary frozen sea route above North America and Siberia linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Arctic sea ice normally recedes in the summer, but satellite data collected by the European Space Agency's Envisat probe, has shown that the overall rate of ice loss  has sped up drastically in the past 10 years.

"There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100,000 square kilometers [62,137 square miles] per year on average," said Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Centre, "so a drop of 1 million square kilometers [621,371 square miles] in just one year is extreme."

While the Northeast Passage along the Siberian coast remains partially blocked, the Passage's most direct route now is navigable across northern Canada. However, Pedersen says, the complete passage may open sooner than expected.

The fabled Northwest Passage, if fully navigable, could make the trip 4,000 miles shorter for ships traveling between Europe and Asia if they could avoid the Panama Canal route. The passage was first navigated by explorer Roald Amundsen in 1903 to 1906. 

Even when the Arctic ice pack dropped to a previous low of 4 million square kilometers in 2005, the passage did not fully open, Pedersen said.

Earth's polar regions are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures spurred by climate change. While the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts an ice-free Arctic summer by 2070, other scientists foresee such a scenario as early as 2040.

—LiveScience Staff

40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution

Of the world population of about 6.5 billion, 57 percent is malnourished, compared with 20 percent of a world population of 2.5 billion in 1950, says a new study to be published in December by a Cornell professor and 120 graduate students.

The team examined data from more than 120 published papers on the effects of population growth, malnutrition and various kinds of environmental degradation on human diseases.

They found that malnutrition is not only the direct cause of 6 million children's deaths each year but also makes millions of people much more susceptible to such killers as acute respiratory infections, malaria and a host of other life-threatening diseases.

Among the study's other main points:

• Nearly half the world's people are crowded into urban areas, often without adequate sanitation, and are exposed to epidemics of such diseases as measles and flu.
• With 1.2 billion people lacking clean water, waterborne infections account for 80 percent of all infectious diseases. Increased water pollution creates breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, killing 1.2 million to 2.7 million people a year, and air pollution kills about 3 million people a year. Unsanitary living conditions account for more than 5 million deaths each year, of which more than half are children.
• Air pollution from smoke and various chemicals kills 3 million people a year. In the United States alone about 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment -- contributing to cancer, birth defects, immune system defects and many other serious health problems.
• Soil is contaminated by many chemicals and pathogens, which are passed on to humans through direct contact or via food and water. Increased soil erosion worldwide not only results in more soil being blown but spreading of disease microbes and various toxins.

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The End of Oil?

Grave predictions about the imminent decline of human civilization because of the depletion of oil  have been popping up in books and other media for several years. 

In the USA gasoline prices (still comparatively low in relation to prices in other nations) along with home heating fuel costs are the only reference point most consumers have for the price of oil.

But so much of our economy and lifestyle relies on oil --uses other than gasoline and heating fuel--it's somewhat a surprise that nearly three quarters of those recently polled failed to identify common products made from oil.  How's this list for a starter?

Ammonia, Anesthetics, Antihistamines, Artificial limbs, Artificial Turf, Antiseptics, Aspirin, Auto Parts, Awnings, Balloons, Ballpoint pens, Bandages, Beach Umbrellas, Boats, Cameras, Candles, Car Battery Cases, Carpets, Caulking, Combs, Cortisones, Cosmetics, Crayons, Credit Cards, Curtains, Deodorants, Detergents, Dice, Disposable Diapers, Dolls, Dyes, Eye Glasses, Electrical Wiring Insulation, Faucet Washers, Fishing Rods, Fertilizer, Fishing Line, Fishing Lures, Food Preservatives, Food Packaging, Garden Hose, Glue, Hair Coloring, Hair Curlers, Hand Lotion, Hearing Aids, Heart Valves, Ink, Insect Spray, Insecticides, Linoleum, Lip Stick, Milk Jugs, Nail Polish, Oil Filters, Pantyhose, Perfume, Petroleum Jelly, Rubber Cement, Rubbing Alcohol, Shampoo, Shoes, Toothpaste, Trash Bags, Upholstery, Vitamin Capsules, Water Pipes, Clothing Ink, Parachutes, Telephones, Enamel, Epoxy paint, Car sound insulation, Cassettes, Motorcycle helmets, Pillows, Shower doors, Refrigerator linings, Electrical tape, Safety glass, Nylon rope, Ice buckets, Toilet seats, Denture adhesive, Loudspeakers, Movie film, Candles, Water pipes, Golf balls, Sunglasses, Soft contact lenses, Footballs, Paint brushes, Fan belts, Luggage, Toothbrushes, Ice cube trays, Plywood adhesive

Vanishing Honeybees

Whose Job Is It to Save the Planet, Anyway?

By John Kelly
Wednesday, July 11, 2007; B03

There was an electric thrum in our back yard the other day. It wasn't coming from a downed power line but from a swarm of bees that had encased a neighbor's tree trunk like a huge, furry carbuncle.

WHOOoom-WHOOoom-WHOOoom, it went, thousands of honeybees in a pulsating mass.

It's a natural phenomenon, my neighbor Rene Barnes said, having looked it up on the Web. When it's time for a hive to move, the bees gather somewhere to magically create a new queen while scouts look for a new location. Rene said they could be in his tree for a few hours or for a few days.

I went inside and got my notebook and pen. I had a few questions.

Four or five bees flew past me without a second look from their compound eyes before I finally convinced one to stop. It was a female, a worker bee, and she landed atop the coiled metal binder of my reporter's notebook.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Past five dandelions, left at the butterfly bush, over the creek, right at the second stump and then to the big tree with a hole in the trunk where the sun slants at a 78-degree angle," she said in her tiny voice.

"No," I said. "Where are you going? Your kind is disappearing. Honeybee colonies all over the United States are vanishing. That's driving up the price of honey. Some experts predict things could get even worse. Your kind pollinates fruit trees and nut trees and vegetable crops. You are what's called a keystone species. The disappearance of honeybees could mean ecological collapse, famine and the end of life on this planet as we know it."

"Oh, that," she said, picking at some pollen stuck to one of her legs. "Well, I'm not really sure that's my problem."

"Not your problem?" I gasped. "The end of life, and it's not your problem?"

"The end of human life," she corrected. "Do you know this song by the pop-rock band Steely Dan? I sometimes hear it at picnics, when I've stopped to suck some nectar from the rim of a soda can and a boombox is playing. The song goes, 'I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah. I don't want to do your dirty work no more.' Frankly, we've gotten tired of all this pollinating, especially given the way you treat us."

"But we love you," I said. "We hold bees up as an emblem of industry and organization. In decorative arts, you are a motif that means plenty. We absolutely adore your honey. We put it in everything from breakfast cereal to cough syrup to shampoo."

The bee responded: "First of all, do you even know what honey is? It's bee vomit. Second, did it ever occur to you that we might like some of that sweet, sweet bee vomit? But no. We spend hours collecting pollen, sucking nectar and making honey, and then humans in big white hats come and take it. You swat us when we stray too close to you. You talk about a 'hive mentality' as if that was a bad thing. Why should we stick around? We're leaving."

A few other worker bees had gathered by this point, and there were tiny chirps of "Tell him, sister!" and "You go, nonreproductive female!"

And with that, the swarm flew off the tree, formed a gigantic question mark in the air and then buzzed off for parts unknown.        Washington Post

Great Trees

Suburban News

January 9, 2002

Somewhere out there, in a front yard, along a highway, deep in the forest, or growing in a public park is a big, old, or unusual tree that scientists want to know about.

Maybe that big tree only you have noticed is a potential national champion destined to be cloned as part of the Washington, D.C.- based organization American Forests program searching America for record breaking tree specimens.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest tree in our area is a magnificent Poplar that stands in Hamlin at the north end of Redman Road in front of the Country Corner Bed and Breakfast, owned and operated by Linda DeRue and her husband John.

The 65-foot tall, 22-feet around, 7.5 foot in diameter Poplar tree is thought to be at least 150-years old. It guards the entrance to property previously owned by five generations of the Austin family, successful Hamlin fruit growers whose 150 acres of apple and cherry orchards annually produced tons of fruit for over a century. 

Another Hamlin tree, identified as a Bigtooth Aspen (a close relative of the native Poplar), once actually made the record books. According to Hamlin resident Ed Evans, the 1976 World Almanac listed the 93-foot giant in the Giant Trees of the United States. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by lightening and removed several years ago.

Evans, who was instrumental in protecting Yanty Creek Marsh along Lake Ontario in Hamlin, is especially fond of the huge Black Oak tree rescued from destruction by the recent creation of a break wall that protects the march from the lake’s deadly high water levels. The tree stands not far from the Yanty Creek Nature Trail where visiting school children have dubbed it “Grandpa.”

According to Rick Lair, a landscape architect and Director of Facilities Maintanence at SUNY Brockport,  “Grandpa”, about 60-feet tall, is 100 years old, or older, and a prime example of old growth trees native to upstate western New York. Black Oak trees were once far more widespread in our region. Many have been cut for timber, used in furniture making, the bark used to make tannin used to cure leather and for a common yellow dye used in the textile industry.

Lair oversees the care of trees on the SUNY Brockport campus-- the closest thing to an arboretum we have in western Monroe, and eastern Orleans counties. The front lawn of Hartwell Hall, the oldest part of the campus, hosts several unusual trees seldom seen in our region.

Among the rarest is a  Spanish Chestnut tree situated between Hartwell Hall and the former college president’s residence, now known as Alumni House. In the fall, smallish spiked fruit, similar to the more common Horse chestnuts fall from the tree and are edible.  (The Horse chestnut tree, a popular ornamental species is not native to North America. It was imported from Europe in 1746 by the famed nurseryman and naturalist John Bartram)

Protected from the harshest winter weather by the Hartwell building is a Magnolia Soluligeana seldom seen this far north. Rick Lair reckons the Magnolia has only survived because of the protection the proximity of the building provides. A companion tree of the same variety was destroyed in the ice storm of 1991.

Not far to the north of the main entrance to Hartwell, is a Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus dioica ) another very unusual tree for this area. It is easily identified by its fruit, a thick, flat pod, containing 4-7 flat broad seeds which were used during colonial times as a coffee substitute. Whatever technique colonists used to ready the seeds for human consumption are lost to us. But they must have done something right because the Kentucky Coffee Tree seed is now known to be poisonous to sheep, cattle, horses and humans.

An excellent example of the Tuliptree stands on the lawn nearby. Also known as the Yellow Poplar (liriodendron tulipifera) these tall, straight trees, with their unique yellow-orange tulip-like spring blossoms, are one of the most beautiful hardwoods of the East. Walt Whitman called it the “Apollo of the woods.”

A Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), also known as the American Planetree, stands near the walk leading to Monroe Avenue and Utica Street.  The Sycamore is known to have the largest trunk of any North American hardwood; the current champion has an 11-foot diameter. This tree is famous for its greenish-brown and white peeling bark. (Another beautiful Sycamore, almost white, stands on the upstream side of Sandy Creek at the east fork bridge in Hamlin.)

In the middle of Hartwell’s lawn is another unusual planting, a Weeping Mulberry tree (Morus alba pendule)-- a small shrub-like tree about 12 feet tall, with cascading, arching branches sweeping the lawn. 

Down the walk leading to College Street several magnificent Silver Maples line the way.  Their burly gnarled roots threaten the stability of the sidewalk, one of the reasons Silver Maples are so frequently maligned by landscapers as ‘trash trees.”  Silver Maples are fast growing, and short-lived so unless sited carefully and well maintained they can present problems for the homeowner. But the stature and character of these trees is undisputedly magnificent.

Several other near-champion large Silver Maples can be seen at the site of the old Grammar School, now the Utica Street Playground. Old photos showing the school building before it was demolished in the 50s also show the trees still standing today. Also, a single, stout Silver Maple stands in the front yard of the Morgan Manning house on Main Street in Brockport . . .

    Big Copper Beech trees are common in our area and one fine specimen lives at the Morgan-Manning House. Another shades the 1810 Park-Palmer house at 299 Main Street, currently in the care of homeowner Sue Miller.  But by far the grandest copper beech, one worthy of a special trek to see, stands in Brockport’s Lakeview Cemetery on Route 19 just south of the village. The tree stands in the lower, northern, part of the cemetery known as section B, overlooking the pond.  Todd Swan, Lakeview’s resident caretaker, says arborists who tend the cemetery’s trees estimate it to be over 150 years old, predating the 1891 creation of the cemetery.

Near the copper beech is a tall Dawn Redwood, also known as a Metasequoia.  Native to Szechuan, China, the Metasequoia species was unknown to botanists until it was first discovered in 1945. The first seeds were imported by Boston’s Arnold Arboretum in 1948 and selectively distributed around the country. Unfortunately Lakeview Cemetery has no records to explain how its rare, prize specimen of this unusual tree came to be planted in Brockport. Judging from its height and girth, it’s about 50 years old so it must have been sown from one of the first seeds reaching America.

Elsewhere in Lakeview Cemetery are some monumental hemlock and white spruce trees—centenarians at least.  The White Spruce along with the Black Spruce, its close cousin and frequent companion, often reaches 100 feet high at maturity. Before the arrival of Europeans, vast stands of these trees stretched across upstate New York. The density and ubiquity of upstate coniferous and hardwood forests caused early settlers to refer to the region as ‘The Black North”.

When it comes to judging champion trees it’s the organization American Forests in Washington, D.C. that decides which tree gets crowned. They have precise rules about how to measure a tree’s height, circumference and crown width. They use a mathematical formula to transpose a tree’s characteristics into a numerical a score. Some champion trees are then cloned and grown into seedlings or grafted onto rootstock and given away to communities interested in propagating America’s great trees.

For the record, a 275-foot-tall Giant Sequoia in California is America’s biggest tree, nearly 83-feet in diameter.  The country’s biggest Christmas tree, a Blue

Spruce, grows in Utah and is almost three times as tall as the national Christmas tree displayed at the White House.

About 50 national champion trees have been cloned so far, with over 2,000 cloned trees planted in parks and public spaces around the country. Cuttings of the last known apple tree planted by Johnny Appleseed, and offspring of a Tuliptree George Washington planted in 1785 at Mount Vernon are among the cloned trees being distributed by American Forests and the Champion Tree Project.

A recent discovery of an old growth forest on the shoreline of Hemlock Lake attracted international attention to the trees of western New York. One Hemlock was determined to be 515 years old, pre-dating Columbus’ discovery of America. One of the ecologists working at the sight, Bruce Kershner, of Buffalo, has a book coming out later this year which will include about 20 examples of great trees in western NY.  The book, tentatively titled The Sierra Club Guide to Ancient Forests of the Northeast, will be published by Random House later this year.

For more information about American Forests, directions on how to measure a tree, how to submit a candidate for consideration as a national champion or to learn more about existing champion trees, or to buy a cloned tree go to www.americanforests.org or,

Email: [email protected]

US Postal Address:
American Forests
PO BOX 2000
Washington, DC 20013

Street Address:
910 17th Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20006
Telephone: (202) 955-4500

To view photographs of champion trees, learn more about cloning important trees and how individuals and communities have worked together to save and protect our champion trees log on to: www.championtrees.org

If you have a or know about a large, old or special tree, the Suburban News would like to learn more about it. Send us a photo and a note telling us about your tree:

.

Sustainable Design

Rochester Business Journal

02/20/01

 

 

It Isn’t Easy Being Green

 

 

 

With a few notable exceptions, managers of many American manufacturing and service businesses rank dealing with environmental regulations on a par with root canals and colonoscopy. But one thing is certain. It’s only going to get worse. And, therein lies a compelling tale, one with some impressive local connections.

 

But, first we look to Europe where recent European Union (EU) initiatives may serve as models for the future in the United States. The issues there include, a radical paradigm shift wherein responsibility for the disposal of a product at the end of its life reverts to the maker. No longer will the costs and logistics of disposal be the community's problem, rather manufacturers will be mandated to take back their products and deal with disposal issues. As some American manufacturers, especially the automobile industry, look on in horror at these producer responsibility initiatives, others see them as a potentially cost saving, profit enhancing, socially responsible innovation long overdue.

 

A consultant and close observer of the EU producer responsibility directives is Nail Nasr, director of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Center for Remanufacturing and Resource Recovery, (REMAN).  Dr. Nasr recently returned from France where he met with members of the European Commission charged with coming up with the language and logistics for enforcement provisions of the new laws.

 

“What they are saying is the manufacturer of the equipment is responsible for the product’s end of life, that it’s no longer society’s problem. You know what went into this product, you know what material was used, you know how you put it together, you are the best one to take it back and deal with it. This take back policy is the European way of dealing with disposal issues,” Nasr says. 

 

“We have a program here in the U.S., with the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] called extended producer responsibility.  Unlike the European model-- the philosophy there is ‘we’re going to regulate’-- in the US we say ‘this is the right thing.’ Industry must figure out a way to deal with it.” 

 

Nasr is both an innovator and champion of regenerative design, a term he coined which, he admits, is nearly synonymous with the better-known term “sustainable design.” Regenerative design encourages building into a product up front materials and components that can be remanufactured and reused.  Also an advocate of Design for the Environment principles, another EPA initiative, Nasr and his Center works with many local companies eager to be ahead of the curve in design and implementation of end-of-life disposal methodology. His center tries to match local companies with available state and federal funding to help identify and implement innovative sustainable design principles and practices.

 

“Sustainable design,” Nasr says, “ is a holistic approach that looks at product design and tries to accommodate and incorporate all aspects of product life and take that into consideration up front in design so we are not just looking at a product to perform a certain function, we try to go beyond that looking at the use phase, how the product is serviced, all the activities associated with the product, and how the end of life issues are dealt with.

 

“If you look at it from a business perspective it makes sense,” Nasr says.  “The producer knows what went into it [the product], [and] knows how it was put together. They’re the best ones to take it back and deal with it. Because of the threat of take back programs and other regulations, business people unprepared to address these issues are at high risk. If they don’t understand the impact of their product up front they will encounter big spending issues later on and if their competitor has addressed it up front in design, it becomes a survival issue.”

 

Perhaps the most outstanding and successful example of sustainable design anywhere in the world is found at our own, hometown, Xerox Corporation.  Back in 1990, Xerox engineer John Elter, a pioneer in remanufacturing and resource recovery initiated the LAKES program which he describes as a “clean sheet” design, meaning it was a brand new product, without precedent. As Elter says, “...there was no cookbook for how to do this.”

 

What Elter did, following an inspiration after touring a small remanufacturing facility in Holland, was to propose a radically new design for a machine that would use remanufactured parts, be committed to resource recovery and a “zero to landfill” goal. As Elter explains, “What LAKES did, is it internalized the environment to a much greater extent than any other program ever had at Xerox. It became one of our design objectives; it wasn’t looked on as any kind of constraint as much as an objective.”

 

“After I started the project I made a commitment to my boss: Not only would we meet the government regulations, we would actually exceed them. Exceeding the requirements put a value on how important design for the environment was meant to be.”

 

Elter and his engineering team took advantage of the fact that Xerox’s business has a large customer base that leases their products and, at the end of the lease, or at the end-of-life, returns them. Early on, through market research, Xerox also found out that customers hated having old parts needing disposal left behind by repair technicians. Taking back quickly became part of Xerox’s marketing strategy. The logical next step was to refurbish and reuse those parts, especially copier and printer cartridges. Even today Xerox enjoys a 60 percent return rate on print cartridges, the highest in the industry, at a substantial cost savings to the company and to the consumer.

 

Anne Stocum, Xerox’s Environmental Manager for Market Access and Support says, “ Implementing sustainable design principles actually benefits Xerox three ways: they satisfy our customers, particularly those who are environmentally committed; they save the company several hundred million dollars annually, and they help us fulfill a long-standing corporate commitment to protecting the environment.”

 

When Elter’s team set out to radically alter the way Xerox built its products, by designing components that could be remanufactured, reused and recycled, they didn’t realize that it would take nearly ten years and half a billion dollars.* “When you talk about a single product, you’re talking about a one-off, Elter says, you design it, you build it, you manufacture it and then it has its end of life and it goes away.  When you’re talking about a platform product, which is what we did, you’re talking about a family of products that can be produced off the platform for 10 years or more. It’s worth the investment because you don’t have to reinvent everything, you can reuse.”

 

Each year, Xerox takes back over one million parts to its remanufacturing plant in Webster alone. Each remanufactured part goes through a signature analysis, tested for noise, vibration, heat, energy efficiency etc. Any remanufactured part that does not perform identically to a newly manufactured part is rejected. Today, 80 percent of Xerox products are remanufactured; 90 percent of each product is recyclable.

 

Xerox, and most other business using sustainable design principles, claim the only downside to marketing remanufactured products is consumer reluctance-- they may think a ‘used’ product is not as good as a new one. But, as Xerox points out, their customers are buying the ability to make copies. So long as they stand behind them and their machines provide that service, it doesn’t matter whether the components of the machine are new or old.

 

Resource recovery is another aspect of sustainable design, one with which Michael Whyte, president of Rochester Computer Recycling and Recovery has plenty of experience. He ran three Boston area recycling centers for Waste Management for several years before returning to Rochester and setting up RCRR. Whyte’s company is riding the wave of interest in recycling and reusing information technology and electronic equipment.

 

“We’ve been working with RIT trying to develop a system that will help us better identify material value and reuse value. Because the best way to recycle is to reuse, I have the satisfaction that we designed this business to legitimately handle this equipment in an environmentally sound way This is a serious waste stream issue and RCRR is at the forefront of designing this system”, Whyte says.

 

His business has four revenue streams:

 

• Fee-based environmental services whereby PCs and other electronic equipment from area businesses, schools and institutions, are disposed of according to DEC regulations, relieving clients of having to deal with the hassle and paperwork required by the DEC. (The DEC classifies old computers as hazardous waste. A typical PC monitor, for instance, contains 5-7 lbs. of lead.).

• Wholesale market sales—of reusable parts to computer maintenance and service centers. Typical salvageable components include, hard drives, circuit boards, network cards and hubs and certain high-end monitors.

• A retail store (at 395 Central Avenue)—where refurbished, internet ready, multi-media PC systems can be purchased for as little as $200, and

• Materials marketing—bulk sale of scrap metals, plastic and glass.

 

Starting out in 1995, RCRR had two employees annually handling not quite 200,000 pounds of scraped computer equipment. Today, 10 employees handle 3 million pounds per year at their 20,000 sq. ft. facility in the old Post Office garage off Cumberland Street.

 

But, as the experience of Honeoye’s Stone Construction Equipment, Inc. shows, remanufacturing is not for everybody. The CEO of the $50 million a year, 100% employee owned company is Robert Fein. He says, “We’ve worked a lot with folks at RIT on several projects. We wanted to pursue remanufacturing not only of our products, but we wanted to take back our competitors products too. But we found the market conditions were such that it was very difficult to do.”

 

Stone Construction sells mixing equipment, concrete finishing gear, asphalt rollers, and other equipment priced from $3,000 to $100,000. It was on the low end that Stone Construction wanted to use sustainable design and remanufacturing techniques. But, his engineering staff, working with RIT, too low-cost to be made with remanufactured parts and still sell for a profit, deemed the $3,000 hand held compactor, called “The Stomper,”

 

Fien says, “I think there is a role for remanufacturing in our business…and on bigger equipment we might save between 20 and 60 percent. Market conditions will change and I think the competitive situation will make remanufacturing more attractive to us as we go down the road.”

 

Despite Fein’s need, because of market conditions, to move cautiously to sustainable design practices, he is, according to Dr. Nasr, moving in the right direction.

 

“We see a lot more consumers more inclined to buy green products as long as the price difference is not huge, when a product is only a slightly higher cost wise then the consumer is known to favor the green product,” Nasr says,  “I think the awareness level that is in Europe is just wonderful for green products and people demand it. It is growing. Green marketing is a big advantage.”

 

Whether businesses implement sustainable design practices now or later is, according to Dr. Nasr, a matter of judgment.  “I think being proactive and not just meeting minimum requirements is important. What we see some leaders of industry do today is that they are looking ahead and trying to go beyond meeting the minimum requirements. It’s going to be a safeguard for them, they won’t be surprised by any regulations that limits the use of this material or that material or any form of take back programs that, if implemented, would be a challenge for companies. But being ready for that would make it much easier for them to deal with the issues. “

 

A concluding homily comes from of one of the gurus of Xerox’s LAKES project, Peter M. Senge, a Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

“I believe the Industrial Age has been, and continues to be, an age of harvesting natural capital and social capital to produce financial and productive capital. In so doing, we are destroying cultural as well as biological diversity. We are achieving ever-higher levels of material standards of living, at the expense of quality in living. In our headlong lust for financial wealth, we are warming the planet, destroying forests and increasing social inequity and unhappiness. This process cannot continue indefinitely. We wouldn’t expect engineers to build bridges that defy the law of gravity. Why do we expect people to build enterprises that defy the law of zero waste or the principles of human happiness?”

 

As John Elter says, it’s more than just getting a copier out; it’s more than promotions, more than money. It has something to do with life.”

 

*

The Document Center 265 was unveiled in late 1997 by CEO Paul Vallaire, in New York City. At the time, he called the new machines the “flagship of Xerox’s digital transition.”  Today, the 265 has been superceded by the Document Center 340, recognized by the EPA for its sustainable design, energy efficiency, returnable and remanufacturable toner cartridges, organic photoreceptor free of toxic heavy metals and the capacity to set two-sided copying as the default—a feature that saves paper.

 

-30-

 

Sidebar:

 

When asked what advice Xerox had for small businesses struggling with efforts to adopt and finance sustainable design and Design for the Environment principles, Xerox’s Anne Stocum said,

 

Plan ahead; don’t sacrifice quality or performance. We are pleased to share what we have learned.  In addition to sustainable manufacturing, we believe that businesses have other opportunities for reducing their environmental impact through their waste management practices.  On our Website (www.xerox.com/environment.html) we posted a 143-page book, complete with worksheets, that gives businesses a blueprint for developing their own recycling program. It also offers some general Design for the Environment principles…It’s called “A Business Guide to Waste Reduction and Recycling,” and it can be downloaded for free.

 

Other useful Websites include:

 

www.reman.rit.edu

 

www.epa.gov/dfe

 

www.epa.gov/epr

 

www.epa.gov/wastewise/wastepre.htm