Wasteshed Programs for a 2% Recovery Rate Credit

Promotion and Education Campaign on the Benefits and Opportunities for Reuse

(OAR 340-090-0045(2)(a)): A promotion and education campaign on the benefits and opportunities for reuse available to the public in the wasteshed.

What is "Reuse"?

In the hierarchy of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," Waste Prevention is at the top. Reuse is the second tier. Reuse is not recycling or buying products with recycled content. It is not composting or returning a container to a store for a deposit (the container is most likely recycled rather than washed and reused). Reuse is using something again, the way it was intended to be used first time around. In this context "Reuse" is returning an item to the economic stream to be used by someone else for the same application as before.

Why is Reuse Important?

• The 1991 Legislature set a 50% material recovery goal for the state for the year 2000. While the per capita recovery rate in Oregon goes up every year, so do the per capita waste generation and disposal rates. Reuse can reduce both the generation and disposal rates.
• While we recycled 35.7% of our waste in 1997, the potential for reuse in Oregon has not been tapped.
• There are several specific benefits that can be gained from reuse:
  • Reduction in costs from garbage hauling
  • Tax deduction potential from donating usable items
  • Use of donations to causes important to you, e.g. schools or nonprofit organizations
  • Litter reduction and clean-up cost savings, as for hotel disposables
  • Avoidance of special fees that exist for white goods or household hazardous waste
  • Potential earnings through sale of unwanted items as in a garage sale.

Examples of Reuse

• Bring your own reusable shopping bag to the store. Minimize the use of paper and plastic bags, and reuse them for lunches or leftovers.
• Buy products in containers that you will reuse (glass jars, resealable containers).
• Use durable products instead of disposable ones. For example, use cloth rather than paper napkins, durable cameras instead of disposable ones, handkerchiefs instead of tissues, sponges or rags instead of paper towels.
• Use cloth or metal coffee filters instead of paper ones.
• Return refillable bottles. They can be used up to 20 times.
• Do not use disposable china or silverware at home or when you organize a party. Use a mug at the office instead of a paper or plastic cup.
• Use the blank side of scrap paper for notes and lists before recycling them.
• Use cloth diapers instead of disposable ones.
• Repair broken appliances instead of throwing them away and buying new ones.
• Use rechargeable batteries.
• Borrow, rent, or share items used infrequently such as a snow blower, chipper or lawn aerator.
• Get books and magazines from the library or buy books at a used-books store.
• Share a magazine subscription with a neighbor, co-worker, or friend.
• Donate reusable items you no longer need to non-profit groups, a thrift shop, or second hand clothing store.
• Check out a second hand or thrift store first when you want to buy something new.
• Use salvaged building materials.
• Hold a garage sale to get rid of unwanted items, and shop there.
• Reuse packaging peanuts.
• Consider using used or refurbished office furniture for a home office.
• Use your community’s directory of local resale businesses to identify a store that sells what you are looking for second hand or refurbished.

Planning a "Reuse" Promotion and Education Campaign

The goal of a promotion and education campaign is to give people both the information and the motivation needed to change their behavior. A carefully planned and targeted public education program can make this happen.

• Decide how many information "hits" it will take for a person to take action and plan your program accordingly.
  Who are you talking to? Who is your audience? Whose behavior do you want to affect?
• What is the goal of your program? Is there a way you can measure its effectiveness?
• How are you going to get your message across? Use different ways to communicate the same information for maximum impact.
  • Public speaking: a presentation at a meeting of the Elks, Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, Senior Citizen Groups. This last group is typically very open to reuse ideas.
  • A brochure delivered by your hauler, made available at the library, or local supermarkets, etc.
  • Advertising: in utility bills (cheap and effective), on billboards, on reader boards at local retailers and in schools, on buses and in the movie theater, on cable reader boards;
  • Print media: the local newspaper, monthly newsletter of the Chamber of Commerce, the school district or downtown merchants;
  • Broadcast media: local radio and TV stations. Contact them regularly with information they can use to inform their listeners and viewers about "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in general. Establish a relationship;
  • Have a booth at the gardening show, county fair, the opening of the new library, park, or downtown renovation.
• Get creative, think outside of the box when strategizing, then select ideas you are going to follow up on, develop, and implement.
• It might be more effective to focus on just a few reuse possibilities during the first year of your campaign, then expand the next year by adding several more reuse options.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel. See what other communities and states are doing. Check out some of the resources listed below.

Written background documentation

• Douglas County website. This site is small, simple, clear, a great example:
  • http://www.co.douglas.or.us/recycle/
• California Integrated Waste Management Board, Waste Prevention World. Lots of information on waste prevention and reuse at:
  • http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/WPW/.
• "Your Money or Your Life", Viking, J, Dominguez and V. Robin, 1992.

Referrals to existing programs

• Metro Recycling Information, 503-234-3000
• Alex Cuyler, City of Eugene, 541-682-6830
• Terry Fristad, Marion County, 503-588-5169, ext. 5991, has done some creative things promoting recycling and reuse.
• Corvallis Disposal has a swap site where people can exchange materials for free.
  • http://corvallis.disposal.com/
• BRING Recycling, Eugene, has a reuse program for building materials. Contact Julie Daniel at 541-746-3023.
• Soil Trader is an online inter-project trading network for excavated, non-hazardous soils and gravel that would otherwise be discarded. You must have a minimum of 200 cubic yards of material.
  • http://www.cleanrivers-pdx.org/soiltrader/
• Scrap, contact Julie Wolf. Collects arts and craft items to be resold to school teachers and students and the general public.
• StRUT, Students Recycling Used Technology, Schools in most corners of the state are involved in a program taking back used computer equipment to teach students to work on computers.
  • Web site is http://www.strut.org

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