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Date: Tue, 4 Nov 97 10:08 WET From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Big business recycling (Erika)
Nov. 4, 1997
Dear Erika,
Does big business support recycling? Sometimes. The most virulent opponent of recycling haas been the magazines which cater to big business, such as Forbes and newspapers like The Wall Street Journal. Their recurrent, one-sided articles have been bashing recycling since 1991. Also, there are numerous recyclers who have pointed to virgin materials' manufacturers going out of their way to hurt the recycled competition, especially before they had to join the recycled competition once they found that they could still protect their profit margins.
But there is another side of this, too. Some big business supports recycling, either because they have seen the light or studied their ability to make recycling a part of what they do usually through purchasing a relatively small quantity of recycled goods on an ongoing basis.
The Gallup Organization surveyed some of these in February,1 995 for Waste Management, Inc. In Business Attitudes and Behavior Regarding Recycling they found,
of 551 executives of companies (not all are big business), 2/3rds have a policy conerning recycling of some materials.
- 47% of recycling programs were decided on by management, and 13% were initiated by employes or 12% were required by government.
- 33% of companies say they would be willing to pay more money for recycled items, but 46% say that they wouldn't be.
- Most heartening from this poll was that 91% agreed that business should design products so that they are recycable.
A 2nd indicator is the degree of business participation that there has been in US EPA or New England state recycling programs. The WasteWi$e program has many big business (Fortune 500) participaants. WasteWi$e is a source reduction, procurement and remanufacturing with recyclables program. Examples of participatns include Bath Iron Works, Motorola Corp, ASARCO, ARCO Alaska, Texaco, Phelps Dodge, Cone Mills, Dan River, Baltimore Gas Electric, Detroit Edison, Florida Power and Light, Nike, Inc.,Wachovia, Republic National Bank, BASF, Dow Corning, DuPont, etc.
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