| Reuse Recipe Also seen on KMTR morning show! |
from the BRING Warehouse |
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by Damien Czech, Operations Manager
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Earth-Friendly
Painting Just
Got Easier
METRO (regional government for the Portland Metro area) puts Martha Stewart in a can and sends her to paint your house. Metro's recycled latex paint program has won awards for keeping post consumer latex paint out of the landfill, and now the largest municipally-operated re-blending program has gone even further.
The famous Martha Stewart colors—sage, teal, peach, and stone—are now available in five gallon pails for $22, exclusively at METROs paint facility in Oregon City. The low-sheen paint (between flat and satin) has been used successfully on primed metal, wood and masonry and can be used indoors or out.
To make the deal even more enticing, METRO Paint is performance tested. Go to MetroPaint's Website, www.metro-region.org/paint, and click on “stringent methods” for ratings of scrub resistance, wet adhesion, hiding power, weathering, flow, leveling and roll out. You'll also see environmental test results for lead, mercury, and volatile organic compounds.
Since 1992, Metro's re-blend program has kept over 400,000 gallons of latex paint out of area landfills. For more information about Metro's recycled latex paint, call Metro Recycling Information at (503) 234-3000, or visit Metro's Website—from Association of Oregon Recycler's Newsletter
Mac RenewalMeet the Mac Lady, Lorraine Kerwood. In just two years Lorraine, a social worker for Child Protective Services, has single-handedly collected, repaired and redistributed 700 Macintosh computer systems. She gives them to children in foster care or who've recently returned to a parent after a stay in a foster home. Others go to elders or people who are housebound. She runs her organization, Mac Renewal, out of a double wide garage and is working to get non-profit status so equipment donated to her is tax deductible.
Lorraine describes herself as a recovering technophobe. She made friends with computers after returning to school as an adult, bringing home her first machine in 1998. It promptly broke and her career as a one woman repair shop was launched. She took her computer apart, started reading books, talked and corresponded with other “geeks” and found a whole new calling. She realized that she loved repairing things and, as a dedicated recycler, got satisfaction from making something useful again. The best part of her volunteer career? Seeing people ecstatic when they receive their computer system and hearing later how it changed their lives. Many of her clients, who range in age from four to ninety-two, keep in touch with her. One person is earning money typing resumes and school papers, another does newsletters and one was able to take classes over the Internet and became a technical writer. Some of them end up learning to repair their own equipment; one 86-year old emailed her for instructions on fixing a balky printer. She was successful!
Mac Renewal is a great example of creative reuse. Instead of junking outdated or broken computers, Lorraine fixes them using salvaged parts. She collects everything Mac related; software, manuals, books, even paper. Nothing goes to waste! She downloads freeware or shareware from the Internet and installs it so that when a system goes out it is completely ready for someone to sit down and use. At our Computer Roundup in November, Lorraine salvaged enough Mac bits and pieces to assemble 14 usable systems, with lots parts left to go towards future projects. If you have an old Mac that you want to get rid of, call Lorraine at Mac Renewal, 686-2366, and give it a new life. —Julie Daniel
March 16 Sat. 10-11:30am RH
Are you interested in detailed waste prevention information for any of these business sectors?
apartment/condominium complexes
hospitals
construction and demolition
hotels
manufacturers
offices
printers
restaurants
retail stores
Tom Watson's National Waste Prevention Forum points us to a very useful Website that includes comprehensive information on waste prevention and recycling strategies, waste composition graphs for the different business sectors, a “Trends to Watch” section and links to other websites:
—first seen in Roger Guttentag's "Recycling in Cyberspace" column in Resource Recycling magazine, Wastesaver.com is a privately-owned online service based in New York City that links businesses with recycling and garbage haulers. —Sarah Grimm