Author: Laura L Barnes

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RSS Feed for Recent Additions to GLRPPR Sector Resources

If you find the RSS feeds for individual Sector Resources useful, you might be interested in trying out GLRPPR’s RSS feed for the latest document additions to all Sector Resources. If you want to keep up with resources on a wide variety of subjects, this could be helpful. Keep in mind that this feed only features new resource links added to the Sector Resources; it does not include events, news or funding opportunities, which are included in the individual Sector Resource feeds.

If you have problems or questions related to the “recent documents” feed, contact GLRPPR Webmaster Tyler Rubach.

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What a great conference!

[Post author: Bob Iverson]

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The recent Region 5 and 7 joint conference held in Omaha was great. There were interesting speaker, fun accommodations, a comfortable hotel, and great networking. Kudos to everyone in both regions who had a hand in organizing and hosting the event.The conference meetings were held at the Omaha Zoo. During the breaks participants were free to explore that very nice zoo.

I couldn’t help but be struck by the positioning of the conference participants and the zoo (no comments about monkeys running the conference). Just outside the conference rooms, children were enjoying visits with some of the exotic plants and animals of our world. The conference speakers were all talking about ways to preserve the environment, and what they were fighting for was right there for us all to see. We could see endangered species and environments such as rainforests. And we could see the next generation who deserve a healthy planet.

It was fun to watch the children respond to the animals. The wide-eyed look of wonder and excitement that children have at the zoo is how we jaded adults need to look at the amazing world around us.

I’ll have a wrap-up of this successful conference in the next issue of the LINK, the electronic newsletter of the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable.

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Light Pollution P2

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Canyon outcropping near MP5, Yakima Canyon, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

It’s the bane of astronomers and night time photographers everywhere — light pollution! It robs us of the stars, cuts us off from the music of the spheres.

No, it’s probably not as bad as persistent toxins in the environment, but it’s a shame, nonetheless.

So, what to do? Well, it turns out that P2 can be applied to light pollution as well. Check out the International Dark Sky Association, for instance. They’ve produced a number of documents, including this guide to “good lighting/bad lighting.”

If you want something more…well, “Web 2.0” — consider WikiHow’s article on “how to prevent light pollution.” Note the related article on “how to become an environmentalist” — in case you were wondering.

The Light From Above web site has a lot of resources — of varying quality — on light pollution for those interested in anything from the science to the policy of restoring darkness.

And, as you might expect — Sky and Telescope magazine has a great resource center on restoring dark skies.

Check ’em out!

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Tending to the tank cars

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Railcars at sunset (clean), originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Sorry I haven’t been able to post more Korea pictures yet — sort of waiting until we have an “OK” from our host to include more pictures of the industrial facilities we visited.

So instead, my weekly photo post is a reminder that access to hazardous materials needs to be controlled not just on-site, but in adjacent sidings and rail yards as well.

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PU Mixing station

[Post author: Scott Butner]

PU Mixing station, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

this is a mixing station at one of the factories we visited here in Busan — this is where polyurethane is mixed with solvent and dyes to the customer’s specifications, then mixed before being sent to the knife coater.

The factory recently installed fume hoods over each mixing station, to reduce vapor concentrations (the solvent mix is a blend of toluene, MEK and DMF — DMF is relatively non volatile (bp around 153 C) but the other two are of course fairly volatile.

Some of the material is sprayed onto the floor and fume hood walls, as it wicks up the impeller shaft and is then scattered about. This creates a clean-up problem as well as some loss of working material.

Perhaps a bigger concern is that the facility emits about 30 tons/mo of solvent vapors which is not recovered. The b.p. range and water miscibility of DMF make this a problematic recovery, but I’d be interested in hearing if anyone’s aware of case studies…..

SB

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Greetings from Busan

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Busan skyline, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Well, the NPPR team (Ken Grimm, Pollution Prevention Resource Center; Tony Cooper, WA Department of Ecology; Thomas Vinson, Southwest Zero Waste Network; and myself) spent a day acclimatizing to Busan, South Korea. We’ll be here all week conducting P2 assessments and training.

Busan is Korea’s 2nd largest city, and while it’s architecture is often uninspired, the setting of the city is beautiful — nestled amongst steep hills that surround a bustling harbor, it is somewhat reminiscent of San Francisco.

Evidence of growth is everywhere. As you can see.

Tomorrow, we’ll be starting our first assessments.

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Leaving on a jet plane

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Waiting for a plane, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

…I sorta know when I’ll be back again.

Later this week, I’ll be heading to Busan, South Korea with colleagues from the National P2 Roundtable, to conduct P2 assessments of Korean industries. I’ll be accompanied by Thomas Vinson of the Southwest Zero Waste Network, Ken Grimm of the Pollution Prevention Resource Center; and Tony Cooper of the WA Dept of Ecology.

Computing technology, work schedule, and jet lag permitting, I will be posting a daily photo blog of our adventures in Busan on this blog, starting Saturday, March 8.

Check back daily to see what we’re up to!

SB

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The face of green energy — “Porcupine Hills” near Burbank, WA

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Birds landing at McNary wildlife refuge near Burbank, WA, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

The area around my home poses an interesting dichotomy — the world’s most polluted, most expensive environmental clean-up (the Hanford site) and huge expanses of relatively clean wind power, sitting within eyesight of one another.

This is a shot looking south towards the Stateline Wind Farm project, near the alliteratively named town of Walla Walla, Washington. The view is from the McNary Wildlife Refuge, a very popular stopping point for waterfowl every winter. Every evening, tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl come to roost in the fields and ponds here, making a heckuva racket — actually a lot louder than the windmills, in many cases.

You’ll be seeing a lot of windmills in the P2 Picture Post of the week, partly because I’m fascinated by them, and partly because they are so common around here that it’s hard to avoid them.

By the way, these are not actually CALLED the Porcupine Hills — at least not to my knowledge.  I just happen to think they look like porcupines with all the wind towers sticking off the ridge lines.

SB

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All work and no play….

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Lunar Eclipse sequence – Feb 20 2008, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Couldn’t resist posting this sequence of photos of last night’s lunar eclipse, even though it has absolutely NOTHING to do with pollution prevention or information technology, much less their supposed intersection.

Though I will say that digital photography is a great example of dematerialization, the replacement of a material object with pure information. In “the old days” when I did film photography, I would have needed to go through dozens of pictures, a couple rolls of film, and the associated gallons of rinse water and processing chemicals, to come up with the same image. By working entirely in bits and bytes, I’m left using a small amount of electricity to charge the camera’s batteries.

Have we dematerialized all the products we can? What’s the next big breakthrough that will eliminate the need to make products, much less waste?

SB

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This week’s photo post

[Post author: Scott Butner]

Boise Cascade Wallula Mill at dusk, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

As long as my friends at GLRPPR have let me loose around here, I might as well have some fun….

Long before I became an engineer, I worked as a photographer. Recently, with the advent of digital, I have rediscovered photography. I do most of my shooting within 50 miles of Richland, WA.

Just because I like to think and communicate in pictures, I will try to post a weekly photo here, wherever possible one with an environmental theme to it. We’ll see how long this lasts.

This week’s photo is of the Boise Cascade Wallula mill, situated at the confluence of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers in southeastern WA state. The mill produces a variety of paper products including office paper and label release paper.

I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with Ray Lam, who is environmental manager for the facility. Ray is a human dynamo, and has been bringing a great deal of energy to an industrial byproduct synergy effort here in the eastern half of the state.

SB