Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable
Sustainability information for the Great Lakes Region
For the month of December, Cam Metcalf, Executive Director, Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center, wrote an article for GreenBiz’s P2 Pathways Column on the seven step process for implementing an energy management system in organizations to systematically get to P2 and E2 outcomes.
Here is the link to the P2 Pathways landing page: http://www.greenbiz.com/business/engage/enterprise-blogs/p2-pathways.
P2Rx is seeking qualified professionals to write
state-of-pollution-prevention articles for the ongoing monthly P2Rx P2
Pathways column. Articles must be unique and authors will receive the
by-line credit. Send article proposals to dwalden@unr.edu by EOB
November 30, 2012 for publish during the calendar year 2013.
Include a paragraph of the planned article theme, length, focus,
topics covered and possible arguments. Include a short biography of
the author including P2 experience. Article proposals will be judged
by a P2Rx review committee and the selected articles and article due
dates will be announced in December 2012.
See published P2 Pathways articles:
http://www.greenbiz.com/business/engage/enterprise-blogs/p2-pathways.
Marie Steinwachs, Director of the Missouri Environmental Assistance Center (EAC), wrote an article for the P2 Pathways Column for GreenBiz on how P2 internship programs that match student needs for experience and companies sustainability efforts have collectively saved businesses billions.
Read article: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/11/13/pollution-prevention-internships
Here is the link to the P2 Pathways landing page: http://www.greenbiz.com/business/engage/enterprise-blogs/p2-pathways.
The latest P2 Pathways column focuses on California’s product stewardship efforts, including a proposed Safer Consumer Products Regulation. Visit http://www.greenbiz.com/business/engage/enterprise-blogs/p2-pathways to see the P2 Pathways archive.
P2 Pathways is a new monthly column published on GreenBiz and devoted entirely to pollution prevention. The first three columns in the series are:
P2 Pathways is a project of the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx). If you’re interested in writing for P2 Pathways, contact Donna Walden (dwalden@unr.edu) at the Western Sustainability and Pollution Prevention Network. To subscribe to GreenBiz newsletters, visit http://www.greenbiz.com/engage/newsletters.
The P2Rx Regional Centers are conducting a brief survey to determine where people seek and find information about P2, waste reduction and sustainability. They would really appreciate your feedback so they can continue to improve on their services.
http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e5zg6ieeh2vykbzg/start
P2TagTeam is collaborative tagging effort on Delicious, spearheaded by the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx), to encourage P2 professionals to share the resources they find and bookmark. If you locate a resource that you think would be helpful to other P2 professionals, simply add P2TagTeam tag in the Tags field when you add the bookmark to Delicious. For more background on P2Tag Team, Delicious, and social bookmarking, see P2 is Delicious, my earlier post on the topic.
As an example of the kinds of resources being identified, here are the ten most recent bookmarks tagged for P2TagTeam. You can view the entire collection at http://www.delicious.com/tag/recent/p2tagteam.
Happy Pollution Prevention (P2) Week! Celebrated during the third full week of September every year, P2 Week is a time to reflect on what you and/or your organization are currently doing to promote pollution prevention and sustainability, as well as a prime time to consider what more you could be doing. Check out the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR) web site and the US EPA site for more information on activities taking place this week throughout the country; tips for increasing energy efficiency, reducing waste and sustainable practices; and news. (And of course, you can always browse through the online resources on the GLRPPR and P2Rx web sites for more information and best practices specific to your sector.)
In the Great Lakes region, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the Indiana Partners for Pollution Prevention (P4P2) will be hosting the 14th Annual Pollution Prevention Conference and Trade Show on Thursday, September 22.
GLRPPR’s sister Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx) center, the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) is hosting a 20th anniversary banquet for its regional P2 roundtable during P2 Week. Highlights will include a presentation by Dara O’Rourke, founder of the Good Guide, and former PPRC staff member.
And to kick off P2 Week, P2Rx has announced the launch of the National Sustainable Lodging Network, an online community of sustainable hospitality practitioners and an information clearinghouse to support the work of this community, found online at www.SustainableLodging.org. This site brings lodging operations together with federal, state, local, and tribal sustainable hospitality programs, including environmental agencies, tourism boards, and lodging associations. The goals for the site are to provide forums for sustainable hospitality practitioners to share information on practices and challenges; elevate sustainable hospitality programs and the facilities that participate in them; increase the adoption of sustainable hospitality practices nationwide; and foster innovation in sustainable lodging through the exchange of ideas.
If your organization or community is hosting a special event this week, tell us about it in the comments section of this post.
If you’re still not sure what all the fuss is about related to social networking, and think that tweets are just for the birds, you may want to participate in an upcoming webinar hosted by the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association (NEWMOA), entitled How P2 Assistance Providers Can Effectively Use Social Media. NEWMOA, like the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), is one of eight regional pollution prevention information centers throughout the U.S. that collectively comprise the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx).
The webinar, scheduled for this Thursday, September 15 at 1 PM Central, will explain how the use of social media and web 2.0 technologies can bring value to pollution prevention and assistance programs. The presenters will also discuss their experiences using different social media applications to reach a variety of audiences, and share tips on what has been successful. One of the presenters will be GLRPPR’s own Laura Barnes, who will discuss “How to Get Started Using Social Media.” Other speakers include Andy Bray of NEWMOA and Sarah Haas from the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP).
Social media can be a powerful tool for staying informed, networking (especially in these days of limited budgets and frowned upon travel requests), and spreading the word about your products and services without spending a great deal of money. After participating in the webinar, I encourage you to make use of GLRPPR’s Twitter and Facebook pages. These pages incorporate items from various GLRPPR RSS feeds, such as news items, new additions to our Sector Resources, and blog posts (like this one!), so they can be a great way to catch the best highlights from many of our services in one place. These pages also feature items re-posted (“re-tweeted”) by myself and Laura from the various other Twitter, Facebook and news sources that we monitor — our recommendations for content that you would find interesting and useful. They also offer an opportunity to comment on posts (Facebook) or use direct messages and “mentions” (Twitter), thus providing an online forum for discussion of resources. And through the use of conventions (like Twitter’s #FollowFriday and #EcoMonday) and lists of friends and followers, you can learn about other people and organizations engaged in work and interests similar to yours.
So be sure to register for the webinar on NEWMOA’s web site. We’d love for you to be one of our tweeps!
Join the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) and U.S. EPA Region 5 for a webinar on May 12. Space is limited. Reserve your webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/440261202. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
The GLRPPR/EPA Webinar provides an opportunity to hear about P2 Programs in the region, ask questions and stay connected.
Agenda:
Title: GLRPPR/EPA Region 5 Forum
Date: Thursday, May 12, 2011
Time: 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM PDT 
System Requirements:
Contact Bob Iverson, GLRPPR Executive Director, for further information or questions.
Our thanks to Donna Walden, Regional Coordinator at the Western Sustainability and Pollution Prevention Network (WSPPN), one of our sister P2Rx Centers, for assisting with the set up and administration of this webinar.