University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 22, 1992
11
EARTH DAY
Recycled office products gain popularity
By Erik Bauer
Kansan staff writer
A few years ago, only a few companies made office products from post-consumer recycled material. Today, KU students can purchase a wide variety of environmentally friendly office and school supplies, which are beginning to span a larger inventory at more competitive prices.
KU Bookstores supplies supervisor Steed Bell places a sign on the new recycled goods section of the bookstore.
Monica Seiter, assistant manager for merchandise at the Mount Oread Bookstore, said the varieties of products ranged from greeting cards and paper products to non-deforestation pencils and office organizers made of recycled plastic.
"What we are seeing is more paper products made from postconsumer waste," she said. "They are selling very well."
Post-consumer waste means the product contains recycled material. Preconsumer waste means the scraps from trimming of the product were recycled.
Seiter said representatives from the store went to a buying seminar once a year and were able to purchase the items that recycled products on the market.
"As customers are requesting of us, we are requesting of our vendors," she said. "That's how this thing grows. The customers are asking for it."
Seiter said that the store received many compliments about the inventory of environmentally friendly office
products and that customers always asked for newly developed recycled products.
"We are seeing the prices dropping as they begin to sell more," she said. They're selling well enough that we can buy them used items as they become available."
She said the decrease in price also was due to refinements and improvements in recycling technology.
Seiter said the store took risks in the past by placing recycled products on the shelf. But the expensive prices did not scare away customers. Prices now are starting to drop.
Popular brand names that sell environ-mentally friendly items include Mead, Dennison National, Top Flight and Strathmore.
Seiter said labels were becoming more explicit in the explanation of the products' contents.
"The labeling is getting better as the customers are becoming more knowledgeable," she said.
Mike Swalm, assistant manager of Jayhawk Bookstore, said the store also had increased its inventory of recyclable materials and participated in recycling programs.
He said he attributed the increase in popularity of recycled products to a greater awareness of environmental problems.
"It's all based on our awareness that we have only one planet," Swalm said. "Eventually, this plane will become one huge landfill if we're not careful."
Sue Ask, KU's associate environmental ambudman, said consumers always should read product labels to ensure the validity of the products' claims or inquire about the product if the label was unclear.
"Some of the things that people should look for is its percentage of recycled content and whether it's pre-consumer or postconsumer," she said.
Jennifer Tanous, Council Bluffs,
Iowa, senior, said that she usually
tried to purchase recvled products.
She said she purchased recycled paper for a class project on stationery-making, but the instructor said the paper was too coarse.
"She didn't mean to deter us, but she did," Tanous said.
She said the toner from the photocopier machine, one step in the stationery-making project, had bled on the paper.
Earth Day celebrations emphasize local events
National attention far less than in past
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Americans preparing for today's celebration of Earth Day are emphasizing local events with little of the national fanfare of two years ago.
"Earth Day is now seen as an annual day ... on which we stock the progress we've made in the last 365 days," Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA, said yesterday.
Anderson's group, based in Petterborough, N.H., has a fulltime staff of 12 people and works year-round to keep Day — marked each April 22 — alive.
Anderson sported a button declaring "Make Earth Day Every Day" as he met three reporters in an empty room in a congressional office building — a sharp contrast to the media attention in 1990 when Earth Day attracted large crowds, celebrities and a day of entertainment on the National Mall.
Although officials marked the day last year, it was little noticed in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
Anderson likened the activities two years ago, which marked the 20th anniversary of the original Earth Day, to a "firecracker" and a "wakeup call" that were not meant to be repeated every year. Now the annual activities are geared simply to getting the job done to improve the environment, he said.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it was marking the day by opening a new public information website that should obtain environmental information.
In Madison, Wis., State Rep Spencer Black called the turn toward local activities a plus because it
marked a shifting back to the festivities' roots in 1970 as a movement of students and local environmental activists.
Organizers in Madison planned a "clean transportation" rally where people would ride bicycles instead of cars.
In Albany, N.Y., the city's third annual Earth Day Festival is being forced to a more out-of-the-way location because of past complaints about noise. The festivities will include musical acts, speakers and information booths, but not the rock bands that led to noise complaints.
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16th Annual Minority Graduation Banquet
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Saturday, May 16, 1992
6:00-8:00 p.m.
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Minority graduates from Spring '92, Summer '92 or Fall '91 are welcome to attend. Pick up your free ticket in the Office of Minority affairs, 145 Strong Hall, 864-4351.
Parent and guest tickets may be purchased from the office for $13.00 each.
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