P.O. Box 20444 Indianapolis, IN 46220-0444 Not-For-Profit Corporation Phone & Fax: 317-283-6226 e-mail address: [email protected] March 1997 Newsletter Co-Editors: Mark Davis and Julie L. Rhodes

IRC Conference 1997 Recycling for Results Shea Announced As Keynote Diana S. Shea will be featured as this year's keynote speaker at the Indiana Recycling Coalition Annual Conference. Ms. Shea, a former member of the IRC and an instrumental architect of both HB 1240 and Indiana's Solid WasteManagement Districts, moved to Washington D.C. in 1992 to work for the National Association of Counties (NACo) as their Associate Legislative Director. As Associate Legislative Director for the NACo Diane Shea oversees legislative and regulatory activities on environmental, energy and land use issues for the nation's county governments. Solid and hazardous waste, clean water and air, and drinking water issues are her major areas of focus. Ms. Shea also serves as staff support and policy analyst for NACo's Environment, Energy and Land Use Steering Committee. In addition to her lobbying and committee responsibilities, Ms. Shea works with state associations of counties and NACo member counties on local government environmental and energy concerns. She has been with NACo since 1992 representing America's counties before the federal government. Prior to her move to NACo, Ms. Shea worked as an attorney with Ice, Miller, Donadio, and Ryan in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ms. Shea specialized in municipal law, primarily representing Indiana's Solid Waste Management Districts. She formerly served as Deputy Director of the Association of Indiana Counties and Assistant Legislative Director of the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns. She also chaired the advisory committee to the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Ms. Shea is a graduate of Indiana University and holds both a Bachelor's degree in public affairs, and law degree. 8TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE Radisson Hotel City Center Downtown Indianapolis Wednesday, April 30 7:30 a.m. - Registration 8:30 a.m.- Annual Meeting Breakfast 10 a.m. - Exhibits Open 10:30 a.m. - How to Regroup When A Program Changes; Self Esteem Building Interpersonal Skills, The Sustainable Society 12:15 p.m. - Lunch & Keynote with Diane Shea *1:30 p.m. - Measuring The Success of Programs; Competition or Collaboration; Funding Recycling Businesses *3:30 p.m. - Anti-Recycling Myths; Empowering Citizens; Art From Recycling 4:45 p.m. - Reception/Recyclers' Auction Thursday, May 1 7:30 a.m. - Registration 7:45 a.m. - Recyclers' Roundtable Networking Breakfast 8:30 a.m. - Exhibits Open *9:30 a.m. - Buy Recycled Business... Beyond Paper; Variable Rates; Recycling Education Resources *11:15 a.m. - Award Winning Business; Award Winning Government; Award Winning Education 12:30 p.m. - Lunch & Entertainment 2:00 p.m. - Prize Drawing - Win a TV 2:30 p.m.- Governor's Awards for Excellence in Recycling *choose one of three sessions during a time period

Also in this issue.... News Briefs IRC Outreach Week Making the Most of Your Recyclables IRC Membership Form Membership Renewal IRC Board of Directors Board of Directors Nominations Needed Calendar of Events City, Town & Community News Martin County Recycling Center by Mark W. Davis Cyberspace News IRC Conference Registration Available On-line Multimedia Campaign Goes On-line IRC Webpage Wins Award Steel Recycling Website Legislation On-line Recycling Education News Trashasaurus Rex by Marilyn J. Brackney IRC Sponsors Workshops and Booth at the Exposition National Perspective NRC Corner by Laura M. Dellinger Drop in PET Market Spurs Interest in Minimum Content Legislation NEWS BRIEFS JANET FOX NELTNER NAMED IRC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Janet Fox Neltner, the IRC's first, current and only Administration Coordinator has a new title. In a vote of confidence, the IRC Board of Directors voted unanimously in February to change Janet Fox Neltner's title to Executive Director. IRC President Larry Wilson recommended the change to the board after completing her annual performance review. Wilson commented that, "Janet's position has moved into greater responsibilities than when her position was originally created. Today she assists IRC's committees, regularly represents the IRC at professional meetings, and oversees IRC's grants. POLYSTYRENE STUDY AVAILABLE Franklin Associates recently completed a study of polystyrene recycling in the United States. The study shows approximately a l 0% diversion rate. This includes both recycling and reuse--which is particularly common with loose polystyrene packing materials. The study is available for $20-$25. For more information contact the Polystyrene Packaging Council at (202) 371-2490 or via e-mail at [email protected]. MULTIMEDIA CAMPAIGN HITS AIRWAVES The long-awaited kick-off of the IRC's statewide multimedia campaign is arriving soon. Advertisements for the "Indiana's Had It Up To Here" TM campaign will begin in April, thanks in large part to the support of Indianapolis' WISH-TV, Channel 8 Watch for it soon! RECYCLED PLASTICS WATCH IN INDIANA According to the American Plastics Council, plastics recycling contributes to Indiana in the following ways: 2.2 Million people have access to curbside or drop-off recycling programs which include plastics. 37 companies handle or reclaim post-consumer plastics. There are 8 manufacturers/distributors of recycled plastic products in the state. WABASH BUSINESS RECOGNIZED The Indiana Chamber of Commerce recently recognized Therma-Fiber, a Wabash company,for their outstanding achievement in the medium-sized business category. The "Best Pollution Prevention or Recycling Project" award is given to members demonstrating exemplary achievements in improving the environment. ThermaFiber converted their waste product, process-wasted shot, into a usable resource. The company now manufactures briquettes from the would be waste, and re-melts them for use in their process. The project enables ThermaFiber to reduce their contribution to the local landfill by approximately 90 percent. NIRI PAPER ROUNDTABLE SERIES BEGINS Indiana paper collectors, processors and end-users are invited to join the Northern Indiana Recycling Initiative for three round-table meetings set for April 8 - l 0. The project goal is to increase scrap paper recovery in the Northern region. All meetings include lunch and will be held from 9 a.m. to l p.m. April 8 at the Strongbow Inn/Valparaiso, contact Lance Hodge or Terese Davis at 219/465-3694 April 9 at the Balloon Works Restaurant/Plymouth Holiday Inn, contact Mike Good or Sally Flora at 800/935-8618 April 10 at the War Memorial Coliseum Red Room/Ft. Wayne, contact Pam DeCamp at 219/925-4857.

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Calendar of Events

March 20: IRC Board of Directors meeting, 5:30 7:30 p.m., Environmental Management Institute, 5610 Crawfordsville Rd, Suite 15 on Indianapolis' westside. For more information contact IRC office at 317/283-6226 or [email protected].

April 8, 9 and 10: Northern Indiana Recycling Initiative Paper Recycling Roundtable Series. Project to to bring together stakeholders in paper recycling collection, processing and end-use to discuss strategic methods for recovering more scrap paper from the Northern Indiana waste stream. April 8 at the Strongbow Inn in Valparaiso, contact Lance Hodge or Terese Davis at 219/465-3694; April 9 at the Balloon Works Restaurant at the Plymouth Holiday Inn, contact Mike Good or Sally Flora at 800/935-8618; April 10 at the War Memorial Coliseum Red Room in Ft. Wayne, contact Pam DeCamp at 219/925-4857. All meetings include lunch and will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m..

April 16 -19: 40th World Tire Conference and Exhibition,to be held in Louisville, KY. The program includes exhibitors, workshops and networking opportunities. For info, contact the International Tire and Rubber Association, Inc. at 800/426-8835 or email [email protected] or URL http://www.itra.com.

April 17: IRC Board of Directors meeting, 5:30 7:30 p.m., Environmental Management Institute, 5610 Crawfordsville Rd, Suite 15 on Indianapolis' westside. For more information contact IRC office at 317/283-6226 or [email protected].

April 30 - May 1: The IRC's Eighth Annual Conference, at the Radisson Hotel City Centre, Indianapolis. Two days of workshops, training sessions and exposition. Keynote speaker, Diane Shea, Associate Legislative Director of the National Association of Counties. For more information, contact IRC office at 317/283-6226 or [email protected].

IRC OUTREACH WEEK A HUGE SUCCESS: Priorities Survey Results by Laura M. Dellinger

In reply to the two-page questionnaire mailed out to the membership of the Indiana Recycling Coalition, and distributed for completion at some of the Outreach Week meetings, 68 completed Priorities Surveys were returned. The purpose of this survey was to take the temperature of the IRC membership, find out what their perceptions were regarding the recycling-related issues of the day, and get an indication from them on where the IRC should focus its attention and resources.

To confuse you as much as possible, I am going to present the results analyzed in several different ways to see if there were any truly outstanding contenders for the top issues. Seriously, though...looking at the data in different ways is an attempt to be thorough in analyzing the responses that were received. It includes listing them by raw numbers and by weighted scales, according to the rankings they were given.

Twenty topics were listed in the survey and, in terms of indicating preference, members were asked to check what they felt were the top ten and, if they wished, give them numerical rankings of importance from I to 10. Not all members ranked their selections. The following rankings will explain how they were determined.

The five topics which had the greatest number of hits, or times indicated as a priority, were as follows:

TOPIC	# of times chosen
Recycled-Content Products	43
Source Reduction and Reuse Programs	41
Recycling Education Programs	37
Sustainable Development	37
Unit-Based Rates	37

The topics which had the greatest number of rankings as #1, when rankings were given, were as follows:

TOPIC	# of times listed as #1 issue
Role of the Solid Waste Management Districts	5
Sustainable Development	3
Recycling Education Programs	3
Household Hazardous Waste Issues	2
Misinformation and Recycling Myths	2
Office Buildings and Shipping Malls	2
Unit-Based Rates	2
Access to Programs	2

The topics Getting the greatest number of rankings in the top ten, when rankings were given, were as follows:

TOPIC	# of Top 10 Rankings
Access to Programs	19
Sustainable Development	19
Recycled-Content Products	18
Unit-Based Rates	15
Composting	15
Recycling Education Programs	15
Source Reduction and Reuse	15

The final way of analyzing the results involved assigning a point value to the rankings each topic received. A #l ranking was worth ten points, a #2 ranking was worth nine points, and so on, down to a #l0 ranking being valued at one point. Figured in this fashion the results were as follows:

TOPIC	Point Value
Access to Programs	126 points
Recycling Education Programs	109 points
Role of the Solid Waste Management Districts	104 points
Recycled-Content Products	102 points
Sustainable Development	98 points

Checking the results from the different methods of figuring the indications of importance shows us that two topics were in the top echelon of all the methods' results: Recycling Education Programs, and Sustainable Development.

Unit-Based Rates, Access to Programs, andRecycling-Content Products showed up in three of the four methods' top level; Source Reduction and Reuse, and the Role of the Solid Waste Management Districts all showed up in two of the four rankings. Composting, Office Buildings and Shopping Malls, Household Hazardous Waste, and Misinformation and Recycling Myths were the other four categories showing up in the top layer of result rankings.

If you count the number of topics, you will see that we have l l... pretty darn close to our target of ten most important issues. It seems that there is a reasonable amount of consensus regarding the top priorities, as perceived and expressed by the membership of the Indiana Recycling Coalition.

At the very least, this should give the IRC a good basis for further discussion, possibly at the upcoming Annual Conference. It should also assist the Board of Directors in their planning of the focus and use of resources by the Coalition for the coming year.

Recycling coordinators, MRF operators and other recycling officials can now order a toolkit of information. Learn how get the most from your recyclables by properly preparing them for market, getting the highest prices and reducing waste. This packet of information is available for $10. Contact the IRC office to order this valuable resource at 317/283-6226.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

March begins the membership renewal period for IRC members. To save the IRC paper and repeat requests, the Indiana Recycling Coalition asks members to renew their memberships one of two ways. Complete the membership form printed on this issue of the newsletter and return to the IRC office, OR, for members attending the annual conference, complete the membership renewal information which is included with the conference registration materials.
Membership renewals should be sent to: Indiana Recycling Coalition Attn: Membership Renewal P.O. Box 20444

NOMINATIONS NEEDED

It is the time of year again when the Indiana Recycling Coalition Board begins the search for recyclers across the state interested in actively helping the IRC continue its statewide efforts. If you have ever considered running for the Board of Directors, or know someone you feel would be an ideal candidate, please contact the nominating committee. Board members attend a monthly meeting and coordinate projects in their areas of interest.

There are board openings in all IRC membership categories: Business, Government, Not-For-Profit/Citizens Groups, and AtLarge members. On the board's executive committee, the offices of President, Vice.President, and Treasurer will also be up for election.

Please consider running for the board of directors. If you have questions about the process, or would like a copy of the nomination form, contact any of the members of the nominating committee: Mark Davis, Chair at 606/223-8000 or [email protected]; Jeff Raffenburg, Business Representative at 513/242-4401; or Bob Gedert, Government Representative at 317/233-5431 or [email protected]; Bertina Rudman, Not-For-Profit/Citizens Group Representative at 812/336-5833 You may also contact: Larry Wilson, IRC President at 317/653-3402 or [email protected]; or Janet Fox Neltner, IRC Executive Director at 317/283-6226 or [email protected]