GreenClips.3 07.20.94 INDUSTRIAL POLICY PROMOTES INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES The Clinton Administration will announce the first stage of a preliminary plan to spur the economy, prevent pollution and tackle the government's own cleanup problems. To encourage innovation, the plan would coordinate green technology programs in various agencies, test and verify technologies including certification of those that work, harmonize conflicting state and local regulations, make regulation more flexible, step up efforts to sell US green-tech products overseas, and spend $100 million helping companies commercialize new technologies.-Business Week, July 25, 1994, p. 83. NIST HAS BROADER MISSION AND LARGER BUDGET The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), traditionally charged with setting measurement standards, has an expanded mission and increased budget to boost US competitive edge internationally. NIST's Building Environmental Division has been working on aspects of sustainable architecture for many years, but it formally established a green building program last year. The new program gives researchers an opportunity to study buildings from a holistic point of view. The new program also administers five pilot projects selected by Congress to study green building technologies.-Architecture, July 1994, p. 101. PCSD CHARGED WITH FRAMING SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Without precedent, the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) assembles environmentalists, industrial leaders and the Cabinet to define the necessary changes to bring about an ecologically-sound future. The PCSD's stated goal is to build policy-making consensus among these groups, defusing more confrontational relations. The new approach emphasizes less command-and-control directives and one-size-fits-all mentality, allowing more room for flexibility and innovation in pollution reduction and clean-up. –The Amicus Journal, Summer 1994, p. 27. GREEN ACCOUNTING At the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, governments agreed to develop a green accounting system. With traditional methods, activities such as logging, fishing, and mining add to the gross national product without reflecting exploitative loss of value in limited natural assets and their ability to provide income in future years. Although a complicated and as yet undefined process, green accounting places value on the damage caused by pollution or the exploitation of resources. –Scientific American, July 1994, p. 102. MANUFACTURERS RESPOND TO RECYCLED SUPPLIES New products are creatively using a wide variety of recycled materials. Deja Shoe reuses factory-rejected coffee filters and file folders for insoles and reweaves textile scraps for cotton canvas uppers. Other companies turn nylon waste into tennis balls, discarded garments into industrial rags and carpet underlay, headlight lenses into scratch-resistant plastic windows, PET bottles into nylon carpeting, old tires into crude oil, and glass bottles and asphalt into new paving. –National Geographic, July 1994, p. 93 RECYCLED GLASS BLOCKS Bill Sargent, a professional glass blower, turns recycled bottles and jars into glass bricks that can be used in paving, concrete work and decorative edging. Hot Stuff Glass Works located in Bellingham, Washington got their first big break when they were asked to provide glass bricks for a McDonald's in Lynden, Washington.-In Business, Vol. 16, No. 3, p. 14.