PORTLAND'S BEST, ENVIRONMENTALLY
The city of Portland, Oregon last month presented its BEST environmental awards to six area businesses for outstanding progress in energy and water conservation, waste reduction and recycling, and transportation alternatives. The annual awards are part of the city's BEST program - Businesses for an Environmentally Sustainable Tomorrow - that offers companies free help finding innovative, profitable methods for conserving natural resources and reducing pollution. Among this year's winners is Lamb's Thriftway [a grocery store] which upgraded its refrigeration system, store lighting, and heating and air conditioning control systems; it will save more than 1.3 million kilowatt- hours of energy and about $73,500 a year. Graphic Sciences Inc., an ink manufacturer, will save 2.5 million gallons of water and about $12,000 in sewer and water costs per year; adding a cooling tower to its pigment grinding process allows the company to reuse most of its cooling water. Calbag Metals Co., a wire re-manufacturer, now sends 1,600 tons of waste wire insulation it used to landfill each year to local companies that make floor mats, mud flaps for trucks, and speed bumps from it; Calbag will save about $122,000 a year. Sponsors of the BEST awards include the Portland offices of energy, water, environmental services, and transportation, the Association for Portland Progress, and the Environmental Federation of Oregon. [For more information on the BEST program and this year's winners, visit <http://www.ci.portland.or.us/energy/web/bestmain.html>.] - Daily Journal of Commerce [Portland], 17 Apr 98, p 1, by Linda McDonnell.

A PATH TO CUTTING HOME ENERGY USE
President Clinton has announced a Government-industry initiative to reduce the gases that contribute to global warming by making homes in the United States more fuel-efficient. By 2010, the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing aims to cut energy use in new homes by 50 percent and in 15 million existing homes by 30 percent using better windows and insulation, energy- saving appliances, and more efficient heating and cooling systems. Residential housing, says Mr. Clinton, contributes 20 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. He says PATH would reduce annual US carbon emissions by 24 million tons - about 5 percent - and save consumers as much as $11 billion a year in home energy costs. Relying mainly on existing tax credits and Federal research money, the residential program needs little new money. PATH is part of the Administration's five-year, $6.3 billion proposal to help the US reach targets for greenhouse gas emissions set last December in Kyoto, Japan. That proposal faces stiff opposition from business groups and Republicans in Congress. Many of them believe the alarms over global warming are overblown and think the proposed solutions will cost businesses billions of dollars and slow economic growth. - The New York Times, 5 May 98, p A23, by John M. Broder.

BOULDER HOPS AND SKIPS
No monorails or commuter trains here. Boulder, Colorado's shuttle-bus system called the HOP carries more than 1.1 million riders each year in this city of 100,000 - a rare success story in the American West where the car is king. Wanting to build a mass-transit system that citizens would actually use, city officials asked them what they wanted. The result is an easy-to-use shuttle- bus system with frequent service, friendly drivers, and vehicles with comfortable seating and big windows to frame mountain views. The HOP is circulator shuttle that loops through central Boulder, with stops in the Crossroads, Pearl Street, and University areas. The small-scale buses are so successful that Boulder added a similar second transit line six months ago - the SKIP - to replace a standard bus route. Getting people out of their cars is difficult, but Boulder's community-based design approach to public transit contributes to the HOP's success. Unlike the Northeast, where compact cities make public transportation practical, the West's sprawl challenges transportation planners to retrofit mass transit to suburban development designed for cars. With 70 percent of Denver-area commuter traffic going from suburb to suburb, the suburbs are now hubs of their own. In this setting, where would light-rail begin and end? [For more information, visit <http://go.boulder.co.us/pubs/hopskip_menu.html>.] - The Christian Science Monitor, 4 May 98, p 1, by Jillian Lloyd, and the GO Boulder web site.

RECYCLING FLUORESCENT LIGHTS
Efficient lighting must use some toxic materials - notably mercury - to operate for full rated life. The National Electrical Manufacturers' Association estimates that, since 1985, lamp makers have reduced the mercury in an average four-foot fluorescent lamp by about 50 percent to 23 mg. And it says the levels will continue to drop. Environmental regulators consider even trace amounts of mercury hazardous and often classify burned out fluorescent and high-intensity discharge lamps as hazardous waste. Falling mercury levels have prompted a vehement technical debate among the US Environmental Protection Agency, state environmental agencies, and the lighting industry over how to landfill burned out lamps. Meanwhile, generous utility rebate programs have yielded a decade of lighting system retrofits and upgrades and spurred the development of a lamp and ballast recycling industry. Though recycling - at about $0.10 per linear foot for fluorescent lamps and about $5 per ballast - is more expensive than landfilling, emerging revisions to EPA guidelines and regulations encourage it as an acceptable alternative. NEMA is concerned that recycled lamp glass may contain residual mercury and that recycling's high costs will discourage lighting efficiency upgrades. Yet business is growing steadily at Northeast Lamp Recycling. Serving about 15 percent of its potential market, the Connecticut-based company says it recycled about 500 tons of fluorescent lamps in 1997, reclaiming glass, metal, and mercury-bearing vapors and powders. - The Construction Specifier, Apr 98, p 57, by Mark Loeffler.

SUCCESSFUL HOTEL RECYCLING PROGRAMS
A sophisticated recycling program at Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Aventura, Florida diverts much of its waste from the landfill. In 1997 the 340-room luxury resort recovered 250 tons of mixed paper, old corrugated containers, aluminum and bi-metal cans, glass bottles and jars, plastics 1 to 3, grass clippings, and yard debris. Turnberry eliminated another 250 tons of waste through source reduction, bringing its total waste diversion to 33 percent. Before introducing its recycling program, Turnberry spent $137,000 for waste hauling annually. In 1997 these costs were $82,000, an annual savings of $55,000. At the Holiday Inn North in St. Paul, Minnesota, the kitchen staff recovers about 75 percent of the food waste the hotel produces. A local livestock farmer picks up the waste six days a week and processes it for fodder. And a Los Angeles company called Bi-O-Labs collects discarded soap bars from over 150 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange County and makes them into products like laundry soap and surface cleaners. Successful hotel recycling programs require educating employees, getting management's commitment, hands- on managing and monitoring, employing user-friendly collection systems, and making recycling every employee's job. - Resource Recycling, Apr 98, p 23, by Elif Bali and Chris Balfe.

RESOURCES FOR SPECIFYING SITE CLEANUP
Site remediation and cleanup projects reclaim valuable property. Depending on jurisdiction, federal or state regulations usually govern these projects. An excellent source of guide specifications for site cleanups is the National Institute of Building Science's Construction Criteria Base (CCB) that contains updated construction-related documents from 17 federal agencies and 125 industry organizations. CCB includes guide specifications for underground storage tanks, asbestos, lead-based paint, soil washing, and the like from the US Army Corps of Engineers Military Construction Guide Specifications, the NAVFAC Guide Specifications, and GSA's Master Specifications. The CCB includes federal environmental regulations that are also available at the US EPA web site <http://www.epa.gov>. State environmental regulations are often available at state web sites. For CCB information, visit <http://www.nibs.org/ccb> or call NIBS at 202.289.7800. - The Construction Specifier, Apr 98, p 61, by Catherine Coombs and Mark Sadowski.

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