NRCM Blog

Blue Christmas…but hope for a “green” New Year

My family has a lot of holiday traditions: decorating the tree while listening to carols, making gingerbread cookies, going to visit my great aunt and uncle – bringing them some of Mom’s homemade Christmas bread and my aunt giving us her delicious homemade Chex mix. But, my favorite tradition started several years ago (before there were CD players in vehicles) on a ride home from my grandmother’s house.

My mom is an Elvis fan. Always has been. Always will be. So, we would get excited whenever Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” came on the radio. My mom, who is not a “singer,” would start belting out Elvis’ part, and my sister and I would sing the “ooh, ooh, ooh” back up parts. We wouldn’t win any singing contests, but we would giggle with delight as we headed home singing as if we WERE Elvis and his back-up singers. And to complete the tradition, my elderly stepfather would quietly reach up and turn off his hearing aid. And a Merry Christmas was had by all.

So, while we wait and hope for a “Blue Christmas” – my hopes for the New Year are that it is not blue, but instead “green.” Last January, a lot of us felt “blue,” because the governor and his Administration proposed rollbacks to important, long-standing laws that protect our clean air, healthy waters and wildlife, and vibrant forests. Governor LePage wanted to eliminate Maine’s wildly successful bottle recycling bill. End the ban on billboards on Maine roadsides. Reduce protections to important wildlife habitat on shorelands, in wetlands, and vernal pools. And the list goes on and on.

Luckily, NRCM and our members, supporters, friends, and the public spoke out loudly and often to legislators, the governor’s office, committees and state agencies saying that Maine’s environment should be protected and not open for the business of destroying it for the sake of polluting companies who don’t care about Maine’s natural resources.

Well, it’s nearly 2012 and the start of a new legislative session. We defeated most rollback bills last year, but we can be sure that more are on the way. That’s why we can’t sit back and wait for others to do the work of protecting Maine’s air, water, wildlife, and forests. We need to start contacting our legislators today to urge them to support bills that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, protect Maine’s 10.4-million-acre North Woods, protect Maine’s wildlife, and reduce toxic pollution from consumer products.

If you haven’t yet signed up for NRCM’s Action Network, please do so today. Visit http://supporters.nrcm.org/Action_Network_signup and sign up to receive emails about projects that interest you. You will then receive emails when your voice is most needed to protect the Maine we know and love, now and for future generations.

Happy Holidays!

Beth Dimond
NRCM Public Affairs Coordinator

Join Us February 14 in Augusta: Notes from the Auburn Hearing

The Regulatory Fairness hearings being held around the state by the Legislative Regulatory Reform Committee are bringing out large numbers of Maine citizens and business owners who want to see Maine’s environmental standards strengthened, not weakened. During the hearings there have been specific suggestions to improve the implementation of particular laws, but generally, little to no call for complete repeal of any laws. 

I attended the Auburn hearing on February 3 that was covered by the Lewiston Sun http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/981130. During the time I was there, most people spoke about the importance of protecting Maine’s natural resources and the quality of life they provide. Buzz Lamb, a retired computer industry businessman from New Gloucester and NRCM board member, spoke from more than 40 years experience working with industries throughout Maine, including forest products, wholesale, retail, manufacturing, transportation, and health care industries. He challenged the premise put forward by the LePage Administration that regulation was killing jobs, noting instead that the real causes of job loss in Maine have been the rise of big box stores that eliminated healthy downtown retail districts; consolidations in wholesale distribution, banking, insurance and other industries that moved headquarters and jobs out-of-state; global labor rates that drew shoe and textile manufacturing jobs overseas, and the resulting decline of many other supporting jobs in the community. He said, “I find blaming Maine’s business environment on environmental regulation to be very misguided. In fact, it makes me question whether or not the governor’s team has done an adequate job in problem determination.” 

Buzz argued against the environmental rollbacks proposed by the LePage administration and some current legislators, saying that they will increase long-term costs to both business and government due to the rise in cost associated with toxics clean up, public health, and sprawl. He specifically discussed the legislative proposal to weaken shoreland zoning laws. As the owner of approximately 3000 feet of farm and woodland affected by shoreland zoning, he said the proposal of a 75 foot setback (instead of the present 250 feet) could not be proposed “with a straight face.” He said that 75 feet does not even begin to address the run off issues facing our lakes and streams during spring run off and heavy rains. “Once eutrophication (the introduction of artificial substances to a fresh water system) begins, it is difficult to stop and eventually feeds itself. The long term costs of watershed deterioration will be very high, including clean up costs, land value decline, expensive filtration equipment for public water supplies, and flood damage from faster run off.” He does not find being a good shoreland steward “onerous or difficult.” See Buzz’s full testimony here. 

Comments like these from Buzz Lamb about actual experience with our environmental standards in Maine have been delivered by hundreds of people throughout the hearing process. We hope the Legislature will listen and submit real solutions to real problems, rather than gut environmental laws that continue to serve Maine citizens well. 

If you have not contacted your legislator yet to express your concerns about the proposed environmental rollbacks, I encourage you to do so today. You can learn more at our website, where you can also find contact information for your legislator, at http://www.nrcm.org/stop_environmental_rollbacks.asp.

You can also join us for the final hearing in Augusta in Room 208, Cross State Office Building, Capitol Street, on Monday, February 14 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to say a few words to the committee. Join us at noon for a rally to protect Maine’s environment in the Hall of Flags at the State House. Hope to see you there!

-Lisa Pohlmann, NRCM Executive Director

Speaking Out to Protect Children's Health

I just came back from a press event where I got to speak alongside physicians, small business owners, public health advocates, concerned parents and their children, and legislators in support of Maine’s chemical safety laws. We worked with our friends in the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine to hold the event to celebrate and defend the Kid-Safe Products Law and Maine’s other chemical safety laws.  

Maine’s Kid-Safe Products Law helps parents protect their kids by convening a scientific process to identify and phase out the “worst-of-the-worst” toxic chemicals in products we use every day. It offers common sense solutions to reduce the heavy burden of costly chronic disease that affects every family, school district, and business in Maine – preventable diseases linked to toxic chemicals like learning disabilities, lead poisoning, asthma and cancer. 

We had originally convened the press event as a way to celebrate these laws and thank legislators who had sponsored and voted for them. Unfortunately, Governor LePage proposed repealing the Kid-Safe Products Law and others earlier this week in the Phase I Regulatory Reform Proposal. 

Representative Dana Dow (R-Waldoboro) delivered powerful remarks in support of the law he co-sponsored and helped to pass with overwhelming bipartisan support (35-0 in the Senate and 129-9 in the House) when he served in the Senate in 2008.  Emily Cain (D-Orono and House Democratic Leader) also spoke eloquently about how protecting kids from toxic chemicals is “just common sense.”  We couldn’t agree more, and hope that the Governor can be persuaded to drop this part of his agenda.  Please make your voice heard on these matters by contacting your legislators here: http://www.nrcm.org/stop_environmental_rollbacks.asp

Here's my statement from today's event: 

I am pleased to stand here today with legislators, business people, physicians, and concerned parents to celebrate the progress made to protect Maine families from toxic chemicals. We’re here today to say: Maine’s safer chemical laws are working. They offer common sense solutions to reducing the heavy burden of costly chronic disease that affects every family and business in Maine - diseases that are almost entirely preventable. 

At least $380 million is spent every year in Maine on health costs related to toxic chemicals, including learning disabilities, cancer, asthma, and lead poisoning. We’re shocked that the Governor has chosen to target these laws and the rule that will get bisphenol-A out of baby bottles and sippy cups, something that 10 other states comprising more than half of the nation’s population have already done - a recommendation that was approved unanimously by the Board of Environmental Protection after they looked exhaustively at the scientific basis for why is it critical to phase out the use of this endocrine disrupting chemical from our reusable food and beverage containers. 

We believe the administration’s proposal takes us in exactly the wrong direction.  We need lawmakers to focus on keeping the Kid-Safe Products Act working as it was intended – helping parents protect their kids by getting the worst-of-the-worst chemicals out of products we all use every day. Children should be safe at school too. We need lawmakers to make sure kids aren’t exposed to pesticides on school grounds. And we need to help our communities get more dangerous chemicals out of our landfills and our ground water by creating more public/private partnerships that encourage recycling. These are the types of things lawmakers could and should be focused on, not doing the industry’s bidding by rolling back solutions that protect kids and support our small businesses.

The public supports these laws; legislators support these laws; the only group that doesn’t want these laws is the chemical industry.  We’re surprised and concerned that the Governor seems to be putting the desires of an out-of-state industry over the needs of Maine families and small businesses. We’re also dismayed that the Governor seems to think the federal government’s ‘bare minimums’ are good enough for Maine.  Congress hasn’t updated our federal chemical laws in over 30 years, despite mountains of new science that proves harm beyond doubt. 

Let’s face it, no jobs are going to be created by making children more vulnerable to disease. But by moving forward with more collaborative common sense solutions to the problem of toxic chemicals, we CAN create new jobs in innovation, manufacturing, and product recycling.

Our recognition and thanks go to the 164 Maine lawmakers who voted for the Kid-Safe Products Act in 2008, including the 74 who are currently serving in the 125th Legislature.  We appreciate your leadership and we look forward to working with you to keep Maine moving forward with safer chemicals, healthy families, and lower costs for everyone.

Thank you.

Matt Prindiville
Clean Production Project Director, Legislative Coordinator

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Maine People and the Environment: Report from the Roundtable

More than 500 citizens from across the state poured into the Augusta Civic Center on January 20th to participate in the first public meeting with Governor LePage about the importance of environmental protection to Maine's economic and public health. A panel of 28 businesses, sportsmen, health professionals, religious leaders, and youth discussed how the laws that have cleaned up once heavily polluted rivers, have kept Maine's woods and fish stocks intact, have kept our landscapes protected and relatively pristine, and have cleaned up our air - and saved us money -- by conserving energy, are necessary and welcome to those who have chosen to set up businesses in Maine, have worked the land for generations, or visit here to enjoy our quality of life.

NRCM is proud to have sponsored this event with numerous partner organizations and to have seen so many members from the NRCM family across the state in attendance. We have shown once again that the people of Maine are deeply committed to environmental protections and are willing to stand up and fight for them. Please see the extensive news coverage here: http://www.nrcm.org/news.asp

We will soon be posting the remarks of the panelists, as well as video of the event, but today's snow slowed us down a bit. Check our website next week (www.nrcm.org) for more from the Roundtable.

Here are some of the remarks from the panelists, who we thank so much for participating in this event:

William Bennett, Pres. & CEO, of Oakhurst: "After all the cows that produce Oakhurst milk literally eat drink and breathe the Maine environment so it's in everyone's best interest to keep Maine's environment clean, safe and healthy."

Unity College student Deirdre Birbeck also had a chance to speak directly to the Governor. "It seems to me that my generation's future jobs will depend on careful stewarding of our natural resources."
 
“If our coastal waters are not clean, it is impossible for all commercial fishermen, not just clammers, to market the Maine brand,” said Chad Coffin, president of the Maine Clammers Association.

“Regulations aren’t perfect, and some may need fixing,” said Harry Dwyer, a licensed forester and logger who owns Ghost Dance Forestry in Fayette. “But regulations are not the enemy. They are an important tool” to protect resources for future generations.

Horace “Hoddy” Hildreth, a former Republican state senator who is chairman of Diversified Communications, a company with 200 employees, said many of the laws protecting Maine’s air, land and water were enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures responding to the industrial abuses of the 1960s and 1970s.

“Their implementation has from time to time caused frustration and even outrage,” Hildreth said. “But I submit to you that working on the regulations to make sure they are responsive to the plain intent of the statutes is a better way to go than gutting or repealing the laws.”

Corky Ellis, founder and Chairman of Kepware, a software company in Portland, says they could have moved to North Carolina or Texas with lower taxes and minimal environmental regulations, but they wanted to live in Maine. "Please bear in mind that many businesses like ours are here in Maine precisely because of the protected beauty and the conservation efforts of the past."

And MPBN's news story quoted Ernie Hilton, former chair of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (read and listen to the full MPBN news story here):

Ernie Hilton is a lifelong Republican, an attorney and civil engineer from Madison who previously chaired Maine's Board of Environmental Protection, and whose wife chairs the Land Use Regulation Commission, or LURC.

Hilton says he's worried Maine's quality of place may be threatened as the new administration and Legislature look to relax environmental permitting and reuglations and do away with agencies such as LURC, which governs zoning and planning in Maine's North Woods.

"I'm concerned when I see, as I did yesterday, a list of some of the statutes which are pending before the Legislature dealing with shoreland zoning and with LURC, and it strikes me as being a race to the bottom approach to our environment," Hilton said.

Hilton says it's not environmental rules or regulations that are the biggest impediments to job creation in Maine but rather the high cost of health care. He points out that over the last eight years more than 10,000 permits by rule were issued for small projects, and $5 billion dollars worth of major projects permitted by the Department of Environmental Protection alone.

 
 

New Video: The Story of Electronics (and e-waste)

Hot of the presses! The Story of Stuff project has just released an excellent new 7-minute film, the Story of Electronics. You may already be familiar with the Story of Stuff Project’s series of wildly popular and fun web videos that expose the hidden costs of all the consumer products we buy and toss at alarming rates. This new film takes on the electronics industry’s “designed for the dump” mentality, and asks, why do we throw away millions of tons of electronics every year, and what does that mean for the planet?

Check it out at: http://storyofelectronics.org

As you may remember, in 2004, NRCM led the campaign for Maine, which became the first state to require computer and television manufacturers to set up e-waste collection centers and pay for the costs of environmentally safe recycling. Since then, Maine has recycled over 30 million pounds of e-waste, saved taxpayers more than $20 million dollars, and prevented more than 6 million pounds of lead and other toxics from entering our environment. This breakthrough paved the way for other states to follow and helped to spur on the movement for e-waste recycling in the United States. Since 2004, 23 other states have followed Maine’s lead, enacting producer responsibility laws to recycle unwanted electronics. 

More good news: Collecting, hauling, and recycling is all now being done by private companies. New businesses have been created and existing businesses have expanded, creating jobs and helping to build out Maine’s clean tech economy.

Our law originally only covered TVs, computers, laptops, and monitors. In 2009, NRCM led an effort to expand the law to incorporate video game consoles, printers, and additional digital display devices. Maine people now have convenient opportunities to recycle these products, but there are many more electronics products that can and should be recycled. Canadian provinces and the European Union are developing e-waste programs that require manufacturers to recycle everything “with a plug or battery.” 

There are many opportunities to recycle your electronic products. To learn more about where to take your old unwanted electronics, visit our website.

-Matt Prindiville, Clean Production Project Director

Product Stewardship Forum Big Success…

Well…we had an incredible afternoon at the Product Stewardship State Legislative Forum yesterday! 

For starters, we had a capacity crowd of over 200 people with state legislators from all over the northeast United States and maritime Canada in attendance.  In addition, we had over 100 folks from all different kinds of backgrounds including academics, solid waste officials, recycling companies, industry representatives and environmental advocates.

Our keynote speaker, Neil Hastie – a longtime EPR veteran who runs the product stewardship program for beverage containers in British Columbia – was incredible.  He explained the benefits of product stewardship policies for business and the environment, and then clearly laid out the pitfalls that can result from poor design and implementation.  He said if we can eliminate or mitigate the pitfalls, then we’ll have a much better chance of winning support from industry.   In the end, he inspired us all, with pictures of the planet and his granddaughter, reminding us that “If not now, when?” and “If not us, then who?” 

Our other speakers, ranging from Mario Laquerre from Recyc-Quebec to Chris Jackson from the Maine State Chamber of Commerce brought many different perspectives and encouraged lively discussions among attendees throughout the afternoon. 

I believe we significantly helped raise the profile and dialogue on product stewardship issues in the Northeast through one of the largest forums on this topic that the United States has had to date.

Big thanks to all the speakers, our co-sponsors - the Council of State of Governments and the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, and especially to Representative Melissa Walsh-Innes who put in countless hours to make the forum a great success. 

Here’s my statement from yesterday.  I’ll be posting more information soon.

Statement of Matt Prindiville, NRCM

Product Stewardship State Legislative Forum

Thank you Melissa.  I would like to thank the Council of State Governments and the Maine State Chamber of Commerce for being such great co-sponsors.  And lastly, our incredible speakers and presenters.  Thank you so much.    I hope you’ve learned as much as I have and that you’re leaving here inspired about the potential for product stewardship to revolutionize the way we think about “waste.”

I think you’ve heard today that we’re trying to shift out of an old paradigm that isn’t working anymore, namely having all these products with valuable, recoverable materials being disposed of in landfills or incinerators.   Product stewardship policies change the paradigm: “waste” now becomes a resource.  Systems and incentives are created are created for the private sector to capture those unwanted products and turn them into something new and valuable.  Have you heard about the term “cradle to cradle” thinking?  Well, this is what we’re talking about here.

If I could leave you all with one thought, it would be this: that together, we can do this.  A spokesperson for Dell said to me recently that, “product stewardship is the right thing to do.”  More and more businesses and industry sectors are getting this.  So how do we do it, and how do we work together in order to accomplish this lofty goal of a truly sustainable economy?  These are the questions we need to consider.   

I think our recent experience in Maine around the framework legislation is a good example: we roll up our sleeves, we sit down at the table together, we listen, we learn and we collaborate.  Now, some might say that this is a naïve proposition.  That business interests and regulatory interests and environmental interests have a long history of being at odds with each other and that’s just the way it is.

But this is coming from a seasoned legislative veteran.  I bear the scars from fighting for and helping to pass 5 first-in-the-nation product stewardship laws, all with their fair share of controversy.  But through these processes, something remarkable has been built between Maine’s business community and our environmental community, that elusive and very human condition known as “trust.”  And by beginning to trust each other a little bit more, we’ve opened up more opportunities to find common ground.

I fundamentally believe that by keeping the lines of communication open and doing our best to work together, we can achieve better outcomes and better public policy.

The environmental community, state legislators and agency officials need to realize that product stewardship programs are very challenging for manufacturers to initiate and operate and to work with them to design legislation that incorporates their concerns, provides flexibility and minimizes costs.  

Industry needs to realize that product stewardship is the future.  It’s taking hold all over the world, and we need you to help design and implement these programs and policies rather than fighting them.  We need you at the table in order to make these programs work.  You are the creators and innovators.  You bring the best ideas to the table.  If anyone can figure out how to make product stewardship work and even figure how to make it add to your bottom line, it’s you.  We need to stop looking at each other as potential enemies, and instead see each other as allies in initiatives that benefit all of us: clean jobs, a growing, green sustainable economy and a healthy, thriving environment. 

We know that while there are tremendous benefits for all of us from our consumer product economy, there are also real costs, costs to the environment, costs to wildlife, and costs to our health.  This is the challenge that we all face.  But it’s also the challenge that we can rise to.  By working together, we can begin to mitigate and even eliminate those costs and carve out a new vision for the future through transforming the way we make and use things. 

By having all of you here today, I feel like we’re we’ll on our way.

- Matt Prindiville, NRCM Clean Production Project Director

A Zero-Waste Future: Pipe Dream or Reality?

What would you say if I told you that consumer product manufacturers are teaming up with local solid waste officials to eliminate the concept of “trash” altogether?

Does that sound like an eco-pipe dream?

Well, it’s not. Right here in Maine, electronics manufacturers have already set up and are financing collection and recycling programs for unwanted television sets, computers, monitors, cell phones, mercury-containing light bulbs and more. 

The goal of these programs is to divert these products from landfills and incinerators and get them into recycling operations where they can be broken down and turned into new products. 

While, Maine’s been on the cutting edge of this policy approach known as product stewardship (or extended producer responsibility) in the United States, we’re well behind places like the European Union and Canada, which are implementing stewardship plans to get pretty much everything you can think of out of the waste stream and into recycling operations. 

And, here’s the kicker – it’s all done by private companies and the costs are incorporated into the price of the product, instead of left to taxpayers and local governments to figure out what to do with all the unwanted stuff.

Pretty soon, we won’t be talking about “solid waste” policy anymore. We’ll be talking about “sustainable materials” policy, and that, my friends, is a heck of a lot more exciting and truly has the potential to revolutionize the way we manufacture, use and dispose of consumer products. Rather than designing products for disposal, manufacturers will now have the incentives to design their products – and packaging – for their next uses, and will create the systems to capture those unwanted products and turn them into something new and valuable.

If all this sounds exciting to you, then you need to join us in Portland, Tuesday, August 17th for "The Product Stewardship State Legislative Forum: How Business and States are Turning Today’s Trash into Tomorrow’s Products.”

This free forum, taking place in conjunction with the Council of State Governments' Annual Eastern Regional Conference and sponsored by NRCM and the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, is an exciting opportunity to learn about how product stewardship is sweeping Maine and the nation and what it means for you, your business, local solid waste district, and our environment.

To register and learn more about agenda and the speakers for the event, please visit http://www.nrcm.org/product_stewardship_forum.asp.

Hope to see you there!

Matt Prindiville
NRCM Clean Production Project Director

Big news from the Big Apple: E-waste lawsuit withdrawn

Good news for extended producer responsibility (EPR) in the United States!  (i.e. manufacturer responsibility for end-of-life collection and recycling of unwanted consumer products). 

Yesterday, a large consortium of electronics companies formally withdrew their lawsuit challenging New York City’s EPR e-waste recycling law (which I testified in support of in 2006). 

While a recently passed New York state e-waste recycling law that preempts the NYC regulation was seen as the primary reason for this action, the real world impact is that this removes a threat to EPR laws around the nation - including Maine’s 6 EPR laws on the books.  Our laws currently cover 10 different product categories ranging from mercury-containing light bulbs and thermostats to cell phones, TVs, computers and printers. In almost every instance, Maine was the first state in the nation to pass these laws, paving the way for more states to follow. As I write this, more than 20 states and over half the nation’s population are now served by e-waste recycling legislation modeled after Maine’s first-in the-nation law.

With the newly enacted EPR framework legislation in place, Maine is likely to continue to lead the nation toward the greater recycling of more and more products in the waste stream. 

But all this progress could have been stopped dead in its tracks if this lawsuit had gained steam. From NRDC’s Kate Sinding’s blog post:

“the suit was so broadly framed that it put in jeopardy any law based on the notion that the manufacturers of consumer products should bear the financial responsibility for their disposition at end-of-life.”

In order to help apply political pressure, we worked to generate letters from concerned legislators and officials to the companies asking them to withdraw their lawsuit.  And our national partners worked tirelessly to organize, apply media pressure and engage in tough negotiations with the manufacturers.

Through this process there were many lessons learned.  Back to Kate Sinding…

“Not that everything about the lawsuit was regrettable.  One of the silver linings was the way in which it brought the plaintiff manufacturers and the city together to develop workable solutions to the very real practical obstacles to collection in New York City.  Because of its low rates of car ownership and dense living arrangements, how collection might best be implemented in the city poses serious challenges.  Through settlement negotiations, the parties made significant progress toward addressing those challenges and devising viable collection alternatives that should both serve New York City residents and accommodate the business needs of the manufacturers charged under the law with taking back their products.  We hope (and have every reason to believe) that these good discussions will continue, as the need for meaningful e-waste collection opportunities in NYC will persist, albeit now under the terms of the state law (which becomes effective next April).

All sides deserve congratulations for the hard work and good faith they brought to the settlement table - elements that augur well for New York State's nascent e-waste program.”

As a final note, this was not a clear case of manufacturers opposing an EPR law because they didn’t want to pay to recycle their own products.  Many electronics manufacturers - including most of the household names like Dell, HP, Sony and Apple – now support EPR legislation for electronics.  This was largely the case of making mountains out of molehills.  The manufacturers primarily had problems with the definition of “convenient collection.”  From that point, EPR foes in the electronics industry and elsewhere saw it as an opportunity to try and make a larger case against the Constitutionality of EPR laws in the first place.   

Fortunately, we’ve already won that fight to date. In 2004, NRCM helped successfully defend Maine’s mercury auto-switch law against the auto manufacturers in federal court.  This helped establish the legal precedent allowing states to hold manufacturers responsible for the safe collection and recycling of unwanted consumer products. And yesterday’s news is one more step in the right direction. This shift is what is necessary to turn what will be formerly known as “trash” into the raw materials of the next generation of products, and to make landfills and waste incinerators obsolete. 

-Matt Prindiville, NRCM Clean Production Project Director

Making a difference in the Gulf

I received an email a few weeks ago from the librarian at Nobleboro Central School. The fifth grade students there spent the year selling items that range from pencil erasers to bubbles to "locker buddies" and more in their school store. Now that the school year is over, they got to choose where to donate their profits. This year, the class chose to donate their money to the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in order to help with their clean up of wildlife, like sea turtles and pelicans, affected by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the Natural Resources Council of Maine is the state's affiliate of NWF, we were asked if someone from NRCM could come accept the check from the students and thank them for their donation.

I was delighted to be able to go to Nobleboro on Tuesday morning to thank the students, read an award of appreciation and letter from NWF, and accept their giant $300 check (I came back to NRCM to ask our bookkeeper if she could start paying me my salary on a giant check...it seemed much more fun and exciting than a regular payroll stub!).

The students were very attentive while I talked about NRCM and the work we do to protect Maine's air, water, forests, and public health. They were all sitting at their desks doing work on their laptops, so I talked briefly about Maine's e-waste law and our work to protect Mainers from toxics in various toys and other household items. One boy in the front row raised his hand and asked if I had heard about the "McDonald's cups." I said that I had...that 12 million Shrek glasses had to be recalled because of toxic chemicals found in them. It was so great to see young students so aware of current events related to the environment!

I thanked them for their decision to use their money to help wildlife in the Gulf. We talked about how it's important to help your friends and neighbors (and even your brothers and sisters...though that is sometimes harder!) nearby, but it is also important to help others (people and animals) around the country and around the world. We talked about how their gift was going to make a big difference to the wildlife clean up efforts along the Gulf Coast.

These students should be commended for their hard work and dedication to helping others. In years past, their school store funds have gone to local food pantries, animal shelters, and toward home heating assistance programs. This year, they decided to do what they can to help wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Way to go Nobleboro Central School! You are making a difference - here in Maine, and far away. I hope others are inspired by your good deeds and do all they can to help those affected by the disaster in the Gulf.

- Beth Dimond
NRCM Public Affairs Coordinator

The hope inside my garbage can

Just as a follow-up to my post on recycling and municipal waste, check out the essay below by author, ecologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber about the link between toxic waste, health and trash:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandra-steingraber/the-hope-inside-canadas-g_b_586625.html

Sandra is an inspiring speaker and advocate.  Maybe you got a chance to see her speak recently in Portland.  If not, read her books Living Downstream and Having Faith.

- Mathew Scease