Government, industry, institutions, and yes, each of us as individuals and consumers - both at work and at home - need to commit to build a stronger marketplace for recycled goods. When we purchase a recycled content product, we are making a contribution to reducing energy consumption, reducing pollution, building new business opportunities, and conserving more of our national resources for our future generations. Our goal is to collect, market, and utilize more recyclables and become a more active steward of products throughout their lifecycle.

U.S. Department of Justice

At the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) 1999 Earth Day celebration, Attorney General Reno announced a new initiative to strengthen the Department's commitment to recycling and the procurement of environmentally preferable products containing recycled content material. The Attorney General placed specific emphasis on increasing DOJ's use of re-refined motor oil and moving towards full compliance with Section 507 of Executive Order 13101. Section 507 directs federal agencies to implement the EPA procurement guidelines for re-refined lubricating oil and retread tires and fleet and commodity managers take immediate steps to procure these items in accordance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. To further ensure the Attorney General's commitment and compliance with the initiative, DOJ sought to purchase re-refined oil exclusively.

In response to the Vice President's Challenge, DOJ bureaus developed strategies to comply with the exclusive use of re-refined motor oil. The bureaus' associated garages have committed to participate in the Defense Logistics Agency's closed loop re-refined oil pickup and delivery systems. Field bureau locations are also investigating arrangements for servicing their vehicles with re-refined motor oil only.

DOJ has substantially increased its use of re-refined oil since the inception of this initiative. In FY99, 32 percent of DOJ purchases of lubricating oil were re-refined oil, compared to only 7 percent in FY98. In the first quarter of FY 2000, DOJ did not purchase any virgin oil. More good news: sales figures for the first quarter of FY2000 show that 2,908 gallons ($7,829) of re-refined oil under DLA's closed loop contract and 7,517 ($21,135) gallons of re-refined oil were purchased. DOJ expects the positive trend to continue into the future.

In FY99, DOJ also created an Environmental Compliance Laboratory to assure agency compliance with the primary objectives of E.O. 13101- waste reduction, recycling and the purchase of recycled content and environmentally preferable products. This first of its kind laboratory is examining obstacles to buying recycled content products and developing strategies to overcome those obstacles.

Sears Roebuck and Co.

Sears has constructed an aggressive recycling program which has yielded the following results for 1998: corrugated cardboard - 83 million pounds, hangers - 7 million pounds, plastics - 2 million pounds, recycling/disposal of returned tires - 12 million pieces, recycling of automotive batteries - 5 million pieces, appliance recycling and disposal - 500,000 pieces, light bulb recycling - 1 million pieces, ballast recycling-300,000 pounds, and 5 million pounds of used Craftsman tools.

Sears is maintaining its strong level of recycling in support of the National Recycling Challenge. In 1999, Sears rolled out a national program to collect and recycle nickel-cadmium batteries by working with the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Coalition. Sears is collecting batteries at 1,600 facilities, including all retail stores, Product Service Centers, Sears Hardware, and Orchard Supply Hardware sites. Sears will also work closely with its vendor partners to encourage responsible packaging.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

In 1995, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorized the creation of the Biobased Products Coordinating Council to provide strategic planning and policy input to promote research, development, transfer of technology, commercialization, and marketing for biobased (non-food, non-fiber) products. Accomplishments to date include a government-wide trade show to educate Federal procurement officials on the benefits and environmental attributes of recycled and biobased products and a National Academy of Sciences study, "Biobased Industrial Products: National Research and Commercialization Priorities," which was published in 1999.

In pursuit of increased production of recycled and biobased products and the purchase of such products, and in concert with the National Recycling Challenge, USDA commits to establish language in research grants solicitations to increase use of recycled and biobased products. USDA also will work cooperatively with other Federal agencies to develop and procure biobased technologies.

USDA's intent was to give extra consideration to proposals that incorporated the use of recycled and biobased products in the implementation of projects. The result has been a noticeable increase in the requested funding for FY2000 and FY2001 for competitive award projects for the research and development of biobased products.

U.S. Department of the Interior

As one of the lead agencies managing our natural resources, the Department of the Interior (DOI) decided to green its operations. DOI established aggressive waste prevention and recycling goals. DOI plans to divert solid waste from disposal in landfills through recycling at the rate of 40 percent by the year 2000, 45 percent by year 2005, and 50 percent by year 2010. At the same time, DOI will continue to recycle the following commodities at all facilities unless significant barriers exist: white paper; mixed paper/cardboard; aluminum; plastic; glass; pallets; scrap metal; fluorescent lamps and ballasts; batteries; and toner cartridges.

For the National Recycling Challenge, DOI committed to using re-refined lubricating oil in its 32,000 sedans, station wagons, ambulances, buses, and trucks. DOI also will recycle used motor oil from the fleet. With respect to other recycled content products, DOI committed to reach 100 percent compliance with the following goals, and to increase goal conformance by at least 30 percent each year until these goals are achieved:

In addition, DOI initiated a pilot test with the EarthShell Corporation, manufacturer of a biodegradable food service product, in an effort to reduce the amount of polystyrene plates, bowls, and cups used in the employee cafeteria. The EarthShell product is biobased and contains limestone and starch. DOI, in conjunction with USDA's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, is testing the compostability of the EarthShell products.

Ford Motor Company

At Ford, using recycled materials in products and designing products for future recycling have been priorities since 1991. Integral to Ford's Corporate Environmental Strategy and corporate citizenship initiatives, every product manufactured by Ford is at least 75 percent recyclable with widely available current technology; the Econoline vans and F-250/F-350 Super Duty pickups are nearly 90 percent recyclable. Ford recycles more than 3 billion pounds of metal, 50 million pounds of plastic -- including 27 million square feet of nylon carpeting -- and 10 million pounds of rubber every year in the production of its new vehicles in North America alone.

Ford currently leads the North American automotive industry in finding new uses for recycled materials in its products. Through the perseverance of its engineers and suppliers, Ford has recycled tires, carpets, plastic car bumpers, soda pop bottles, car battery cases, cotton bale wrappers, and bottle caps within its vehicles. Building upon this strength, Ford is committed to annually using more than 100 million pounds of recycled plastic, rubber, fabric, glass, wood, and paper in new vehicle components by 2002. In 2000, Ford will manufacture Excursion sport utility vehicles, F-series pickups, and Windstar minivans with more than 800,000 tires containing 3 percent by total weight recovered tire rubber.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issues procurement guidelines which designate recycled content products for government agencies to purchase. To date, 54 products - including paper products, office products, construction and landscaping products, vehicular and transportation products, and park and recreation products - have been designated.

In response to the Challenge, EPA will issue new procurement guidelines designating additional items in order to create markets for materials recovered from solid waste.

Environmental Defense and Natural Resources Defense Council

Environmental Defense (formerly the Environmental Defense Fund) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have worked aggressively over the past decade to support recycling efforts throughout the country. Environmental Defense, in partnership with the Ad Council and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has produced public service messages such as, "If You're Not Recycling, You're Throwing It All Away", generating more than $275 million of donated advertising on recycling and buying recycled over the past decade.

As their commitment to the Challenge, Environmental Defense and NRDC will ensure that all paper each organization purchases - including that for office use, publications, and reports, letterhead/stationery and direct mail - contains at least the minimum levels of postconsumer recycled content shown below, unless such paper is not reasonably available, does not meet reasonable performance requirements, or is only available at an unreasonable price. {In no case, however, will paper containing less than 20 percent postconsumer recycled content be bought.}

Sony Electronics Incorporated

Sony Electronics Incorporated has been very active in achieving real results from its recycling programs. From its recycling efforts at 120 locations, Sony has attained a company wide internal recycling rate of 75 percent and has established a goal of 80 percent for the next 4 years.

In October, 1999, in response to the Vice President's National Recycling Challenge and as part of its policy to work towards finding sustainable solutions for managing old and unusable electronic products, Sony opened a recycling center for electronic waste at its Sony Technology Center - Pittsburgh, one of Sony's largest operations in the world with almost 3 million square feet and 3,000 employees. Through an alliance formed by Sony and Waste Management, Inc., valuable resources will be recovered from waste electronic scrap. An estimated 1,800 tons a month of scrap will be processed when the facility is fully operational. Initially, the waste electronic scrap will originate from various industrial operations along with a test program that Sony, Waste Management, and the State of Minnesota set up to collect household waste from both commercial and municipal waste streams. From old televisions and computer monitor picture tubes, glass will be recovered and made available as glass cullet for the manufacture of new cathode ray tubes in the glass manufacturing operations at Sony Electronics Inc - Pittsburgh. This association will complete the sustainable loop by taking back waste electronics and enabling the remelting of glass for the production of new picture tubes for new products. The project also will create up to 15 new jobs.

Sony will also conduct research to develop technologies to improve recovery of assets from the waste electronics. Sony's goal is achieving a 99 percent recovery rate.

Hamilton County, OH

Since its 1989 establishment, the Hamilton County Solid Waste Management District has formed successful recycling partnerships with schools, businesses, communities, and the waste industry. Overall, Hamilton County has increased solid waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting from 23 percent to 63 percent.

This has been accomplished through a variety of programs. For example, 15,000 Hamilton County residents removed and recycled 830 tons of household hazardous waste from their homes. Over 500,000 tons of yard trimmings have been kept out of landfills though backyard recycling and composting programs. Hamilton County cleaned up 600,000 illegally stockpiled tires and worked with local businesses to find recycling markets for those tires. Local schools saved over $40,000 through the donation of paint collected and re-blended at Hamilton County's household hazardous waste collection program. Hamilton County also started The Interchange, a regional waste exchange for over 3,500 southwestern Ohio businesses.

The Hamilton Count Solid Waste Management District will educate and encourage local construction firms to purchase and use recycled content building materials. The District prepared an Architects' Guidebook which provides information regarding recycled content building materials, suppliers, and product information. The District also is promoting a Buy Recycled Campaign through events, a coupon book, and publications.

Gainesville, FL

The City of Gainesville enjoys a 95 percent participation rate in its curbside recycling program. This outstanding participation rate, combined with a comprehensive collection of 15 items, has led to an impressive 37 percent diversion rate.

In response to the National Recycling Challenge, the City of Gainesville committed to purchasing products with postconsumer recycled content. It will adopt a Source Reduction and Recycling Procurement Policy requiring the City to purchase only copier paper with a minimum of 20 percent postconsumer recycled content. Gainesville also passed a resolution encouraging soft drink manufacturers to include recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in their bottles and for citizens to recycle PET bottles and purchase products containing recycled PET.

In addition, the City of Gainesville commits to add a second recycling bin for curbside collection to capture paper products from over 24,000 residences and to provide desk-side paper recycling containers to 2,000 businesses.

U.S. Department of Defense

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the single largest federal procurement agency, procures hundreds of millions of dollars of recycled content products annually. The DoD efforts have enhanced the markets for a range of recycled content products across the United States. DoD initiated a policy directing the General Services Administration to substitute 20 percent postconsumer content copier paper when DoD activities ordered virgin copier paper. Other federal agencies followed DoD's lead, resulting in GSA's decision to stock only paper with postconsumer content. DoD also has taken the lead in developing structural uses for products such as plastic lumber.

In response to the National Recycling Challenge, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology is directing the automatic substitution of re-refined lubricating oil for virgin lubricating oil when DoD activities order certain grades of commercial oil. This action, in addition to the closed loop recycling of 10W30 and 15W40 oil, will further build markets for re-refined lubricating oil.

As a result of the direction from the Undersecretary, the Defense Supply Center Richmond (DSCR) implemented automatic substitution of commercial re-refined oil for commercial virgin oil requisitions on November 1, 1999. The substitution is effective for all commercial virgin oils where DSCR has comparable re-refined oil. To date, there have been no problems with the implementation. Total sales of re-refined motor oil rose from $.56 million in FY97 to $1.66 million in FY99 with a comparable drop in virgin oil sales in the same time frame. Two other agencies, the Departments of Justice and Transportation, followed DoD's lead and requested that DSCR substitute re-refined oil for field orders of virgin lubricating oil. With the implementation of the new direction, DOD is providing continued impetus to help the re-refined oil market grow.

American Plastics Council

The American Plastics Council (APC) works with communities and businesses to promote plastics recycling opportunities - from efforts to improve recycling program efficiencies to pre-commercial development of plastics recycling-related technology. Since 1990, the plastics industry - as individual companies and through organizations such as APC - has invested more than $1 billion to support increased recycling and educate communities in the United States.

To help Close the Recycling Loop, APC will seek to enhance markets for post-use plastics by maintaining and updating its Recycled Plastic Markets Database in an internet-based, user-friendly, searchable format. The database, first compiled in 1990, lists more than 1650 buyers and sellers of recycled plastics in the United States and Canada. APC will also maintain a user-friendly, internet-based Recycled Plastic Products Directory to help private and public sector buyers identify products in the U.S. and Canada made with or packaged in recycled plastic. This database is sub-divided into readily-available consumer products, garden and landscaping products, and building/construction products. Both databases are a cooperative effort between APC in the U.S. and the Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC) in Canada and can be found on APC's website, www.plasticsresource.com/recycling.

Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), a nonprofit organization operating the national recycling program for Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd) rechargeable batteries recycled more than 16 million pounds of Ni-Cd batteries since its inception in 1996. Currently there are more than 30,000 participating retailers, businesses, public agencies, and communities in the U.S. and Canada. The program is funded by more than 300 companies, manufacturers and marketers of Ni-Cd batteries/products and has received recognition and support from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Keep America Beautiful, America Recycles Day, U.S. EPA, North America Hazardous Materials Management Association, and Renew America.

RBRC commits to expand its current battery recycling program, beginning in January 2001, to include the collection of Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion), and Small Sealed Lead Acid (Pb) rechargeable batteries -- powering cellular phones, laptop computers, camcorders, and other portable electronic products. With an estimated 431 million cordless power products in U.S. households today, rechargeable batteries have become an integral part of our daily lives. The new rechargeable battery recycling program will make it easier for consumers to recycle spent batteries while reducing the amount of batteries entering the solid waste stream. No longer will one have to differentiate which rechargeable batteries can be recycled because "If it's rechargeable, it's recyclable!"