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Testing Organizations
and Testing Equipment Suppliers
The American Society for Testing
and Materials (ASTM) is the principal organization in the U.S.
designing and publishing standards for testing products and materials.
Anyone working on product development should consult the ASTM for
applicable testing standards. The ASTM provides both key word searches
and downloadable standards from their site.
Link: www.astm.org/
Omega Instruments makes and/or
sells a vast array of instruments for temperature, pressure, and
other kinds of measurement. Their site is a great place to find
out what kind of instrumentation is available.
Link: www.omega.com
Advanced
Materials Center,
Inc. is an independent laboratory concentrating in environmental,
materials and product evaluations and testing, such as testing material
properties for recycled plastics and a host of other materials.
Link: www.amc-testlabs.com/
Polymer
Diagnogistics Inc. (PDI) specializes in plastic testing and
polymer consulting, including use of recycled plastics.
Link: www.polymerdiagnostics.com/
Virginia
Tech's William H. Sardo Jr. Pallet and Container Research Laboratory
performs comprehensive research and development work, provides technical
assistance, and offers educational programs focusing exclusively
on pallets and containers, as well as the materials and fasteners
with which the pallets and containers are assembled. They conducted
tests on several recycled plastic products evaluated by CWC.
Link: www.palletlab.vt.edu/
The Innovative
Plastics Institute at University of Massachussetts at Lowell
conducts testing / research projects (minimum budget of $5,000 U.S.)
related to materials development, plastics processing (extrusion
screw design, process controls, etc.)
Link: www.eng.uml.edu/Dept/IPI/ipi.html
Recycled Content Products and Buying
Recycled (Non-Commodity Specific)
The Johnson Design Studio
manages the International Design Resource Awards (IDRA), an
annual international design competition to encourage the use of
post-consumer recycled, and reprocessed and sustainably harvested
materials in new product designs and buildings. The Studio is
a non-profit and is involved in other activities relating to environmentally
sound material usage.
Link: www.designresource.org/
The Pacific Northwest Pollution
Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) has compiled a set of information
resources on environmental purchasing, to assist purchasers in
establishing or maintaining an environmental purchasing program.
Included is information that can assist in identifying "green"
products, setting up an environmental purchasing program, general
and specific resources that are available to purchasers, guides
for locating green products, and examples of procurement programs
that can be used as a guide for purchasers building or improving
their own programs.
Link: www.pprc.org/pprc/pubs/topics/envpurch.html
U.S. EPA Buy Recycled Fact Sheets are available
on products receiving approval through the EPA's Comprehensive
Procurement Guideline (CPG) program.
This program intends to promote and set policy for federal
purchasing of products that contain recycled material.
Informative fact sheets are included on some of the recycled
commodities.
Link: www.epa.gov/cpg/factshts.htm
The King County Environmental Purchasing Program assists
County agencies in implementation of King County Policy requiring
agencies to use recycled and other environmentally preferable
products "wherever practicable."
This program publishes [electronic] Environmental Purchasing
Bulletins, highlighting recycled and environmentally preferable
products, materials, events, contracts, and success stories.
The bulletins are available online.
Link: www.metrokc.gov/procure/green/bulindex.htm
The
Buy Recycled Business Alliance is a group of organizations
committed to increasing the procurement of recycled content products
through supporting education and development of programs that
provide useful information to purchasers of recycled content products.
The site contains a listing of companies that sell various
recycled content products. Also
utilizes an on-line forum to help answer questions among listserv
participants.
Link: www.nrc-recycle.org/brba/About.htm
The Architectural Record magazine
provides this site to help set standards for "Green"
projects. They also list green products under the appropriate
standard categories. Recycled glass tiles are listed under "finishes."
Link: www.architecturalrecord.com/green/green.asp
Recycled Material
and Equipment Exchanges/Selling Venues
Recycler's World
is a world wide trading site including information related to
secondary or recyclable commodities, by-products, used & surplus
items or materials. Provides a platform for many kinds of recycling
businesses. The listings and Links can be
useful for contacting various equipment and materials companies.
Link: www.recycle.net
The Used Building Materials Association
is a non-profit, membership based organization that represents
companies and organizations involved in the acquisition and/or
redistribution of used building materials.
Link: www.ubma.org/
APEXQ
hosts a huge database of secondary plastic available for e-commerce.
The database lists millions of pounds of post-industrial and post-consumer
plastics, in many forms and specifications.
Link: www.apexq.com
Inter-Continental Wood Exchange is a free
world wide information exchange for those companies and individuals
who buy and sell Wood Products or Services.
Link: www.woodfibre.com/wood/iwe_menu.html
Grants
The Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) has
an outstanding grant clearinghouse page for funding for a wide
range of environmental projects.
Link: pprc.org/pprc/rfp/rfp.html
The U.S.
Department of Energy Glass Industries of the Future Solicitations
has targets the glass industry as a potential source
for national energy savings. This site describes the department's
programs for the glass industry.
Link: http: //www.oit.doe.gov/glass/solicitations.shtml
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