PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Executive Director, executive.director@nerc.org
Date: June 18, 2019
What Can We Do as Consumers About Climate Change? - Fact sheet now available
The Northeast Recycling Council (NERC) and the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association (NEWMOA) have published a Fact Sheet to help consumers understand the impact they can make on climate change. The goal of this initiative is to build public awareness about what individual actions consumers can take to have a positive impact on climate change.
The Fact Sheet emphasizes that a significant percentage of greenhouse gases are associate with the production, transportation, and disposal of materials and products. In fact, one recent study has found that greenhouse gas releases from consumption are increasing even as those from direct use of energy by consumers in their homes and for transportation are decreasing. The Fact Sheet includes ten steps that consumers can take to make a difference.
Lynn Rubinstein, Executive Director of NERC stated that” bringing the concept of personal action beyond energy conservation into the conversation of climate change is a critical step in making the connection between sustainable materials management and the environment.”
Terri Goldberg, Executive Director of NEWMOA noted that, “our partnership with NERC has been exploring the climate impacts of products and materials during the past two years. This new publication is the outgrowth of our efforts to develop a simple message for consumers about the link between climate change and consumption of materials and products. Discussions on this topic in the past have focused on the climate impacts of end-of-life waste management activities. But through this effort, we know that much more significant climate impacts are associated with the raw material extraction and production and transportation of products before they reach the consumer. To achieve substantial impacts, we need to look upstream to make a real difference. We hope that this will help spur more discussion and action on this critical topic.”
NEWMOA and NERC collaborated with the West Coast Forum on Materials Management on the drafting of the handout.
For more information, contact Lynn Rubinstein.