Change the Margins

Mayor of Cambridge Endorses Margins

The kids at Atrium have done it again!

Thanks to their efforts, especially those of Eli and Mark, Mayor E. Denise Simmons recently presented the class with resolution R-51 from the City Council of Cambridge. The resolution recognized the Atrium 4th grade class for their efforts and the Change the Margins idea as a very important one.

For a pics of the event, check out the video below. For the full account, check out their blog post and pics: Inventor's Notebook Atrium.

Recycling Printers

I'm using myself as a case study. I'm about to replace my printer and decided to put my money where my Margins are and see how easy/hard it is to find a way to environmentally dispose of it. If the printer was even close to working, I'd donate it to a charity or school, but the thing is dead dead dead. It's an NEC 870 monochrome laser printer which has been fantastic for me. I've had it for at least 6 or 7 years, and it finally conked out about 3 months ago.

It's easy to find places to dispose of ink cartridges and cell phones in an environmentally responsible way; entire printers (especially outdated ones) are another matter. My first google attempt: "environmentally dispose of printer" led me to the eCycling page of the EPA, which turns out to have a very useful page listing  local, manufacturer and retail recycling programs.

Since my printer's a NEC machine, I figured I'd check out their Total Trade program first. When I put in my printer model, it turns out to not have any after market value. Not a surprise. They CAN recycle it for me, but I'll have to pay them a fee to do so. Here's the damage:

It's not a ton o'money, but if I can find a cheaper (aka free) way to recycle the printer, that would be ideal. I'll keep you posted on progress.

For reference:
EPA page: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/recycle/ecycling/donate.htm

XBox 360 Games for Change Challenge

Fourth graders and college students are going to save the world! I picked up this little tidbit from my trendcentral newsletter this morning...

Xbox 360's Games for Change Challenge: Microsoft has partnered with Games For Change (an organization that supports and promotes social change through game play) to kick off a global competition that challenges socially minded individuals within the gaming community to make the world a better place. The competition, which will kick off in August to coincide with the 5th annual GFC Festival in New York, is open to college students and will require them to create a game in which the goal is to combat global warming. The top three contenders will be considered as potential Xbox LIVE Arcade downloads and their "socially minded" creators will receive cash prizes. The overall winner will also be awarded with an opportunity to apprentice at Microsoft's Interactive Business division as an intern.

For more info:
XBox 360 Games for Change Challenge site
Imagine Cup 2008

4th Graders Take Margins to Beacon Hill

Just came across this fantastic article/radio story by Monica Brady-Myerov about a group of 4th graders in Boston who have taken up the Margins campaign.

MONICA BRADY-MYEROV: These 4th graders from the private Atrium School in Watertown are walking the halls of power on an environmental mission. They want to get everyone in the State House to change the margins when they print documents. The simplicity of the idea appeals to 10 year old Allie Reilinger.

ALLIE RELINGER: We heard about it and we thought it would be a good thing we could do and not that hard and we could really make a difference by doing it.

During their quest, the 4th graders spoke with aides to Governor Deval Patrick and Frank Simzik, who chairs the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture. According to the article, both were impressed with the students' facts and figures about how Margins can help the environment.

Between the kids in Sao Paolo and those at the Atrium school, I've realized that working with school children is a new tactic in the large-scale adoption of Efficient Margins. If kids start using Efficient Margins when they are small, they'll grow up with that as the norm. It's much easier to begin a habit when one is younger than it is to get people to change their habits when they are older.

Here's a link to a video the kids from the Atrium School made about the campaign!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_71mKrB7tDI

Facebook Update - Change the Margins in Brazil

I'm testing out a new blogging app on Facebook that's supposed to cross-post to a bunch of places, including twitter, my blog and my Facebook Newsfeed...we'll see how it goes.

Very cool news to report...a friend of mine is a teacher in Sao Paolo, Brazil and is using the Margins campaign as a teaching tool for her students. She had them prep questions for me and yesterday morning we did a Skype chat. Their English was great, and questions ranged from how I got the idea to how I thought they could implement it in their school. The only embarrassing thing is that they projected the video chat onto a very large screen so all the students could watch.

For the next month, they'll be doing a variety of activities surrounding Margins. I never realized my campaign could be used as a math lesson! I'm supposed to catch up with them in several weeks to find out how things are going. Hoping to learn a few Portuguese words by then to impress them with, as their English was fantastic.

Refuse the Receipt

As ya'll know, I'm a big fan of changing things one small step at a time. Here's another great grassroots idea from my friend Jeffrey Abramson, who runs the Gen Art Film Festival...

REFUSE THE RECEIPT!!!

"Refuse the Receipt" . . . what an unbelievable amount of paper is wasted and sent to the landfill when stores automatically print out receipts. I'm sure that 99.9% of receipts printed immediately get tossed in the trash. People should have to request receipts (like they should have to request a bag). It's ridiculous that some stores have policies that if they do not just give you a receipt you will get something for free!

So I encourage people to tell store clerks to not print a receipt . . .and if they have to - then refuse to take it - let them watch the receipts pile up in their own trash and maybe they will start to realize what a problem it is!

USPS Free Recycling Program

Just heard about a great new program the US Postal Service is trying out called “Mail Back” that lets you recycle anything from iPods to old printer cartridges to PDAs. You just pick up a postage paid envelope from any of the 1500 participating post offices around the country, stuff your old Blackberry or digital camera inside and send it on its way. The Mail Back program is kicking off in 10 cities to start, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Postage for your goodies is paid for by Clover Technologies Group, a company that recycles, remanufactures and remarkets printer cartridges and small electronics. Clover beat out 19 other companies to win the contract with the Post Office and has a “zero waste to landfill” policy – it does everything it can to avoid contributing any materials to the nation’s landfills. Click here for more on their recycling policies.

One thing to note – you don’t have to BE in one of the 10 chosen cities to take advantage of the program. Envelopes can be MAILED from anywhere - they’re just only AVAILABLE in the 10 participating cities for now. So if you don’t happen to live in one, get a friend who does to pop one in the mail for you. The $1.00 or so you’ll spend in postage to get the envelope is a small price to pay for keeping the planet healthier.

Full press release from USPS: Click here

PlayPump

Interesting piece on  PlayPump, which allows kids to play on a merry-go-rounds and pump water for villages at the same time. There are a number of issues tied up in this, ranging from child-labor to band-aid solutions to the concept of "play" time and what that really means. But it's also an example of thinking outside the box to find solutions, which is why I post it here.

For more discussion, check out the following:

Frontline Story

Leading Questions blogpost

OpenOffice - .79"

This just in from Nic Duquette, who saw one of the pieces on Margins out this week.

"OpenOffice.org comes with default margins of 0.79" on each side. I believe it's the very distant number-two office suite."

I have not tried OpenOffice.org yet (I've got my hands full dealing with the recent switch I made from PC to Mac!), so I can't advise on how well the software works. But given the software's progressive nature, it sounds like it's definitely worth checking it out for those of you undeclared software peeps.

Courant Post-ings II

So stoked! Two fantastic articles came out this week about Margins! So far no bump in traffic from the Courant piece, but I'm hoping that people will curl up with their papers in their jammies over brunch and catch up on reading during the holiday weekend.

The Washington Post 
"The Small-Margin Movement", by Eviana Hartman, can be found here. The piece has an election year slant - very appropriate for a Washington paper. If you want to forward the article to others (please do!), here's the actual link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/
14/AR2008021403284.html?sub=new

You do have to sign in to read the article, but registration is free.

The Hartford Courant
"One Tiny Change Could Save Thousands of Trees" by Joann Klimkiewicz takes a look at the thrifty roots of the Margins campaign, as well as the campaign's goals. You can read it here.

To pass it along:
http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-margins0214.
artfeb14,0,7335664.story