The AMRC meeting and important news

I’ll be away from blogging tomorrow because of the very worthwhile distraction of attending “Organics & 2008: Moving Towards 60% Diversion” — a one-day symposium presented jointly by the Association of Municipal Recycling Coordinators (AMRC) and the Composting Council of Canada (CCC). The program is excellent and includes a presentation I’m keen to take in by our Composting Matters columnist Paul van der Werf and CCC Executive Director Susan Antler on ASTM biodegradables and oxo-biodegradables. This is timely indeed, since I just wrote my editorial for the December/January edition on that very topic and will no doubt learn a thing or two that could be useful as I apply the finishing touches to that piece of writing. I’ll post a short report about the event in this space on Wednesday.
In other news, I’m very pleased about developments on a couple of fronts with respect to our internet offerings. These include a terrific response so far to our annual online survey (the one where you can win an iPod) which has attracted 278 respondents so far. I have to tell you that we used to spend a fortune trying to get that many folks to reply to an industry survey in the days of snail mail. And the results so far are really interesting — enough that I plan to make this the cover story of the February/March edition. There’s still time to participate, so don’t procrastinate — fill in the survey now and you’ll have a chance at winning one of three iPod products.
Also, the results of our Speakers Corner short survey on issues related to a possible U.S. border closure to Canadian waste exports have been tabulated, and we published them on our website today as a downloadable pdf file (look under Posted Documents on the left side of the home page). This is terrific information, with color charts and tabulated results and lots of ideas and opinions at the end. And best of all, we’re giving it to you FREE.
Last, but not least, an important industry person with a long association with our magazine has agreed to participate on this website by writing a blog of his own. I’ll make a formal announcement soon, but I’m very happy about this, because the interactive dimension of the magazine online is about to become much more robust.
Watch this space for more announcements soon (and a write-up about the AMRC/CCC organics symposium on Wednesday). Cheers.