Waste Recovery Report recycling, reprocessing, reusing resources Waste Recovery Report is published monthly by ICON/Information Concepts Inc, 211 S 45th Street, Philadelphia PA 19104 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502, email editor@wrr.icodat.com Subscriptions, per year: US$60 North America, US$75 elsewhere. Make checks payable to Waste Recovery Report, ICON Inc

Waste Recovery Report disseminates useful information throughout the community of individuals and organizations interested in recycling, reprocessing, and reusing materials which might otherwise be destined for the landfill.

The publication is a print-only newsletter, in which items are presented in an extremely concise format, always including a referral for use by readers in obtaining more details. We don't publish by-lined articles or illustrations of any kind. We don't care about where else the material has been or may be used. We're interested in specifics, facts and figures to the extent possible, rather than generalities or unsubstantiated claims of the type known throughout the world of polite journalism as puffery. We prefer to be presented with substantive data or reports of events and developments, and will abstract what we consider most significant to our readers. Therefore, the length and format of the submission is not an factor. Just be sure to include a name, address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail or website which we can append to the item for use by our readers; any submission which does not include this information, or for which we cannot find it on our own with a quick Internet search, will be discarded.

We accept material for consideration in any of three ways. In order of preference, these are:

1. By e-mail sent to editor@wrr.icodat.com. In sending e-mail, note that we won't open any transmissions containing attached files, viruses being what they are these days. This leaves two alternatives:
1. Include your information as plain text in the body of the message; omit graphics you think are dazzling but which contribute no information and which we won't use, anyway.
2. Put your news release on a website and provide us with a link where we can find the information, and maybe root around on related pages for additional points you haven't considered but we think round out the message.
Also note, because of the huge amount of SPAM on the Internet, we delete without reading all e-mail that does not have a topic-oriented "subject" line indicating the content of the message. In case you're wondering what "topic-oriented" means, think in terms of the headline of a news item... something like "Roofing shingles made from old pancake batter" rather than "Press release from Aardvark Amalgamated Industries."
2. By fax, transmitted to 215-349-6502
3. By regular mail, addressed to Waste Recovery Report, 211 S 45^th Street, Philadelphia PA 19104

Some people use two or even all three methods. We're not that careless about material we receive. In fact we find it annoying to see the same thing two or three times. Pick the most convenient method and use it. Hint: e-mail is already the method of choice for most publications, and it saves you lots of money. When using it, though, find a way — and this will be somewhat dependent on your ISP — to avoid having a long list of recipients appear on everybody's copy; if your address book doesn't provide this capability, try using "blind copies." Alternately, a listserv service such as googlegroups lets you send an announcement to one address, and takes care of redistributing it. Services such as these also have an automatic opt-in feature, so you can submit a mailing list with a blurb — which will help you get to people interested in your topic while not bothering everyone else.

We have three further foibles to mention. And, if they hurt your feelings, well, we're all big boys and girls now. Aren't we?

• Notwithstanding what they might have taught you in Flack 101, we don't want phone calls or other inquiries describing whatever it is you might be hoping to send and asking whether we'd like to see it. Click here to download a sample issue (http://www.wrr.icodat.com/wrr0801.pdf) to get an idea of whether the topic fits our coverage. If you think it does, or even if you think it may but are not sure, just send it by one of the methods indicated above.
• They were also wrong in Flack 101 about follow-up inquiries of any kind asking whether we received or plan to use something you have sent. If you sent it, we undoubtedly got it. We'll either use it or not, as our editorial judgement determines, and as far as we're concerned the decision is usually a no-brainer. Bothering us with inquiries doesn't help you get coverage. Rather, it gives us the impression that you're probably unprofessional and certainly a pest. Frankly, we're too busy doing the job or being rude to telemarketers to respond. Experience shows that if you haven't seen our newsletter or have looked at it but can't figure out for yourself that an item is inappropriate, you won't understand us when we tell you it doesn't fit.
• We don't honor requests for complimentary copies of issues in which information you have submitted appears or even for alerts when it happens. Waste Recovery Report is a newsletter that sells neither advertising nor names from our data base. Our only income is from subscriptions. We need paying subscribers to put kibble into the puppy bowl. And it's only $60 per year in the US & Canada, $75 everywhere else; it'll cost you more than that to try to wheedle a free issue out of us. If you represent an organization whose activities are of interest to the resource recovery community, you should have a subscription anyway, and will be able to see for yourselves that you have received coverage. (By the way, case you're wondering, we don't cross check our subscriber list with submitted material; whether or not you subscribe has nothing to do with your material being used or rejected.)

We're sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, in case the above points hint that you haven't been handling your news items in a way that recognizes what we in the print media consider our obligations to our readers. We're not sorry if you're miffed. We're sorry that you've been doing it wrong. But now you know how to do it right. And, if you think were're just curmudgeons, ask editors of other serious publications what they think.

Alan Krigman,
Alan Krigman
Editor & Publisher

Last updated 4/21/2008 8:22:55 AM