‘Green Dares’ Enticing Companies to Make Less Waste : Environment: Voluntary programs to reduce trash meet less resistance than legislation. Participating firms enjoy good publicity.

Tell companies they have to cut waste output, and they’ll likely squawk about costly mandates that hurt profits and squelch expansion.

But dangle a few carrots in front of them, and see how enthusiastic they get:

* Forty-six companies large and small touted how they cut a total of 1 billion pounds of garbage since 1990--about a year’s worth of trash at a medium-sized landfill--in a contest organized by seven Northeastern states.

* The Environmental Protection Agency won voluntary agreements from nearly 100 companies to slash waste output and will crown their achievements at a “WasteWise” ceremony.

* The winners of another contest in Massachusetts included a company that makes egg cartons from old phone books and another that ships computer parts in boxes made of recycled paper, and urges consumers to return the boxes for reuse.

While proposed legislation to reduce trash meets with resistance from businesses, a surprising counter-trend is emerging: Green dares, or contests that promise positive publicity, can entice companies into making voluntary but substantial reductions in their garbage output.

The idea that businesses are more willing to cut trash output if they’re asked rather than told is growing as governments push for waste reduction instead of new incinerators and landfills.

Packaging waste totaled 47 million tons in 1990, about one-third of all waste in the United States, according to the Coalition of Northeastern Governors, the government group whose annual CONEG Challenge drew 46 companies last year.

Procter & Gamble Co., a leading manufacturer of consumer brands, responded to the contest by saying it boosted the average recycled content in its packages to 36%. That included using 100% plastic trash in containers of Ultra Downey and Lemon Comet and 50% in containers of Tide, Bold and Dash.

Another participant, Campbell Soup Co., said it trimmed the weight of its steel soup cans by a total 4 million pounds and its juice cans by 1.1 million pounds.

Baxter Healthcare Corp., the $8.5-billion medical products company, said it cut 11.6 million pounds of packaging since 1990 and plans a 15% overall reduction by 1995. It also plans to use more recycled fiber in its corrugated shipping containers, and less chlorine-bleached paper and cardboard in packaging.

But support for the companies’ efforts is far from unanimous. Some environmentalists and state officials say the voluntary actions can give companies credit for token measures and help them avoid more meaningful reductions that cost more money.

Indeed, the CONEG Challenge is now boycotted by nearly all the environmentalists initially involved. They dropped out after businesses refused to support legislation that would have mandated specific reductions and recycled content in packaging.

Lacking support from the environmental community, the governors of New England, New York and Pennsylvania instead challenged businesses to voluntarily report on how they’ve slashed solid waste.

The companies get free publicity by complying. The latest 140-page CONEG Challenge report, published last fall, commends participants for their “leadership role” and “commitment to reduce packaging waste.”

“You could do a good measure of waste reduction by eliminating the report,” said Resa Dimino, solid waste specialist at Environmental Action Foundation, an environmental group that withdrew from the CONEG Challenge.

“The idea you can get government and industry and environmentalists around the table and resolve the issue is just fundamentally flawed.