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Small biz freebies
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September 9, 1999: 1:46 p.m. ET
Free credit card machines available; EPA rescinds costly decision for laundries
By Jane Applegate
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Pearson Financial Group is offering free credit card processing machines to new retail and home-based businesses willing to sign up for the company's merchant card services for four years.
Although the machine is free, business owners must still pay monthly fees based on sales volume for processing credit card orders.
"A free machine represents a savings of $2,400 over the life of a typical $50 per month, four-year lease," said Jack Finkelstein, president of marketing at Pearson.
The offer was suspended earlier in the summer when demand outstripped the company's ability to deliver, but now it has caught up and is accepting applications again.
To apply for the service and learn if you qualify, visit Pearson's Web site.
SBA helps save laundries $103M
The Environmental Protection Agency recently withdrew a ruling affecting the nation's 1,700 industrial laundries, almost entirely owned by small businesses. The change will save the industry about $103 million a year, according to Jere W. Glover, chief counsel for advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration.
In 1997, the EPA had proposed requiring the pretreatment of wastewater from industrial laundries before discharge into municipal wastewater treatment facilities. But the EPA withdrew the requirement in July after opposition by trade associations and a review panel convened under the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. The laundry owners also promised the EPA that they would step up voluntary efforts to prevent water pollution.
"The process has worked," said Glover. "Without the input from the small business representatives and the panel, the EPA may not have learned the entire story about the industrial discharges and the lack of adverse environmental effects." 
(Syndicated columnist Jane Applegate, author of 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business, covers small business for CNNfn.com.)
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