Every year, parents are obligated to buy their kids (whether they like it or not) school supplies, and you can bet that pencils are on the list.

Moms and dads might be surprised to find out that those little orange sticks are made out of the 4 billion trees cut down worldwide for paper industries, and assembled with toxic chemicals in factories that pollute the air (most erasers are made from latex). After much sharpening, they are then thrown away to rest in landfills. It’s estimated that 14 billion wood pencils are made each year, and scientists have stated – to little effect – that the manufacturing process of office and school products is damaging to the environment. In fact, after construction and consumer use, these items are one of the world’s top dump-fillers.

New companies have emerged to combat the misuse of the planet’s resources for the paper and office supply industries. One such company that has emerged and specialized in recycled pencils is Earthzone, based in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. In 2005, architect and filmmaker Matty Scolozzi was unsatisfied with the slow pace of his career and created Earthzone out of a desire to start a creative business, and his passion to encourage people to save the Earth.

To make recycled pencils, Earthzone takes used, whole newspaper sheets (sourced from both Canada and USA), flattens and cuts them, then wraps the pencil graphite with a water-based glue. Other recycled pencil companies have a similar manufacturing process. Even consumers who are already buying and using these types of pencils may not know is that the shavings from sharpening can also be recycled. Re-using a four-foot stack of newspapers to make these pencils can save a 40-foot pine tree.

Because the pencils are virtually air-free, they are almost impossible to break and will last up to three times more than wood pencils, which answers many parents’ qualms about eco-friendly supplies costing more than their counterparts. Over time, buying green can save you from buying more!

And, gone are the days of the boring orange pencil. Now, recycled pencils have expanded to include colored, artist, scented, and unpainted pencils that expose the newsprint the pencil was made of. An example of this is Earthzone’s Special Edition Recycled Pencil. There are so many options out there that you can be certain you’ll find a brand or type that is to your and your children’s liking.

Skeptics will say that these small items will make little impact to improve the environment, but entrepreneurs like Scolozzi are confident that every bit helps, especially when the process of making a green product doesn’t harm the Earth. Numbering in the millions of dollars, the eco-friendly product industry is a profitable one, and Earthzone alone will make six-figures by the end of the year. As long as the demand continues to grow for all products like recycled pencils to be green-made, it will just be a matter of time before other corporations follow.

About Earthzone:

Founded in 2005, Earthzone created a line of recycled pencils, which are distributed by six national distributors, including Chapters Indigo and Basics Office Products. Earthzone plans to make other sustainable products by January 2010, and to sell 30 more products by next fall. Earthzone is committed to conducting ethical and responsible business, based on principles of environmental preservation and professionalism. www.Earthzone.com

This post was initially published on Source and Resource. To read more, please visit the original post at Recycled pencils: Making news out of news.

“Increasing the purchase and use of biobased products is a priority of the Obama Administration because it helps increase our nation’s energy security and independence by using American agricultural products, while spurring economic development in rural areas,” said Vilsack. “Consumers want to make more informed product choice decisions and BioPreferred will help them. This label will help consumers, businesses and Federal government purchasers easily identify biobased products.”

According to the press release, bio-based products “are composed wholly or significantly of biological ingredients – renewable plant, animal, marine or forestry materials.” The USDA has already identified over 15,000 eligible products across nearly 200 categories that vary from cleaning products to construction materials.

The USDA currently has a searchable BioPreferred catalogue on their website, which includes building materials, construction and road maintenance, furniture and furnishings, housewares and cleaning, kitchen and break room supplies, industrial supplies, landscaping and agriculture, office supplies, shipping and packaging, personal care and toiletries, and the great outdoors.

The BioPreferred consumer label is an extension of a part of the 2002 Farm Bill which encouraged the purchase of bio-based products within the federal government. The 2008 Farm Bill went a step further and advocated for the expansion of the program into other areas of the economy.

The USDA is currently taking comments about the BioPreferred label until September 29, 2009.

This post was initially published on Source and Resource. To read more, please visit the original post at USDA Proposes Bio-Based Label for Consumer Products.

Many other wineries employ innovative practices to reduce their footprint; however, Monte Vibiano is taking this to a whole new level by using all the basic sustainability methods as well as IT integration, applying new technologies to revolutionize age-old techniques of wine production.

Some of the implemented strategies have been to use new Microsoft software to reduce their servers to half of what was used before as well as cutting the energy needed to run those servers by almost 40%.  They made similar progress by adjusting their travel needs.  Instead of traveling long distances to meet with clients and arrange tastings, they are holding more of their meetings online, thus cutting travel expenditures by $30,000 and showing how simple changes in strategy lead to huge economic and environmental improvement.

These adjustments are only the beginning.   Solar electricity systems will eventually provide all the energy for the winery as well as their wheat and olive oil production facilities, and they even employ simple methods like painting storage facilities white to reflect sun away from the Earth, planting 10,000 trees to soak up CO2, and using golf carts and electric bikes to zip around the premises.  Tractors, meanwhile, run on biofuels, which they say they never use from food-source crops.  It seems there is nothing this innovative winery has not thought of or decided to leave to chance

Plans for the near future are even more impressive.  Monte Vibiano is planning to use up-to-date analytics and data collection with an intricate network of  crop sensors  to ensure the most quality end products with least amount of effort.  They presume by tracking everything they can figure out exactly where they need to adjust.   Radio frequency ID tags provide data on their olive trees, monitoring everything from natural variables to the effect humans have on production.  They will  monitor every variable to find the absolute greatest efficiency in production by eliminating any kind of waste possible.

Monte Vibiano predict their efforts will cut 10 tons of CO2 emissions and lead to vast savings in company expenditures starting in 5 years when the investment pays off.  As a serious business, environmental improvements don’t make sense if the figures don’t work.  The best part about news like this is when organizations like Monte Vibiano blaze the path others in the industry soon follow suit, especially when it makes economic sense.

And consumers can rest assured responsible business practices and new revolutionary techniques will ensure they do not have to give up this cherished luxury any time soon.

This post was initially published on Source and Resource. To read more, please visit the original post at Monte Vibiano: Producing Luxury Italian Wine with a Conscience.

Bamboo-based products have vast business potentional. Bamboo is a great green solution for organizations striving to adopt greener technologies but struggling from restricted funds. The growth pattern of a bamboo ensures bamboo will remain cheap to produce, needing little or no pesticides and minimal water supply. This isn’t to mention its environmental benefits, using up more carbon dioxide than any other contemporary vegetation of comparable size. These features make it one of the most environmentally-beneficial materials introduced in the last decade. Further, it is a demand-compliant raw material that can be manipulated for nearly every conceivable use. For example, Method, a cleaning-products company in San Francisco uses bamboo for its packaging and industrial cleaning needs. The bamboo company, Totally Bamboo, alone produces 300 different types of bamboo-based products to meet the rising demand.

Bamboo Laptop

However, despite praises for its sustainable aspects, the conventional bamboo harvesting and procurement methods aren’t the most sustainable. There is a growing fear that the surging demand pattern may eventually damage bamboo production beyond redemption. Analysts believe that there is a highly misplaced notion among bamboo growers that just because it grows quickly and is more resilient than conventional crops, its harvesting doesn’t need to be regulated.

Just consider this — The United Nations has stated that nearly half among the 1,200 known varieties of bamboo are already extinct or are on the verge of being eradicated.

Major suppliers like Totally Bamboo depend upon sourcing bamboo from China but are taking care not to indulge in over-harvesting. This should be regarded as a smart business decision, since there are already predictions of a bamboo shortage by 2011-12. The anticipated demand is already pushing-up the price of bamboo products beyond anticipation and if this disturbing trend continues, its appeal as a green substitute for businesses may quickly lose its shine.

Among the many solutions discussed for ensuring the availability of bamboo over a sustained period of time, cultivating it within the US has received a lot of support. Bamboo providers like Totally Bamboo have already begun exploring this opportunity. Various parts of the country like Florida, Texas, Maryland and Missouri have been recommended for being gradually converted into the bamboo belt of America. Certain indigenous American varieties like Florida Bamboo have already found a lot of domestic demand. These areas have traditionally been used for growing cotton and are regarded as most suitable for growing the varieties of bamboo that are being imported from China.

A more enterprising initiative has been taken by BooShoot Gardens based in Mount Vernon, Washington. This innovative laboratory presents a radically-different solution for replenishing the production of bamboo. As a part of its agroforestry initiative, it is growing various varieties of bamboo through the tissue culture technology for being planted across the US.

This post was initially published on Source and Resource. To read more, please visit the original post at Bamboo’s infinite potential . . . well, maybe..

An alliance of the worldwide plastic industry, consisting of leading trade associations, has been forged to ensure that they are able to alter the common perception that the plastic industry is environmentally-insensitive. This significant development has come about in the form of ‘The Plastics 2020 Challenge’ organized by PlasticsEurope, the British Plastics Federation and the Packaging & Films Association. The Challenge would represent the innovative and eco-friendly efforts of about 5,000 plastic companies.

As part of this campaign, the concerned entities would try to incorporate the use of lightweight plastics along with developing new ways in which plastic products can be recycled without any substantial carbon emissions. This essentially means that the brands registered under this forum would seek more cooperation from the government agencies involved in developing greener technologies, particularly those concerned with recycling. One of the objectives would be to develop affordable waste-to-energy technologies when recycling does not seem like an economically-feasible option.

Plastics 2020: The Outline

The forum has emphasized that they want to double the recycling rate for plastic packaging and other products by 2020. This will be combined with an effort to limit the volume of plastic wastes being dumped in landfills.

Challenge 2020 endorses an easy-to-understand tag line for educating people about its efforts. This is being promoted as the ‘Four Rs’:

•    Reduce — restricting plastic wastage by phasing-out plastic products that don’t present a recycling option. This means a commitment towards introducing high-performance plastic materials.
•    Reuse — gradually increase the use of thinner and low-emission plastics for packaging and constructional purposes. These plastics are as reusable as conventional plastics but have a lesser impact on the environment.
•    Recycle — seeking support from industrial conglomerates and government agencies for increasing the efficiency with which used plastics are transformed into safe, affordable products. This includes creating sustainable international markets that would endorse this new range of refurbished plastics.

•    Recover — creating a safer and more sustainable method for eliminating plastic products that cannot be safely recycled. This means researching new waste disposal techniques for end-of-life plastics.

Plastic Use & Contemporary Business Practices: Understanding the Predicament

If you consider the relevancy of the Plastics 2020 Challenge, it would seem that it couldn’t have been timed any better. Although there is a great emphasis upon adopting greener business practices across the globe, there is lot of confusion regarding its feasibility and method of adoption. For example, among the latest plastic-centered green building technologies is the Translucent Roofing System that is used for controlling the amount of natural light entering the living spaces and it is recyclable.

There is also a gradual shift towards using an innovative plastic-based, nano-porous insulation material. However, apart from a handful of such examples there is a serious dearth of adopting greener plastics into the modern business segment, particularly in creating sustainable homes.

The Problem — The general perception is that plastics have an extremely negative environmental impact and their use should be avoided. However, plastics produced from a single polymer with negligible additives can be easily recycled and have appreciably low carbon emissions. A notable example is the construction industry that presents a confusing picture wherein PVC, polybutylene, polypropylene and polyethylene are being used with varying interpretations about their environmental impact.

The notion that PVC shouldn’t be used for houses based on the green construction platform was severely challenged in 2007 by the US Green Building Council. According to this organization’s report, though much-maligned, PVC was not as environmentally-challenging in comparison to some of the ‘supposedly’ greener materials preached for being used in roofings, pipes, sheet floorings, window frames and claddings.

As a result, there is a great debate over the environmental footprints of PVC. Now, polyethylene, polybutylene and polypropylene are being increasingly substituted for PVC-based constructional products since they don’t contain harmful chemicals chlorine. Yes, these plastics are more environmentally compatible than PVC but their production is heavily dependent of fossil fuels. There are many other plastic options besides these three that haven’t been explored, or more critically, they haven’t been presented in an adoptable format.

Plastics 2020: A Step In The Right Direction

If the above-illustrated example of using plastics for creating greener and more sustainable homes is continued with, the Challenge 2020 will educate its members about various mediums to help businesses understand Sustainable Construction. This would include issues such as decoding carbon footprints of PVC windows, plastic water pipes and use of plastic foam insulation. Resource efficiency of a building is still a grey area for most businesses. For example, plastics foams are cost effective and environmentally friendly and expanded polystyrene insulation helps to conserve energy within an establishment. Similarly, the new-age version of plastics pipes has a lesser ecological impact than concrete and iron pipes and being extremely lightweight, they help to save on transport costs.

This is how the utility of the Plastics 2020 forum will come to the fore — educating businesses about various kinds of plastics that can be incorporated for affordably, adopting greener technologies.

This post was initially published on Source and Resource. To read more, please visit the original post at Plastics unite to increase sustainable practices (and improve their image).