Read the full story at News.com.
- 8 monthsHigh price and a strange color. No, we’re not talking about a hairdo. Those are the two factors that have kept light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, from becoming a mainstream light source.
But that might change soon, said Zach Gibler, chief business development officer of Lighting Science Group, which plans to announce distribution deals with major retailers for its LED bulbs that screw into a regular socket.
- 8 monthsGet energy-smart this Earth Day with the Federal Trade Commission’s new publication, EnergyGuidance: Appliance Shopping With the EnergyGuide Label. The publication explains how consumers shopping for appliances can use the yellow EnergyGuide labels – recently revised so they are easier to use – to help them compare the energy use of different models. It even includes a sample label consumers can peruse before they shop.
- 8 monthsGet energy-smart this Earth Day with the Federal Trade Commission’s new publication, EnergyGuidance: Appliance Shopping With the EnergyGuide Label. The publication explains how consumers shopping for appliances can use the yellow EnergyGuide labels – recently revised so they are easier to use – to help them compare the energy use of different models. It even includes a sample label consumers can peruse before they shop.
Via Librarians’ Internet Index.
- 8 monthsThis article discusses the question “Are disposable plastic or reusable cloth diapers better for the environment and for the babies themselves?,” noting that “[w]hile many of us might answer with a kneejerk ‘cloth!’, the answer isn’t necessarily that easy.” Discusses studies and cloth diapering. Note: Some of the diaper companies listed are no longer in business, but current listings can be found by searching for “diapers” in the website’s “National Green Pages.” From Co-op America.
Via Librarians’ Internet Index.
- 8 monthsThis article discusses the question “Are disposable plastic or reusable cloth diapers better for the environment and for the babies themselves?,” noting that “[w]hile many of us might answer with a kneejerk ‘cloth!’, the answer isn’t necessarily that easy.” Discusses studies and cloth diapering. Note: Some of the diaper companies listed are no longer in business, but current listings can be found by searching for “diapers” in the website’s “National Green Pages.” From Co-op America.
Via Librarians’ Internet Index.
- 8 months“Replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) is a great way to reduce electrical use … but throwing them away in your regular trash can lead to soil and water pollution because CFLs contain small amounts of mercury.” This site provides a directory of “free, local and convenient ways for California residents to recycle CFLs (and other household wastes such as batteries and electronic devices).” From the California Public Utilities Commission.
URL: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/CEC/electric/080210_cfls.htm
Via Librarians’ Internet Index.
- 8 months“Replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) is a great way to reduce electrical use … but throwing them away in your regular trash can lead to soil and water pollution because CFLs contain small amounts of mercury.” This site provides a directory of “free, local and convenient ways for California residents to recycle CFLs (and other household wastes such as batteries and electronic devices).” From the California Public Utilities Commission.
URL: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/CEC/electric/080210_cfls.htm
A new report by Forum for the Future and Business for Social Responsibility, Eco-Promising: How to Communicate Credibly About Your Products, provides an invaluable how-to guide and examples for companies wanting to make environmental claims about their products and services. The report also reviews the history of eco-promising and highlights the challenges facing companies in communicating their efforts – including the rising possibility of a consumer backlash due to confusion.
- 8 monthsA new report by Forum for the Future and Business for Social Responsibility, Eco-Promising: How to Communicate Credibly About Your Products, provides an invaluable how-to guide and examples for companies wanting to make environmental claims about their products and services. The report also reviews the history of eco-promising and highlights the challenges facing companies in communicating their efforts – including the rising possibility of a consumer backlash due to confusion.
- 8 monthsRead the full story in Water & Wastewater News.
- 8 monthsUnderwriters Laboratories (UL) of Northbrook, Ill., has a new certification program for bottled water that enables consumers to choose brands that have been validated to meet the Food and Drug Administration and International Bottled Water Association requirements for quality and safety.
Read the full story in Water & Wastewater News.
- 8 monthsUnderwriters Laboratories (UL) of Northbrook, Ill., has a new certification program for bottled water that enables consumers to choose brands that have been validated to meet the Food and Drug Administration and International Bottled Water Association requirements for quality and safety.
- 8 monthsAmericans misunderstand key phrases commonly used in environmental marketing and advertising, giving products a greater environmental halo than they deserve and creating a growing risk of backlash. At the same time, with days until a U.S. Federal Trade Commission public hearing on the subject, a majority of Americans support government regulation of such messages.
Read the full story in the New York Times.
- 8 monthsResearchers are looking for new ways to use renewable sources like corn and switchgrass instead of petroleum as the raw ingredient in plastic.
Read the full story in The Guardian.
- 8 monthsSchools struggling to meet carbon footprint targets are about to be offered a shortcut - the chance to dress their pupils in a uniform made entirely from old Coca-Cola bottles.
Britain’s first line in completely recycled polymer jackets and trousers goes on sale next week from an outlet in Yorkshire which previously pioneered the waterproof, odour-resistant blazer.
Read the full story at News.com.
- 9 monthsThe Palo Alto Research Center — the heralded research labs that Xerox spun out as a separate company in 2002 — is examining ways of taking technology and ideas originally devised for copiers and printers into the clean-tech market. The idea, from a conceptual level, is fairly intriguing. A lot of the components and ideas at work inside printers exist to control physical forces and objects in a constantly changing environment. Thus, they should be useful in channeling sunlight or other phenomena on a larger scale.
Read the full story in E The Environmental Magazine.
- 9 monthsLast week the University of Maryland’s Center for Excellence in Service and Technology research firm Rockbridge Associates released the results of a survey showing that Americans are willing to spend as much as $104 billion in 2008 for environmentally friendly consumer products and technologies. But finding the products to satiate surging demand might be the hard part.
Read the full story at Conscious Choice.
- 9 monthsThese days we’re constantly bombarded with media messages touting the latest and greatest eco-saviors. Compact fluorescent light bulbs save the polar bears! Bamboo clothes redefine eco-agriculture and couture fashion! Mineral makeup pretties-up your face and the planet too!
And to be honest, we’re all probably more than a little susceptible to latching onto any new idea that could protect the planet from impending eco-doom. That is, at least until the honeymoon ends and the media backlash begins, undermining our most well-meaning intentions to green up our lives with these products. CFL bulbs contain neurotoxins! Bamboo clothes are carcinogenic! Mineral makeup will give you emphysema!
How do you separate the hope from the hype? Despair not, intrepid econista. Allow us to assist you in sidestepping the spin, wading through the warring headlines, and maybe even tipping a few eco sacred cows. While we can’t promise that what you’ll learn will single-handedly stop global warming, create world peace or even ease rush-hour traffic, at least you’ll know what real green hopes these products provide — and what kinks they still have to work out.
- 9 monthsAs part of the Season 2 kick-off of “The Green” on Sundance Channel, the network has partnered with Barneys New York and the eco-chic fashion brand Loomstate to launch a first of its kind, national T-shirt recycling program. Beginning April 13th, consumers will be encouraged to drop off old t-shirts at all Barneys’ locations nationwide. Loomstate will “re-fashion” the T-shirts (re-style, re-dye, re-print, etc.) to create a new, limited edition T-shirt collection to be sold exclusively at Barneys for Holiday 2008. Participating consumers will receive a 20% discount on women’s Loomstate for Barneys Green and men’s Loomstate merchandise from April 13-27. Proceeds from the program will benefit 1% for the Planet.
Read the full article from the Agricultural Research Service.
- 9 monthsSugar beets supply one-third of the world’s sugar. Each year, America’s $1.27 billion sugar beet industry generates about 40 million tons of pulpmost of which is used as an inexpensive livestock feed or disposed of at cost.
But ARS scientists in Peoria, Illinois, and Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, have teamed up on a project to breathe new economic life into the pulp. Led by ARS chemists Victoria L. Finkenstadt and LinShu Liu, the team has found a way to turn the fiber-rich pulp into a biodegradable filler material that could make polylactic acid (PLA) more cost-competitive with some petroleum-based thermoplastics, like polypropylene and polystyrene.
PLA is considered a promising natural alternative to such plastics because it is biodegradable and has comparable tensile strength and other mechanical properties. But PLA costs more because of the process by which it is obtained from fermented corn sugars.
Use of fillers helps manufacturers cut the cost of the product,” notes Finkenstadt, who is with ARS’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria.
Read the full story in Process Cleaning.
- 9 monthsPerformance of an alternative is not the only selection criterion that needs to be addressed when looking for a new cleaning product. In keeping with the objective of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute’s (TURI) Surface Solutions Laboratory (SSL) to develop and promote environmentally-friendlier, safer alternatives to hazardous solvents, the determination of a product’s overall risk is based on five environmental indicators: volatile organic content, global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, flammability/reactivity and toxicity/carcinogenicity.