Eco Products, Environmentally Responsible, Green Products

Look around you. Unless you’re reading this on a laptop in a tent high in the mountains (lucky you), you can probably find the Underwriter Laboratories’ UL symbol on a nearby electrical product. That ubiquitous little logo conveys to consumers that the product they’re about to plug into a wall socket meets its safety standards. [...]

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“Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees / Give a home to the fleas in my hair…” So go the lyrics for the title track of the 1967 musical Hair. But a Florida company called Smart Grow has slightly different plans for human hair: rather than letting it fly in [...]

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So many coffee lovers have switched to single portion delivery devices produced by a variety of brands, including Tassimo, Flavia and Green Mountain. The coffee taste is always fresh, perfectly brewed and one doesn’t waste extra coffee left from brewing a full pot. The single dose cartridge is a composite of aluminum, plastic and coffee. [...]

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The familiar sight of plastic chip bags littering the ground could soon be a thing of the past if companies follow multigrain chip brand SunChips’ lead. SunChips rolled out a serious Earth Day initiative earlier this month–compostable chip bags. No, really. The bag will crumble in the dirt after only 14 weeks. The new SunChip [...]

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Earth Day happens for the 40th time today. And some aren’t too pleased with how big, commercial, and opportunist it’s gotten. That it’s become like going to church on Easter, a once a year empty gesture without lasting ramifications or lifestyle changing. But then along comes a company like Energy Circle, who are doing something [...]

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TerraCycle is launching its new reality TV show, Garbage Moguls. Tune in on Earth Day to see the TerraCycle team upcycle trash into new products!

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Demand for “green” products continues to grow strongly despite analysts’ predictions to the contrary, according to B2B e-commerce provider Alibaba.com.

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I’m pleased to tell you that I’ll be representing 3P at this year’s Greener by Design conference, May 19th-20th in San Francisco. The conference is being put together by our friends at Greener World Media. Greening the design process is an important challenge for the sustainability movement – and a critical piece of any business [...]

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Are things like Tetrapaks and Dannon/Stonyfield yogurt recyclable today? Yes and no. Here’s why: There are a few recycling centers that accept Tetrapaks and yogurt cups, but they are the exception. Most recycling centers do not except these materials, and those that do are so few and far between that only a small percentage of [...]

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Though I did do an April Fool’s story about Terracycle’s merging with Scotts Miracle Gro that got several alarmed phone calls/emails there, I promise this interview with their CEO and book author Tom Szaky is genuine. Enjoy. —- It’s not often that the author of a book tells you he wants more people tearing off [...]

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Next month, Sears will begin selling men’s suits made of fabric that is derived, in part, from plastic soda bottles. An Isreali contract clothing manufacturer, Bagir Group Ltd., is making the garments for Sears’ private label Covington Perfect brand. The fabric, dubbed Ecopet, contains recycled PET plastic blended with wool, viscose and cotton or with [...]

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Quench, bottleless water cooler,

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Flowers show people that you care about them, but in doing so we show neglect for wider environmental and social issues related to the cut flower industry. Giving Plants, an online plant delivery service, offers customers the chance to give a long-lasting gift to loved ones in a more sustainable and socially responsible way. The [...]

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By Rebecca Greenberg It has happened to all of us: during college, your cousin gave you his second-hand armoire, which you gratefully accepted because you were broke and didn’t care about how your place looked. But now you’ve grown up, you’re making a little money and you want to put a stylish spin on your [...]

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As more companies are making a case for profits with more sustainable product offerings, who is rising to the forefront? And should we be applauding those going beyond compliance, while at the same time be concerned with their motives? Have you heard? In a heavily circulated press release last fall, research done by TDG showed [...]

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In an effort to reduce water pollution, the state of Washington initiated a ban on dishwasher detergents containing phosphates. Spokane County was the first to implement the ban last year. Now while Washington isn’t the only state to implement such a ban (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, Vermont, Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York have either [...]

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Responding to a downturn in the once multi-billion dollar industry, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced yesterday the release of a breakthrough medication that is rumored to revolutionize the fledgling drug industry. STAINAX, the new miracle drug–as its being touted by some industry insiders–is an attempt by one of the largest players in the drug industry [...]

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If I offered you a “green” cell phone for sale, what would you expect? Would you expect it to be made with recyclable or biodegradable thermoplastics? Would you expect it to come with a minimum of toxic heavy metals, or low-strength radio waves? What about the programs on it – would you expect the phone [...]

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Rice. It’s a staple crop for much of the world. And it uses a lot of water and pesticides to grow it. Not good in a world where water is likely to become an increasingly scarce resource. One supposed solution are proprietary high yield breeds, but that requires repeated purchase from the same company, say, [...]

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When you think about a luxury eco-lodge, you probably envision a majestic cabin nestled in a pristine forest, or a thatch-roof cabana on a white-sand beach. What you probably don’t envision is an abandoned oil rig that has been recycled into an offshore hotel. But that’s just the idea for which Morris Architects received the [...]

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Bamboo is often held up as this sustainable wonder plant, able to grow quickly, not require pesticides, and absorb a heap of CO2 as it grows – 4 times as much as hardwood trees, while putting out 35% more oxygen. But there’s a problem: It’s gotten so popular that the stock is getting depleted faster [...]

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The Natural Products Expo in Anaheim showcases the newest and most innovative products in natural, organic and healthy living.

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With so much alarming information about harmful ingredients in consumer products – from bisphenol A (BPA) in plastics to Salmonella in peanut butter – a trip to the grocery store has become an anxiety-producing event. To calm our nerves and sell more product, many makers of consumer packaged goods label their products “green.” But what’s [...]

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My book, Revolution in a Bottle, hit the streets this week. It is a quick read that is meant to flow more like a novel, less like a business book. It follows the story of TerraCycle from our beginnings in my dorm room, shoveling maggot filled organic waste to creating products we sold to Wal-Mart [...]

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Solar power. It’s talked about by many, it’s seen on many consumer goods, but as of yet, it’s not seen on many roofs. Not without substantial government subsidies. It’s often difficult and time consuming to install, requiring a team of professionals and reams of paperwork. It doesn’t have to be that way. Veranda Solar is [...]

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Household cleaning is turning more and more into an arena where product choice is an environmental decision. The Clorox Green Works product range is one of the largest and most affordable in the natural cleaning market, but is it a genuinely “environmental” product range or has it been greenwashed? If it is the real deal, [...]

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The eBay Green Team started over a pizza pie. In 2007, 40 eBay employees got together, driven by a common goal – to make environmental and green issues a priority within the company. Fast forward two years and over 1,000 employees across 18 different countries are currently part of the Green Team. And yesterday marked [...]

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When I first heard about earthcycle, recent competitor for “Most promising investment opportunity” at last week’s Clean Tech Forum I was initially impressed. Their flagship products are produce packaging made from palm fiber, the remainders of palm fruit harvesting, which would otherwise be burnt. But after mentioning it on Twitter, I was quickly reminded that [...]

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SAP aims to cut its CO2 and GHG emissions 51% by 2020, part of a broad-based sustainability initiative that includes direct and indirect emissions and extends out to customers and supply chain partners.

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Whither Lunchables, that epitome of excessive packaging (and poor health), if the ethos behind Unpackaged, a northeast London grocery store, catches on? Maybe consumers will find that all those plastic containers jammed into Lunchables make handy carriers for their quinoa and honey. Unpackaged is a store that opened in late 2007 and has garnered lots [...]

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