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Paper Products that are Better, Cheaper and Greener
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by admin.
Marcal Small Steps paper towels are not only made entirely from recycled paper. They sell for less — in some instances quite a bit less — than paper towels made mostly from trees by the industry giants.
Here’s how the consumer’s choices look, measured from cheapest to most expensive, in terms of dollars per 100 paper towels:
• Marcal $1.64
• Bounty (Procter & Gamble) $1.79
• Giant (store brand) $1.85
• Brawny (Georgia-Pacific) 2.04, on sale
• Viva (Kimberly-Clark) $2.17
This is, of course, not the way things usually work. Solar power costs more than electricity made from coal. Organic food is pricier than conventional. You pay more for Starbucks’ coffee than you do for Dunkin’ Donuts. Partly that’s because the price consumers pay for conventional fare doesn’t reflect the full cost of the product. (See, for example, Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food, Bryan Walsh’s recent Time magazine cover story, about the hidden costs of industrial agriculture.)
marcal products
To say that I “discovered” Marcal isn’t precisely true. After I covered Greenpeace’s recent agreement with forest-products giants Kimberly-Clark, a PR woman asked me to look at the company. So I got on the phone with Tim Spring, Marcal’s CEO, who told me a little about Marcal and its history.
“This company was committed to saving trees for two decades before Greenpeace bought its first boat,” Spring said.
It turns out that Marcal, a 77-year-old maker of paper towels, napkins, toilet tissue and other consumer goods, has been using recycled stock since the 1950s. Based in suburban Elmwood Park, New Jersey, its paper-making factory employs about 900 people and draws much of its stock from those blue plastic recycling bins under office desks in Manhattan skyscrapers about 20 miles away.
Read entire article on GreenBiz.com
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18 Visions Design attends Ribbon Cutting
Posted on 26. Aug, 2009 by admin.
The monthly Green Drinks of Frederick was recently the launch site of www.choosegreenexpo.com. This exciting new website is a component of the Choose Green EXPO which will be held on October 17 & 18 at Frederick Community College. The website is a new venue available which will help people make informed choices that are environmentally responsible and promote a sustainable future. Produced by the Frederick County Builders Association the Choose Green EXPO will bring together local companies and organizations with a business principle that compliment the purpose of the sustainability movement. Citizens are encouraged to ‘bookmark’ the website for information on all things ‘green’ as vendors and speakers line up for the EXPO. For more information contact the FCBA at 301-663-3599.
Pictured in the ribbon cutting: (l-r) Toni Mullen – Monument Foam, Jason Feaga – 18 Visions Design, Tim Jones – Glory Energy Solutions, Denise Jacoby – Frederick Builders Association.
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U.S. Colleges Set a Green Course
Posted on 24. Aug, 2009 by admin.
It’s the time of year when college students return to campuses across the United States. As the 2009-2010 year dawns upon them, many students will find their schools taking action to reduce their environmental impact. In fact, the trend of colleges and universities going green is growing at an incredible pace. In the second annual Princeton Review’s Green College ratings, there was a 30 percent increase in participating schools.
Last week, President Bill Clinton was in Chicago speaking to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, a group of 250 university presidents and senior leadership looking to reduce the environmental impacts on their campuses and prepare students for green jobs. Clinton urged the group to speed up their efforts. “All this work is out there laying on the ground, begging to be done with absolutely certain rate of return,” Clinton told the university executives.
Many schools are pushing forward at a fast pace. Students returning to Arizona State University will find a major project under way to retrofit interior and exterior lighting. The six-month project will improve the lighting quality across the campus to reduce energy demand. This is not a small project either: The school is retrofitting 10,214 lighting fixtures on the 300-acre campus. The effort is expected to save more than 1 GigaWatt-hour (1 million kilowatt-hours), resulting in savings of over $100,000 annually.
Read entire article at GreenBiz.com
