Parents of young babies know that giving them a bath is challenging, frustrating and rarely fun.
An amazingly innovative Canadian product called Spa Baby makes it pleasant a pleasant experience all around.
The Spa Baby is a European-style baby bath tub that lets you bathe your baby while it’s sitting up.
It goes back to the idea of bathing them in the kitchen sink, says Brandy Cameron, founder of Spa Baby Tubs, Inc.
After the birth of her baby six years ago, Cameron discovered how difficult it was to give newborns a bath and how much they disliked the process! Searching for a better alternative, she discovered that outside of North America, it was standard to bathe [...]
Spa Baby makes bathing baby a pleasure
Starbucks’ shareholders nix added recycling
At their recent annual shareholder meeting, Starbucks shareholders voted down a measure that would have increased recycling at stores nationwide.
Proposed by one of the shareholders, the failed measure did garner 11 percent approval from the shareholder body.
Similar proposals were put before Coca Cola and PepsiCo. Though each won only 10 percent approval, both companies have since announced major recycling initiatives.
With the Starbucks proposal, the company recommended shareholders vote against the measure, saying it already had a recycling strategy. Their cups already contain 10 percent post-consumer recycled fiber and are also recyclable and compostable in some parts of the country.
That said, many of its stores do not have recycle and compost bins [...]
AT&T goes for green packaging
AT&T announced they plan to make their mobile phones, devices and packaging more eco-friendly.
Instead of utilizing the dreaded plastic clamshell (it’s so difficult to open), the telecommunications company will ship batteries in paper boxes.
The company anticipates a reduction of 30% in plastic packaging and a 60% reduction in paper packaging with their eco efforts.
They also plan to make their cell phones and devices more recyclable.
Sounds good. Wonder when we’ll actually see the new packaging? No word on that.
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Travel-sized necessities go Green
To satisfy consumer demand, manufacturers have created small, travel-size versions of our favorite products. At the same time, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour! It’s an environmental scourge – harmful to wildlife, threatening our oceans and marine life, and scientists believe it will take hundreds of years to degrade.
Los Angeles-based Minimus recently introduced its Eco-Traveler Gift set, packed to the gills with an array of small-sized products. Yet almost everything in this gift box is eco-friendly – either reusable, recyclable, biodegradable or it uses paper made and certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
For more on this super-useful and elegant product, go to http://3.ly/1Yby.
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Southwest Airline “ups” their sustainability quotient
Southwest Airlines, famous for their low fares and offbeat cabin announcements, is going boldly into the green horizon.
They’ve announced the addition of their green plane – a Boeing 737-700 which, they say, achieves a weight savings of of almost five pounds per seat, saving fuel and reducing emissions, and uses recyclable materials.
Some of these eco-friendly elements include:
recyclable floor carpet that can eliminate the total replacement of certain areas
recyclable, durable seat covers
a lighter weight foam fill from Garnier PURtec for seat back covers
a bulkhead product that’s more long lasting than their current leather one
aluminum aisle strips versus the standard plastic ones, which makes them recyclable, more durable and reduces waste
Sounds good [...]
New Leaf Chocolates greens their packaging
Chocolate lovers will be pleased to know that New Leaf Chocolates - maker of premium, artisan and organic chocolates - has shifted to more sustainable packaging.
New Leaf Chocolates has long been involved in environmentally-friendly practices. They are members of 1% for the Planet and emphasize fair trade chocolates.
Their new plant-based GreenPod packaging protects these delectable chocolates from their top 3 threats – heat, odor and humidity. These products are recyclable and biodegradable. They use use a 100% plant-based protective shell and even the tape is kraft paper rather than the standard clear acrylic/.
GreenPod is actually several designs and each package contains instructions for how to take care of those materials when you are done. For large orders or those [...]
Recycling Scotch Tape?
The list of what’s recyclable just keeps growing. And TerraCycle is right in the middle of making that happen.
Seems that TerraCycle has added another “brigade” to their list. Through a partnership with 3M, TerraCycle is accepting Scotch® Clear Tape Dispensers and Cores as a great way to keep them from winding up in landfills.
A small disclaimer here. I have no affiliation with TerraCycle. But if they keep being innovative and making news, I’ll be writing about it.
But I digress.
Like their other brigades, TerraCycle donates $0.02 for each item collected to the charity of your choice. Schools, organizations or individuals can be part of a brigade and you choose what charity to give to.
The program [...]
Recycling old jeans to fuel cars?
The possibilities of what’s recyclable are growing exponentially. Trash into clothing. Plastic into building materials. And now tires into art.
Now the technology exists to take old clothing like bluejeans, create ethanol from it to use for fueling cars and reclaim the cotton for reuse. It would require establishing some sort of national collection program for old clothing and infrastructure for this kind of venture. But imagine this. Instead of throwing out unusable old clothes, turn it in, knowing it will be completely reused!
Check out this fascinating video http://3.ly/fN4.
Would you participate in this kind of “take-back” program if it were in place? And what other kind of things could you see being [...]
Another reason to legalize hemp
There have been a number of stories in the media the past few months about the many uses of marijuana’s cousin, hemp, and their potential for revenue. Yet lawmakers have ignored the positive side of what this has to offer.
Now a hemp-based product in Europe Tradical® Hemcrete®- is trying to make it’s way to the US and its high value warrants serious consideration.
Hemcrete, made by U.K.-based Lhoist Group, is a bio-composite, thermal walling building material made from hemp, lime and water. And this new technology is carbon neutral, making it an ideal substitute for traditional concrete.
Versatile, sustainable, good looking, environmentally-friendly and 100% recyclable, Hemcrete has an amazing array of applications – from roof insulation to wall construction [...]
Aquamantra’s new biodegradable water bottle
Aquamantra Premium Bottled Water has introduced their new 100% biodegradable, recyclable and compostable plastic bottle.
Made by Phoenix-based Enso Bottles LLC ,these new bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate, not made from polylactic acid, and and are being marketed at Whole Foods Market in Tustin, California.
Containing an organic additive developed by Enso that attracts microbial colonization, the bottles will break down within 10 months in landfills through anaerobic or aerobic decomposition. They also will biodegrade in a compostable environment in 250 days.
According to Aquamantra, these T water bottles can be recycled with PET containers.
Though I prefer not buying bottled water at all, this is definitely a step forward and a much better choice than the traditional petroleum-based plastic [...]