MLB Handout: Ten Things You Can Do to Protect the Earth

This past weekend, while attending Major League Baseball's All Star FanFest celebration in New York City, I was given a gift bag made of 80% post-consumer waste. That alone did not inspire me enough to post something new to the Corporate Essentials, Essentially Green Blog, but something that I found in the bottom of the bag did.

The National Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org) had a pocket-sized insert titled "Ten Things You Can Do to Protect the Earth." This contained 10 simple things that we can do everyday to live a greener life. Instead of me explaining the piece, I'm going to give it to you, word for word:

Ten Things You Can Do to Protect the Earth

There are hundreds of simple steps that you can take today to help curb the most serious threats to our planet's health. By using less energy and wasting less water, we can all contribute to the solution. Here are some easy things you can do at home, at work and in the car that won't change your lifestyle, but will make a big difference in keeping our world healthy and sustainable!

1. Quenching your thirst? Recycle that aluminum can instead of just throwing it away. One recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100-watt light bulb for nearly a whole day. And recycling a glass bottle saves enough energy to run the television for three hours.
2. Finished with dinner? Instead of scrubbing the dishes with a sponge under water, put everything in the dishwasher and run the rinse-and-hold cycle until you're ready to wash a full load. You can save up to 6,500 gallons of water per year this way - not to mention save money on your water bill!
3. Got a spare seat? Carpool to the game and other places. If every car carried just one more passenger on its daily commute, 32 million gallons of gasoline (and the pollution produced by it) would be saved each day.
4. Stopping for gas? Check your tire pressure. If every American kept their tires properly inflated, we could save 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline a year and help curb global warming pollution.
5. Cell phone charging? Unplug chargers for cell phones, cameras and other hand-held products when they aren't charging.
6. Finished surfing the net? Shut off your laptop or desktop computer, monitor and printer when you aren't using them. You can save up to $100 per year in energy costs by shutting off devices you aren't going to be using anyway.
7. Mustard on your shirt? Spot-clean stains on clothing to avoid rewashing. Washing machines are the second largest water hogs in American homes. And when possible, run your cycles with cold or warm water - avoid hot water cycles because they use huge amounts of energy and skyrocket your energy bills!
8. Time for a tune-up? Get regular tune-ups for your car's engine, change the oil, and once again, keep your tires inflated properly. Proper maintenance can increase your fuel efficiency by 10 percent and reduce emissions.
9. Stopping for a snack along the road? Take only one napkin when you order food or beverages, and refuse a bag unless you really need one. If every household replaced just one pack of regular napkins with 100 percent recycled napkins, we could save 1 million trees!
10. Want to make a bigger difference? Visit nrdc.org where you will find all the tools, tips and information you need to make good decisions about how you can help protect your health, your home and the planet!

The Tuesday Ten. 10 Green Facts from Corporate Essentials.

1. Throwing away a single aluminum can instead of recycling it is like pouring out 6 oz. of gasoline on the ground.

2. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.

3. The EPA estimates that 75% of what Americans throw in the trash could be recycled, but just 25% is. If Americans could improve that number to 35% that would reduce emissions as much as taking 36 million cars off the road.

4. Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six weeks.

5. U.S. waste stream, according to EPA estimates.

6. An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

7. There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can can be recycled.

8. Aluminum can manufacturers have been making cans lighter -- in 1972 each pound of aluminum produced 22 cans; today it yields 29 cans.

9. A 60-watt light bulb can be run for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year in the United States, the recycling of steel saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes!

10. If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.

Corporate Essentials Introduces TaterWare Biodegradable Breakroom Products

When you think of how to go green in your office breakroom, I would venture to guess that the first thing that comes to mind isn't that the answer can be found in the potato. Right now, I would feel comfortable saying that you still have no idea where this post is going.

Well, let me elaborate a bit.

At Corporate Essentials, we have spent the better part of a year researching what green products will work best for our customers. And, when it comes to biodegradable plates, cups and cutlery we found only one product line that was acceptable in all categories - TaterWare.

TaterWare is produced by the Oregon-based company Biodegradable Food Service. The TaterWare line features 6-inch and 9-inch biodegradable plates, EarthCup biodegradable hot cups and lids, and biodegradable forks, knives and spoons - all made from potatoes, and all 100% biodegradable.

Check back here later this week for a post from TaterWare President, Kevin Duffy. He will explain a little more about TaterWare as a company, and their relationship with Corporate Essentials.

Clorox Introduces Environmentally Friendly, GreenWorks Line

from treehugger.com

First they acquired Burt's Bees; now, Clorox is throwing its hat into the green cleaning ring with the launch of Green Works, a line of "natural" green cleaners designed to compete with the likes of Seventh Generation and method. Unveiled today, Green Works is the first such effort from a major consumer products company, and there's a pretty interesting story behind it all.

The bottle itself has a couple of things that make what's on the outside almost as compelling as the cleaner inside. First of all, the Sierra Club (whose Conservation Director, Greg Haegele, blogs here at TreeHugger) will endorse the product by placing their logo on the label. "We'll definitely have some folks who are surprised by this decision, but also people who are pretty excited about it," said Sierra Club spokeswoman Orli Cotel. "We are supporting Green Works in hopes that more people will have access to these kinds of products, some of which aren't even available in the middle of the country."

The Sierra Club approved the use of their logo as part of the Green Works brand after it asked several of its volunteer committees to review the cleaners; it's the first time the non-profit has given its blessing to a household cleaning product. "We hope we are transforming the marketplace by doing this," said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. "These products are clean, they're green, they're not going to hurt you, and they're not going to hurt the environment."

This brings us to one of the other eyebrow-raisers: Clorox cheerfully lists the ingredients for Green Works on the label -- something it doesn't do for its conventional cleaners -- and also prominently displays the Clorox logo. They're hoping that the equation of "trusted brand (and the proven efficacy that comes with it) + transparency = success," and Joel Makower thinks it'll be a pretty big deal: "This is a kind of watershed moment. We finally have major consumer companies taking the green marketplace seriously, and not as an afterthought." (He also did some consulting on the project).

As for the products themselves, (which include a general purpose cleaner, window cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, dilutable cleaner and bathroom cleaner): Clorox claims that each one of the five cleaners is at least 99% natural -- that's right, the ubiquitous, unregulated "n" word -- a fact which can be verified with a glance at the ingredients. Here's the list for the all-purpose cleaner: water, alkyl polyglucoside, ethanol SDA-3C, glycerine, lemon essential oil, preservative (Kathon) and colorant (Milliken Liquitint Blue HP dye and Bright Yellow dye X); the last two -- preservative and colorant -- make up the circa 1% of the non-"natural" petroleum-derived portion of the cleaners (though Clorox says Kathon will biodegrade within 28 days). With a few exceptions, like the addition of sodium lauryl sulfate and lauramine oxide, the ingredients for the rest of the cleaners are mostly similar.

Clorox is right: each of those ingredients, aside from the two specifically mentioned, can be "naturally-derived." They say their alkyl polyglucoside comes from coconut oil and their ethanol and glycerine from corn oil; while that's better than using petroleum-derived alternatives, there are still major issues with rainforest habitat destruction relating to harvesting coconut oil and all sorts of issues with corn-based ethanol. So, like many things we mention on TreeHugger, Green Works is better than a conventional alternative, but not perfect.

The launch of Green Works doesn't mean that Clorox has "gone green" -- or any other hackneyed quip that often gets tossed around at such a development -- though it does mean that they've embraced the green marketplace and realized that people care what's in their cleaners. Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender summed it up pretty well: "New competitors will only help this category grow faster than it's been growing. The question is, do you want a big piece of a small pie or a small piece of a big pie? We absolutely want the pie to be as big as possible, even if we have a smaller slice. ... To address problems environmentally, we need to get other businesses involved."

Clorox GreenWorks All-Purpose Cleaner and Window Cleaner are now available from Corporate Essentials, please click here for more information.

Corporate Essentials Releases Essentially Green Catalog

These days, everyone is talking about going green. Everyone wants to be more environmentally and socially responsible, but when it comes to buying 'green' alternatives for products that you use everyday, getting what you want from your suppliers can be very difficult.

At Corporate Essentials, we are taking the lead in offering 'green' products for your breakroom. That's why we are happy to introduce our new Essentially Green product catalog, featuring a wide range of recycled and biodegradable kitchen products, 'green' cleaning supplies, and socially and environmentally responsible office coffee and coffee equipment.

"Our green initiative started more than a year ago," said Corporate Essentials' President, Judson Kleinman. "We decided to get behind the environmentally friendly Wolfgang Puck CafeXpress Brewer, and things really took off from there."

Corporate Essentials is offering a wide range of 'green' products from companies like TaterWare, Emerald, Tork, EarthCup, Mrs. Meyers' Clean Day and Clorox.

"I think when people hear the name Clorox in that group they are a bit taken back by it," added Kleinman. "But the Clorox Green Works line of cleaners is really a great product line, at a price unheard of for a 'green' cleaner."

The Corporate Essentials' Essentially Green Catalog will be available as a printed piece (printed on 100% recycled paper, of course) after March 1st, but is available as PDF download now. Simply click here to download your copy today.

If you're at an office in the New York City Metro Area, and would like more information on Corporate Essentials green initiative please send an email to joes@drinkcoffee.com.