It Takes 90 Years To Grow A Box Of Kleenex

Greenpeace USA sent us an email to let us know about their new spoof Kleenex site, called Kleercut they have set up. I didn’t realise but the largest stretch of ancient forest in North America is being clearcut for disposable paper products.

For those outside of the USA who might not know how big Kleenex is in the USA, it’s used instead of the word tissue by people I know, as in “Pass me a Kleenex”.

Their website states that “Did you know that it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex? That’s right, every time you use a Kleenex tissue, you are blowing away ancient forests. And every time you use Scott or Cottonelle toilet paper, you’re flushing old growth trees down the toilet. That’s because Kimberly Clark, maker of these products, all but refuses to use recycled paper in its products.”

In 2004 Kimberly-Clark used 3.3 million tons of virgin (tree) fiber. If you want to get involved, check out their website and their Forest-Friendly Schools Toolkit.

[Update: Please check the comments below for some interesting discussion and what virgin tree fiber is]

Do You Have Indoor Landscaping?

A few companies now offer a service known as “indoor landscaping”, that is the art of creating living green walls indoors. Germany’s indoorlandscaping create the Grüne Wand, a green wall that adds a welcome green element to sterile office environments and improves air quality while taking up less floor space than potted vegetation does.

Sweden’s Green Fortune, launched by two Swedish entrepreneurs, has already amassed an impressive list of international clients, placing their Plantwalls in offices, stores, restaurants and even car dealerships.

Likewise, French artist Patrick Blank’s meticulously sculpted Vertical Gardens have transformed ordinary walls in Paris and elsewhere into works of foliage art.

[Via: Springwise]

Marbled Iceberg

A beautiful picture of a striped iceberg. Apparently the stripes are marine ice that were originally crevasses in the iceberg that filled with seawater and was then frozen.

A closer picture and interesting discussion is posted on at A Fish Blog.

[Picture via and Copyright of A Fish Blog]

Starbucks’s Grounds For Your Garden Program

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, by 2010 worldwide coffee drinkers will drink almost 7 million tonnes of it every year. This means a heck of a lot of spent grounds to dispose of somewhere. Rather than throw the nitrogen-rich material (and acid-rich!) - coffee grounds have a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1 - into landfills, global chain Starbucks has found a greener solution by giving it away to consumers with gardens.

Starbucks’s Grounds for Your Garden program actually began as a grassroots initiative back in 1995. After growing steadily for almost a decade, it was officially launched in 2003, offering up free spent coffee grounds to North American customers year-round on a first come, first serve basis. Grounds are packaged in reused coffee bags and sealed with simple directions for using them in the garden or compost pile, where they can help improve soil quality.

“Coffee grounds are a valuable source of nutrition for the garden,” explains Ben Packard, director of environmental affairs for Starbucks. “Reusing coffee grounds in the garden is a great alternative to disposing this rich resource from our stores. It’s a win for gardeners and a win for Starbucks.”

[Via: Springwise]

Picking Up What Your Dog Left Behind

California based Skooperbox apparently spent a couple of years trying to find a green way of dealing with dog mess.

Skooperboxes are small, pop-open boxes made from 100 percent recycled materials. Complete with lid and a scraper, each Skooperbox apparently makes it quick and tidy to clean up your dog’s mess. The boxes are available in two sizes (not sure if one is big enough for a horse though - if not they should think of that….) and are completely biodegradable in a “few days” (more realistically less than a month, but much much quicker than plastic bags!).

You can watch a video of it in action, fortunately the dog has already finished (unlike some other videos I found on YouTube whilst searching for this…):

Skooperbox’s founders explain: “We at Skooperbox are ordinary pet owners who were dissatisfied with the choices available to us to clean our pet waste. We also knew plenty of good people who did not pick up because of lack of a good product. Picking up the warm squishy mess is gross enough, but when the bag breaks or if you find a hole in the bag while you’re picking up, it can really ruin your walk.”

We’d be happy to hear your experiences of using it, or any other suggestions you have.

[Partly via: Springwise]

iChapters Plant A Tree Drive

iChapters is company that sells print and digital textbooks, eBooks and eChapters at a discount. They’re currently running a campaign that will plant a tree for every digital eBook and eChapter purchase through their non-profit planting partner PasoPacifico.org with the Non-Profit Organization ChangingThePresent.org providing the drive accounting and donation processing without charging any handling nor management fee. This offer ends February 15th. For simply writing this review they planted a tree for me so that was nice :).

Their press release states: “In times when environmental issues are a growing concern, and people are looking for simple yet proactive ways to help make a difference, iChapters.com…. announced a month long green campaign aimed at emphasizing conservation, supporting reforestation efforts and reducing the company’s environmental impact by planting trees for every eChapter or eBook purchased through their website…”. Which is a great aim in my opinion!

At the time of writing over 35,000 trees have been planted so it’s obviously going well. They have a facebook page that you can join if you’re so inclined, and will soon have some facebook competitions.

Using the iChapters Website

I had actually never heard of iChapters (perhaps because it’s aimed at school-age students), but I found it easy to use. You can search by title, author, topic or ISBN like you would expect. I browsed the catalog and ran a few searches, there certainly is a lot of topics, apparently they have over 15,000 print, digital and audio tools, as well as online homework solutions such as CNOW, WebCT, and OWL.

I would have liked to be able to sort the results more by name, type, or price as sometimes it took a while to find something I wanted. eChapters start at $1.99, eBooks at $5.99 and text books any price you can think of! Digital downloads are secured with Digital Rights Management (DRM) and while that is only to be expected it’s always a little bit of a pain to begin with.

If you’re buying a textbook or study aid anyway (firstly consider a second hand one if you can!), or eBook then if the price is similar there’s no reason not to buy it from a company that is trying to be environmentally conscious like iChapters.

Free Endangered Species Ringtones

The Center for Biological Diversity is celebrating the 100,000th free download from its endangered species ringtone site, www.rareearthtones.org.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a science-based nonprofit organization that works to protect endangered species and wild places throughout the world. The Center has more than 40,000 members and ten offices throughout the U.S., with headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. Their rareearthtones.org website allows users to listen to wildlife ringtones, send them directly to their phones with a simple click as well as download photos, cell phone wallpapers and facts for each of the featured wildlife species. The ringtones are free while the site’s new look and straightforward navigation make it easier to download the roars, trills, and squawks of some of the world’s most endangered species. Users can also take action to save imperiled species worldwide.

“Our endangered species ringtones have become a great way for people to personalize their cell phones and make a statement about the importance of protecting imperiled wildlife,” said Peter Galvin, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The site features free ringtones of seventy rare and endangered animals from around the world, including the polar bear, blue-throated macaw, northern goshawk, California red-legged frog, and American pika with the killer whale and Mexican gray wolf as the two most popular tones to date. The ringtones have even gained worldwide appeal in 150 countries with the U.S. ranking number one in total ringtone downloads; Iran second; Italy third; Canada fourth; Great Britain fifth; India sixth; Brazil seventh; Australia eighth; and China ninth.

I haven’t yet done it myself (I haven’t got around to getting a mobile/cell phone since my move to the US) but let us know if you use Rare Earth Tones.

Next Page »