Adidas’ global strategy includes Better Cotton and a host of other environmental initiatives.

According to Sustainable Business Oregon, Adidas AG  has announced a global strategy to reduce its environmental footprint by 15% by 2015. A big portion of the change will come from utilizing sustainable cotton as part of the Better Cotton Initiative, increasing by 40%  all its cotton consumption by 2015 before going all in by 2018.

Frank Henke, Adidas’ director of social and environmental affairs, told Sustainable Business Oregon in an interview: “We think that supporting this approach helps us to mainstream the sustainability agenda within the global cotton market.”

As a founding member of the BCI, Adidas, as well as other well-known brands including Levi’s, Gap, and Marks And Spencer aim to reduce the usage of pesticides used in traditional cotton farming as well as employ effective means of tending crops with efficient water use, crop rotation and sound working conditions.

Better Cotton is not to be confused with sustainable cotton, fair trade cotton or organic cotton, designations specific to cotton produced without pesticides, genetic modification, or with fair labor involved, yet Better Cotton accounts for 1.3% of global cotton production and includes pieces of each. The main incentive for Adidas to lessen their carbon footprint is to grow cotton in a way that will help alleviate the stress on the local environment and improve the livelihoods and welfare of farming communities.

Other environmental reductions Sustainable Business Oregon highlights include Adidas incorporating a 50 percent reduction in the amount of colors used within the Adidas Sports Performance division by 2015, excluding colors required by clubs outfitted by the brand, A 10 percent to 15 percent drop in energy emissions by product output at core suppliers by 2015, a 20 percent drop in energy consumption, 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions, 20 percent water savings per employee and 25 percent waste reduction per employee by 2015.

The post Adidas + Better Cotton Initiative = Smaller Footprint appeared first on EcoSalon.

War, science denial and Fox News. It’s what’s going on in the world, but it’s not especially merry, merry. If you’re feeling anxious about the eco conversation turning an ugly shade of green at the family Christmas dinner, rest easy. It’s not all doom and gloom. (Besides, there will be plenty of time post-feast to take on Uncle Ulysses on Wikileaks, your sister Sue on why being green doesn’t actually make you a commie, and cousin Clive on the South Atlantic Gyre.)

So, for your dining pleasure, I submit to you three news items everyone can be happy about:

1. Good for flora…

How is this for a dream headline: “Amazon deforestation in dramatic decline, official figures show.”

This is from the Guardian, which reported this summer that data from satellites shows that large areas of forest destruction was about halved in the period between August 2009 and May 2010, compared with the same period a year earlier (to about 930 square miles from about 1860 square miles). The story notes that the Brazilian environment agency, Ibama, said “the drop was due to the increased use of satellite data to spot the felling of trees and new tactics to deter loggers, including ending their ability to hide under cloud cover.” Along these lines, we recently reported here that Google’s announcement this month of its Earth Engine will allow for even more monitoring and measurement of changes in the Earth’s environment. With its eye in the sky, the system will “function like a watchdog camera, supporting the development of ‘monitor, report and verify’ (MRV) efforts to stop global deforestation.” Go, trees!

2. Good for fauna…

Things are looking up for some pretty cool endangered species – you know, the sexy ones that get lots of press and for which even your most “who-cares” relatives have a soft spot. Consider first the mountain gorilla, the number of which in national parks of three African countries has risen by 26 percent in the last seven years, says a recent census. Next, how about those tigers, whose on-the-brink status has led to a recent summit among the 13 nations where the animals still exist in the wild. The takeway was $300 million raised to save the animals (including a cool million from actor Leonardo DiCaprio), as well as agreement to attempt to double their number by 2022. And finally, there’s the canary in our global coalmine – the polar bear – for which The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just designated 87,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska as protected “critical habitat” as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups (although a lump of coal to the Obama administration for declaring polar bears merely “threatened” today).

3. And good for us…

Hooray for the home team on the emissions front. As a result in an increase in United States fuel economy standards, a new EPA report is showing a 14 percent per mile drop in carbon dioxide emissions over the last six years, and a 16 percent drop in gasoline use, with a rise of 3.1 miles per gallon to 22.5. In fact, “C02 emissions have decreased while fuel economy has increased every year since 2005, reversing the trend of the previous eight years.” This doesn’t mean we’re all to breathe easy and lose our discipline on this issue, but good news is good news.

So there. Eat, drink and be environmentally merry. A little more champagne, please! Go ahead and top off the glass.

Special thanks to the Great News Network (GNN) for reminding me that all’s not dire on the environmental front.

Images: Sara&Joachim, Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel, wwarby, ^riza^

The post 3 Green Holiday Dinner Conversation Starters (That Everyone Will Like) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Momentum seems to be mounting toward what may be a sea change in the automobile market – and hopefully the beginning of a fundamental downshift in what we do to the air every time we hit the road. In just the last two weeks, we told you about the Nissan Leaf selling out pre-orders, the Mercedes and BMW jumping into the e-market in the not-too-distant future, new electric highways and other infrastructure plans, and how the announcement of an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on the Chevy Volt is making this whole e-car business finally begin to seem real. Adding to this, yesterday’s latest show-us-the-money puzzle piece in the emerging picture: the 2011 Chevy Volt will start at $41,000.

The Volt is an electric vehicle that can drive 40 miles on batteries before a gasoline engine kicks in to extend its range another 300 miles. The $41K price tag, announced by GM yesterday at the Plug-In 2010 conference in San Jose, CA, includes a $720 destination fee. A $7,500 federal tax credit brings the net purchase price down to $33,500.

As reported by CNET, GM hopes to sell 10,000 cars in the first year and 30,000 more in 2012. The base model will have a number of features, including Bluetooth connectivity, a navigation screen, and five years of GM’s OnStar service. Four premium options are also available, including leather seats and steering wheel, rear camera and parking sensors, polished wheels, and one of three premium paints. If you want to throw down big, the fully loaded Volt will set you back $44,600, or $37,100 after the tax credit. (Some states may also offer credits on top of the Federal deal. California will rebate $5,000 for the Nissan’s all-electric Leaf, but that won’t apply to the Volt.)

The Leaf, by the way, is also due out this year and has an anticipated MSRP of $33,000. While the list price of the Bolt is higher, GM also unveiled a three-year $350-a-month lease, with a $2,500 down payment. Says GreenCarReports, “That’s only a dollar higher than the lease for the 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car, despite the Volt’s much higher purchase price.” GM says it’s doing this based on its strong belief in the car’s residual value.

The first Volts will arrive at Chevrolet dealers in November, first in California, followed by the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, then Washington, D.C., followed by Michigan, and finally Texas.

The post A Fair Charge? Chevy Volt to Start at $41K appeared first on EcoSalon.

I enjoyed going to annual auto shows when I was a kid, checking out the concept cars, getting that special “glimpse of the future.” But there was always this hollow undercurrent as I’d realize just how far away the future really was. It went something like, “Awesome – but it’ll never see the light of day. It’s just too crazy, sexy, cool to ever become real.” I had that same feeling when I saw the first electric car prototypes, my cynicism compounded by the knowledge that Big Oil and the Big Three would be dragging their feet Big Time. I wondered: “What’s it going to take to put Detroit’s back against the wall on this stuff?”

So there was something special about reading late last week that GM had released details on the warranty for the Chevy Volt, its electric-vehicle entry that’s due out in November. Indeed, in recent months there have been ongoing and accelerating signs that the next (first real?) phase of the electric-car era is about to become reality. Right here at EcoSalon, in fact, we’ve written about the Volt’s progress toward hitting the road, Nissan selling out pre-orders for the Leaf, and other car makers jumping into the electric game with both feet.

But this warranty news hits a particular nerve, striking me as something especially real – the sales details/fine print behind these things somehow gives the sense that all systems are go; they’re guaranteed now, ok to buy, ok to drive, ok to use like you would any other product. Maybe it’s that I’m “Old School Detroit,” but where I come from, warranties are a big deal, and this one means that a mass-produced electric GM vehicle is no longer an experiment. (Though, of course, it remains to be seen how the public will take to the $35,000ish car, which still faces some challenges on the electric highways, byways and general infrastructure front.)

The details of the warranty sound an awful lot like warranties for “regular” cars. In fact, they’re a little better: the Volt’s LG Chem lithium-manganese battery will be guaranteed for up to eight years or 100,000 miles, and is transferable to future owners. As reported in the New York Times: “The warranty will cover all 161 battery components – as well as other electric-drive components – and the battery’s liquid thermal management system, which heats or cools the battery while charging in a variety of weather conditions.”

The rest of the warranty looks like this: 100,000 mile/five-year transferable Engine Limited Warranty (for the Range Extender); 100,000 mile/five-year 24/7 Roadside Assistance Program; 100,000 mile/five-year 24/7 Courtesy Transportation Program; 36,000 mile/three-year no-deductible bumper-to-bumper transferable warranty; and 100,000 mile/six-year corrosion protection.

Nissan has yet to announce its coverage plans for the Leaf but, says Autoblog, the automaker is now reaching out to prospective customers (including some of those who made deposits to reserve the right to purchase the all-electric vehicle) to find out what they’re looking for in such a warranty.

The post Making It Real: GM Announces Warranty for Chevy Volt appeared first on EcoSalon.

I liked reading this quote in the New York Times from Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn: “We wanted to do a zero-emission vehicle. I don’t want gasoline in the car, period.” Apparently, neither do a lot of you – Nissan announced last week that it has received 19,000 orders for its 100-percent-electric car, the Leaf, that it will start selling in the United States and Japan at the end of the year. That translates into no new orders, or SOLD OUT.

As Tonic mentioned on EcoSalon last Friday, the Nissan Leaf is scheduled to enter the market around the same time as the Volt, General Motors’ electric entry. But, unlike the Volt, the Leaf has no gasoline engine in it at all. This means it’s limited to a 100-mile range on a single charge. Evidently, this isn’t a problem for at least 19,000 drivers out there who put their money down to reserve one of these potential game changers.

Speaking at a gathering at the Detroit Economic Club, Ghosn said Leaf sales will be limited to certain areas in the United States where infrastructure already exists or is being created to support electric vehicles. (Hello, California!) This way the consumer won’t end up in “a situation where he buys the car and he doesn’t know how to charge it.”

Before you get too fired up about the Leaf, there are some obstacles to keep in mind, says AutoblogGreen’s Sam Abuelsamid. “So far, the orders are comprised of refundable $99 deposits, so it will be interesting to see how sales and orders hold up once people begin getting calls from dealers,” he writes, also noting 2008’s Smart ForTwo, “which also received thousands of orders before deliveries began – and we all know how well that turned out. While the Leaf will undoubtedly be a much more pleasant and practical car to drive than the Smart, it remains to be seen how customers will react once they get used to the real world electric range.”

After initially building the car in Japan, Nissan plans to assemble the Leaf and other electric models at a new plant in Smyrna, Tennessee starting in 2012. The automaker’s goal is to sell a minimum of 500,000 electric cars a year beginning in 2013.

The post They Buy the Auto Electric: Nissan Leaf Is Sold Out for 2010 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Planes, trains and automobiles. Each leaves their own trail of exhaust that represents, in essence, your trail of exhaust when you make a decision to use one of these common methods of getting where you need/want to go. For those of you who are interested in measuring – and managing – that trail, there’s a new iPhone app that can tell you in advance what your CO2 emissions will likely be before you travel, or what your footprint looks like after you’ve arrived.

Available through Apple’s iTunes App Stores, Green Travel Choice is a GPS-based CO2 tracker that uses Pocketweb’s Pocket Life location-based web and mobile platform. A couple of “clicks” on the map (where you are and where you’re going) and the application displays travel options for your route, offering up nine modes of transport and the expected CO2 burn-off you can expect from each one. It then stores the information and your choices, so you can add up your emissions over time and get a summary of what you’ve been up to. Think of it like looking in your own personal carbon mirror. If you don’t like what you see, time to make some life changes. Or at least some new travel plans.

According to Pocketweb, an average person in an industrialized nation emits about 110-145 pounds of CO2 every week for travel. Making better choices about how you “get there” can have a big impact on the environment. If you drive an SUV from, say, New York City to Washington D.C., your carbon footprint amounts to about 240 pounds. Catch the train instead, and you’re down to 46 pounds. How’s that for some fast and simple weight loss?

Green Travel Choice has some solid alliances with environmental groups, as well. When you download the application, you’ll get a $15 voucher to join The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) as a Traveler member.

The post CO2 Go: Making the Right Travel Choices appeared first on EcoSalon.

When I was in elementary school I gave zero thought to what auto emissions were doing to the environment. Not once did I look up at the black spew happily chortling up from my school bus and wonder where it went and what it meant. Maybe it was because I grew up in Detroit where such thoughts fell somewhere between anathema and simply way off radar. Today, of course, kids are different. (Well, some kids.) It’s second nature for them to wonder about such things. And it should be second nature to us to send them the right messages.

So, what about those school buses?

Some good news on this front comes in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus USA program, which is designed to “reduce children’s exposure to diesel exhaust and the amount of air pollution created by diesel school buses.” Clean School Bus USA is one of a number of federal and state programs that are providing grants for school-bus retrofitting and replacement to offer the approximately 24-million American children who take school buses daily a better ride. (That’s a lot of kids breathing in bus stuff for an average hour and half every day.)

The effort is beginning to pay off, most recently in Wisconsin and Ohio where a large Illinois-based school bus manufacturer has been commissioned to build 16 hybrid gasoline-electric buses for use in local school systems. The company, IC Bus, is a subsidiary of Navistar, which makes more than 60 percent of North America’s school buses and is also the recipient of recent $39 million dollar federal grant to manufacture all-electric vehicles. IC Bus is working with Enova (electric drive train) and Valance (electric propulsion) technology to deliver its CE Series hybrid bus, which is offered as a plug-in or a gas-electric without the plug-in option.

IC Bus says the series boasts 65 percent better fuel economy and a reduction of 39 percent emissions compared to the average diesel school bus. This is a big deal, kids. Those school buses cover a lot of ground. Can you say more than four billion miles a year?

Image: Andrei!

The post Busing 2010: School of Hybrid appeared first on EcoSalon.

John Kerry’s climate bill is an important component of legislating to stop climate change, but it’s falling to pieces due to Senate infighting and lack of sponsorship. It’s especially important to pass the bill now with the real possibility of a Republican majority come next election. The bill’s required carbon cap is desperately needed in slowing the rate of emissions.

The Kerry-Lieberman climate bill is out now, and with it comes a fateful decision for the political left in the U.S.

If the left’s institutions and messaging infrastructure succumb to internal squabbling or simple indifference; if the public is not actively won over and fired up; if President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stick their fingers in the wind to see which way it’s blowing … the bill will fail. The default outcome now is failure. Very few people in Washington, D.C., today believe the bill has a chance of passing.

The odds are long, but the bill could be saved if the left — and I mean the whole left, not just environmentalists — pulled together and fought like hell. What’s needed is concrete political pressure. That means tracking who’s for it and against it; relentlessly pressing for commitments; actively organizing in a few key Republican and centrist Democratic states; pressing establishment pundits and media figures to cover it; calling out those who stand in the way of progress; and never, ever letting Obama and Reid have a moment’s peace until they fulfill their promises.

The left hasn’t shown itself particularly capable of that kind of single-minded campaign. And there’s no guarantee it would succeed even if attempted. Without it, the bill’s failure is all but inevitable.

For a complete examination of the bill’s importance, check out the full-length article at Grist.org.

Editor’s note: Article by David Roberts. Originally published by our friends at Grist.org. Grist is a media organization that has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a humorous twist since 1999. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Grist on Twitter, too!

Image: The Sierra Club

The post Leaning Forward: Why the American Power Act is Worth Fighting For appeared first on EcoSalon.

Did you know that regardless of the vehicle you drive, there are ways to drive more efficiently that can yield big savings over the course of a year? This means savings not only in your pocket from the gas spared, but savings on the resources of the planet and less pollution in the place we all live.

As you can see from the graph below, vehicle miles driven have steadily increased over the years. With that growth comes an increasing impact of our driving habits on our planet, which makes now a better time than ever to practice driving more efficiently.

In fact, driving efficiently has even spawned its own sport, called “hypermiling.” With the payout in hypermiling techniques including less consumption and less pollution, it is no wonder that the term was selected in 2008 as the best new word of the year by New Oxford American Dictionary.

While we are not advocating that everyone become a MPG sport competitor, there are things that we all can do to save fuel. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite ways that everyone can test drive to drive greener.

Controlled Accelerations

By accelerating slowly and steadily to our cruising speed, we let the vehicle work more efficiently at becoming an object in motion from an object at rest. If we gun the gas and try to get to speed quickly, then we stand the greater chance of needing to slow down again, losing all of that momentum.

Empty Out The Trunk

An extra 100 pounds in the trunk will reduce your fuel economy by 1 to 2 percent in the typical vehicle. Edmunds

So you’re still carrying around that camping gear from last summer in the trunk, and the golf clubs have taken up permanent residence in the back seat? For each and every extra pound you carry, you pay the price to accelerate it and slow it back down each time you drive. By cutting down on the extra unneeded junk in the trunk, we save all that energy required to drive it around town.

Turn Off The Air Conditioning

It has been suggested that air conditioning in a vehicle can increase fuel consumption by up to 10 percent. This is an easy way to save fuel. And just imagine if you suddenly had 10 percent of all the money you spent in gasoline last year in your hand?

Keep the Vehicle Maintained

It is important that a vehicle gets serviced at regular intervals. Dirty oil is not only bad for your vehicle, but it requires more energy to work an engine through sludge. Also, maintenance can save you from having large repair bills down the road. Not to mention that a non-serviced vehicle may leave you stranded on that road when it suddenly fails. Vehicle maintenance saves money, saves the environment, and could save you from being stuck in the middle of nowheres-ville.

Lose the Clown Shoes

Driving footwear must have a sole thin enough to feel the amount of pedal pressure needed to meet the necessary braking and accelerating. One of the most important tools you have in driving greener is making the connection between your foot and the response of the car. A big shoe with a few inches of padding removes the sensitivity of the foot, making that connection harder to make. Is it any wonder that race car drivers like wearing extremely thin-soled shoes?

Keep the Vehicle Streamlined

A vehicle that moves through the air more efficiently takes less energy to push, and this translates to less fuel consumption. One good way to do this is to keep the windows rolled up. Open windows create drag, and drag cuts fuel economy. The same can be said of sunroofs at highway speeds.

Another way to keep the vehicle streamlined is to remove those roof and bike racks when not in use. Such racks interrupt the flow of air, creating drag. Another thing to consider is that the racks add weight to the vehicle, again costing more in energy to move the vehicle.

Finally, if your vehicle tends to look like it has won the mud bog championships, then give it a bath. An irregular surface from caked mud and dirt can create drag as well. Plus, you will actually know what color the vehicle is instead of just guessing.

Slow down

In a typical family sedan, every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like the price of gasoline going up about 54 cents a gallon. CNN Money

The faster your vehicle moves through the air, the greater drag it creates in the surrounding air. By slowing down, the vehicle encounters less resistance and uses less energy for the same amount of work. A reduction of 20-mph in your regular highway speed can yield measurable savings in a short time.

Coasting To a Stop

When you see a red light or stop sign coming up, then let of the gas and coast to the stop instead of remaining accelerated and hitting the brakes when you get there. By doing so you not only save gas, but your brakes get less of a workout. You save money in both gas and brake replacement, and the planet saves on valuable resources.

Know when to use Cruise Control

Cruise control can be a valuable tool on the highway to maintain a steady speed (and to save from speeding), but it lacks the tools that you have in your head. That is, cruise control does not see the hill looming up ahead. Instead it will coast until you are halfway up the hill and slowing down, then it nails the throttle, demanding that the vehicle speed increases.

By anticipating the hills and valleys you can drive more efficiently by slightly increasing the vehicle speed as required to climb the hill without a major loss of momentum. In areas where the roads tend to be up and down or crowded it makes more sense to turn off the cruise control and drive smarter.

And as you are driving smarter, keep looking ahead to anticipate events that require changes to your vehicle momentum. You might anticipate the need to decelerate in order to coast to a needed stop, and it makes for a safer driving experience.

Choose the Best route

It is interesting to note that the most efficient route to take in your driving may not be the shortest. Basically you want as smooth a trip as possible while being relatively short, and you want to avoid as much stop and go scenarios as you can.

If you are doing multiple chores, then consider driving the longest leg first. This lets a warm vehicle be used for the bulk of the stopping and restarting, which is more efficient at it than a cold one.

Turn It Off

If you are stopped on the road for an extended period of time – such as a train passing, road construction, or an accident – then consider turning the vehicle off after 20 seconds or more. This saves the idle time fuel as well as potentially saves you vehicle from overheating. Plus it stops the emissions from the idling vehicle, which is always nicer for our planet.

Avoid the Drive Thru

A fast food drive thru requires you to waste fuel as you wait in line for the pickup. But parking the vehicle and walking in you save that fuel. Plus, the trip in to eat might be safer than the alternative, even if you were only sneaking a few fries from the bag.

Check Your Air Pressure

Properly inflated tires can reduce fuel consumption by up to 3 percent WikiHow

This a commonly known item to check, but it gets overlooked. A low tire creates more drag on the pavement, and consequently reduces your miles per gallon. By keeping your tires properly inflated your vehicle literally rolls more efficiently. Please do bear in mind that excessive air pressure in tires is dangerous and should be avoided as well.

Make Driving Count

One of the best ways to drive greener is to, simply put, not drive. By combining chores to a single trip it can save greatly on the fuel requirements as well as saving your valuable time. Plus it is less wear and tear on the vehicle itself, and it makes the roads less crowded for everyone. It’s a win-win for everybody.

Make It a Game

Make saving gas a game. Track fuel used or miles driven this week, and see if you can beat it next week. Set goals for yourself along with rewards. You can even involve your friends and have a weekly or monthly Green Driver award. Nobody said that being a smarter driver had to be boring.

By following a few of these tips along with others, you may find you can have both a direct savings for yourself and a healthier planet for everyone. It’s not often where saving money helps in the long run, but that is the great thing about conservation.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by D. Salmons from TestFreaks – a site where you can find gizmos and gadgets like GPS devices.

Image: anee.baba

The post 15 Ways to Drive Greener appeared first on EcoSalon.

Put a cork in it! That’s the old school way of bottling wine, one that benefited our environment in a variety of ways. But synthetic corks and screw tops were introduced so that getting to that yummy grape was more convenient, and to prevent the wine from spoiling. Some three percent to 15 percent of all bottles sealed with corks go bad due to a naturally occurring chemical compound called trichloroanisole (TCA).

To save the billion dollar industry, wineries around the globe transitioned to synthetic corks made form plastic and now, user-friendly screw caps.

In 2004, Corbett Canyon, the largest producer of U.S. wines adopted easy-to-use screw seals, mostly to respond to the perception of cork causing tainting. But the synthetics are not limited to cheapo wines. RH Phillips and Whitehall Lane converted, as well as Washington’s Hogue Cellars. And it’s not just the inexpensive ones. Napa’s PlumpJack Winery sealed half of its 2000 Reserve Cab ($100 a bottle) with plastic caps.

The threat to the cork industry pits the European farmer against U.S. corporations like Dow (the maker of Agent Orange, pesticides and PVC plastics) which heads a plastic cork research and development group called Neocork, that is backed by California wine makers and reported investors like Bill Gates.

Why the environment is getting screwed:

The Trees

No trees are cut down to make the cork for stoppers. Instead, bark is stripped every nine years or so with hand-held axes and grows back to fortify a thriving ecosystem. Cork oak trees can yield material for up to 200 years if stripped of bark to maintain their health. The cork oak forests offer considerable shelter to plant and animal species in the Mediterranean, including endangered Barbara deer, the Imperial Iberian eagle and the Iberian lynx. Working the land provides jobs for some 100,000 people in Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, France and Portugal. The regeneration of the trees is also effective in absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, thereby offsetting greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. The cork industry group APCOR estimates the amount of CO2 emissions soaked up in each summer harvest in Portugal equals the emissions of 185,000 cars.

Emissions and Reuse

Cork has emerged as a popular green material for chic flooring and wall covering, fashion bags, pens and mini boards. It is easy to recycle and re-purpose and inexpensive to produce.  Meantime, synthetic alternatives are difficult to recycle and require much more energy to manufacture. Cork has been widely embraced by green designers and artisans for products that are easy to manufacture and install in our homes. Aluminum screw tops are often tossed out. At one UK site, blog visitors recommended these uses: Cookie cutters for dough, donations to schools for arts and crafts projects, or drill a hole in them for crazy jewelry. In other worlds, the upcycling is slow on the uptake.

Wine preservation versus earth preservation

As Grist so aptly points out, the environmental impact of the plastic screw top has less to do with leaching plastics and dangers to the grape than with “overall manufacturing footprints.” From the health of the trees, to the sustainability of the ecosystem and livelihood of tree farmers, plastic bottle tops are barking up the wrong tree, just as all the plastic conveniences that came before the newest darlings of the beverage industry.

Images: TheBusyBrain, Panda, Atlantawineguy, The Nibble, Corkfloor,

The post Taming of the Screw: Will the Planet Mourn Sustainable Cork? appeared first on EcoSalon.