Vertography » biodegradable

BioBags

john — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:00:23 +0000

BioBag makes a range of bio-degradable, compostable plastic bags from corn. Bags that you can use for your kitchen waste, cleaning up after your pets or even storing your vegetables in the fridge since they breathe without leaking.

Supermarket Bags
If you own a store that uses plastic shopping bags, why not switch to BioBag shopping bags? You’ll be able to do something good for the environment, without needing to persuade your customers to change their habits! If you work for a store, try suggesting to your employer that they switch to these greener bags.

Composting System
In addition to making compostable bags, BioBags also has a solution to help make composting your organic kitchen waste a little easier, and odour free.

[Via The Daily Green]

Gift Card Recycling

john — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:00:46 +0000

Plenty Magazine answers the question about how to recycle plastic store gift cards once they’re used. Before answering that question though, let’s have a look at what the cards are made of.

A few companies are using cards made of a corn-based material called Mirel, from Metabolix. These cards are actually biodegradable, so when they’re all used up just throw them in your green composting bin! Major retailers using this include Target, REI, Borders and Wal*Mart. Hopefully others will join this list and use bio-degradable plastics (it would be nice to see banks doing the same with their cards too).

Unfortunately, most of the plastic cards out there are made of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) a toxic chemical that is not usually accepted in your recycling bin. They’re pretty small though, so throwing them in the garbage can’t cause much harm can it? Well, you’re right, individually each card is pretty small, but there’s a lot of them out there. Each year 75 million pounds of PVC finds its way into US landfills. That’s a lot of PVC, so read on after the jump to find out what you can do to avoid adding to that mountain of toxic waste.

Recycling Options
While your local municipal recycler may not accept PVC cards in their collection bins, there is a company out there that takes PVC cards (including bank cards, driving licenses etc) and will grind them up and recycle them into new sheets of PVC ready to be used to make new cards. That company is Earthworks System.

They really want banks and stores to send them the used cards in bulk, but they will also accept cards mailed in by individuals. If you’d like to mail your cards in to be recycled, simply put them in an envelope and mail them here:

Earthworks System, LLC
33200 Bainbridge Road, Suite E
Solon, OH 44139

You might also like to suggest that your local stores collect them and mail them in as well rather than just throwing them into the trash can under the cashier’s desk.

[Via Yahoo! Green]

Biodegradable Race Car: Eco 1

john — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:00:37 +0000

Warwick Manufacturing Group, based at Warwick University in the UK, has produced an environmentally friendly racing car called Eco 1. Originally designed to achieve a top speed of 125mph, the car now achieves speeds of over 150mph. And it gets there fast with a 0-60mph acceleration time of under 4 seconds.

What Makes it Green?
The team working on the car has the goal of making the car 95% biodegradable or recyclable. The steel chassis is very easily recycled. The body shell is made from hemp, something Lotus is using on their Eco Elise too. The tyres are made from potatoes and the brake pads from cashew nut shells. The engine runs on bio-fuel and uses bio-lubricants.

That’s not bad at all for a small, fun racing car.