Ecopreneurist

Starting a Mobile Sustainable Food Vendor Business

Scott Cooney — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:40:46 +0000

Economic downturns have historically been times in which there are more startup businesses than usual. This particular recession is a great time to start a green business. One easy place to start, for someone without a great deal of startup capital or knowledge base, would be to start a mobile food vendor business.

Sometimes the bain of parents who learn that their kids are spending their lunch money on junk food from mobile food vendors, the business concept is a simple one to go green with.

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Become a PV Solar Retailer / Installer

Leah Edwards — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:30:20 +0000

As I mentioned in my Intersolar post earlier this week, attending the Intersolar conference and tradeshow is a good opportunity to experience the growth and employment potential of the PV (photovoltaic) solar industry. Specifically, I was looking for tips to pass on to Ecopreneurist readers, and I found that this show (and possibly others) is/are a great way to get free information about starting a solar business.

On the last day of the show (yesterday), Jeff Spies, Director of Training & Tradeshows of AEE Solar gave a half-day workshop called “Launch and Grow Your Solar Business”. Free to attendees of the Intersolar exhibits, the workshop covered everything from the qualifications needed to become a solar dealer to common configurations of residential and small commercial solar power installations to business strategies. And, if you would have signed up before early June, registration to the exhibit portion of the show would have been free (and after that point it was $100).

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Six Companies That Help Make Recycling Easier

Jennifer Kaplan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:31:22 +0000

In some respects, waste is immeasurable—it touches every aspect of your business, from the scrap paper that fills your waste bins to the fuel you use for business travel.

And while we know that that aiming for zero waste is a fast, cheap and effective strategy for combating climate change, its not always easy to do. You can’t find the resources, it involves trips here and there, its expensive. There are all sorts of obstacles. However, these six companies (some are actually non-profit organizations and government agencies) make recycling easy.

1. Earth911.org is an excellent site with good recycling information. Their recycling search tool makes it easy to locate waste collectors and drop-off sites. It covers resources for paper, metal, hazardous waste, plastic, glass, electronics, automotive, household, garden, and construction waste. Two of my favorite resources are: 1) a great list of manufacturer and retail take-back e-waste programs and 2) an awesome free widget for your website that can not only give your customers access to the world’s largest database of over 100,000 recycling locations, but can pre-populate recyclable materials search to fit your readers. For example, a blog focused on car care can auto-populate the widget to search for locations that accept used motor oil or car batteries.

2. LampRecycling.com is a new online resource for facilities that need a simple and cost-effective way to recycle their fluorescent bulbs, CFLs, batteries, ballasts, and electronic waste. These guys make it super easy to recycle. You can order recycling containers for multiple types of waste and return them via pre-paid FedEx. Once the waste has been received for recycling, a recurring order is triggered and a new EasyPak container is shipped out automatically. You can view recycling reports that give totals of all waste you have recycled and every time waste is recycled with EasyPak, you are issued a certificate of recycling that verifies your recycling efforts and details exactly how much waste was recycled.

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First Bamboo Fiber Golf Towel

John Simonetta — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:24:13 +0000

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Here is a short video from the 2009 Proforma Convention in Denver. This is Pro Towels Etc’s new bamboo fiber golf towel, which they say is the first bamboo fiber golf towel introduced to the promotional items market.

Why towels? As a promotional item they have a number of advantages over shirts and caps, the items they seem to compete with the most. According to Pro Towels the advantages are:

For Recognition - Make a huge impact with a 25″ x 50″ logo on a beach towel. Largest imprint area amongst most other promotional products.
For Durability - Machine washable for endless use. When was the last time you threw a towel away?
For Leisure - Towels are used when doing fun things such as swimming, boating, golfing, etc.
For Value - Superior value for price.
For Style - Towels never go out of style.

For the Ecopreneurist organic cotton and bamboo towels are a great match for many summer time marketing activities like boating events, golfing events, spa weekends, etc., and they really do provide a large imprintable message area at a low cost.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

If you are in the business the ASI contact to talk is Dana Zezzo at Pro Towels Etc. If you are interested in these items to promote your own business contact your local promotional items vendor or email info@proformagreen.com for information and pricing.

Tri Panda, Sample of Bamboo Paper Stock

John Simonetta — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:28:13 +0000

In this short video Craig from Independent Printing shows off their new bamboo blend print stock. This was taken at the Proforma 2009 convention so I did get a chance to touch and feel this paper. You cannot tell that this is a bamboo blend. It looks and feels and acts like “paper” and seems suitable for any print job.

Another thing to mention about Independent Printing is that their offices and press are now powered by renewable resources. Indeed they have created their own symbol to denote their products are printed with clean energy which they can add to any project coming out of their shop.

Really, when talking about green printing using green resources I think Independent Printing is quickly taking the lead position in our industry. Any custom or standard job, any size, they have the Ecopreneurist covered.

You can read a lot more about Independent Printing’s commitment to eco-friendly printing on their website.

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Endangered Species Wildlife Images Organic Caps

John Simonetta — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:10:31 +0000

For those Ecopreneurists working in the great outdoors Dri-Duck Work Wear and Performance apparel has launched a line of Endangered Species Wildlife organic cotton hats available from Bodek and Rhodes among other apparel distributors.

These caps are the one size fits all variety and come in four pre-embroidered endangered species styles in specialty colors. Chestnut Brown for the Eastern Cougar, Sawdust for the Grey Wolf, Ink for the Grizzly Bear, Fatigue for the Peregrine Falcon, and Stone for the Polar Bear.

All hats are 100% Certified Organic Cotton chino twill, with a structured finish, 6-panel design and adjustable Velcro strap closure. As you can see in these images the pre-embroidery is very highly detailed. (Please select thumbnail for Hi-Res image).

There is no mention on the Bodek and Rhodes site or the Dri-Duck site as to whether any of the purchase costs of these caps goes towards funding for wildlife restoration, etc. That would have been a nice touch.

These caps should be a slam dunk for businesses, hotels and gift shops catering to outdoor enthusiasts. Also for ecopreneurists in the travel and tourism business that are working to educate the public on these animals.

The pre-embroidered image really gives you a lot more design prowess than a standard cap, and with an EQP of $12.94 with up to 7,000 stitches of custom embroidery, the cost on this unit is very reasonable.

To learn more about these units Marc Seiler is the ASI contact to talk to at Bodek & Rhodes. If you are interested in these items to promote your own business contact your local promotional items vendor or email info@proformagreen.com for information and pricing.

Remanufactured Ink And Toner Makes Good, Green $ense

Jennifer Kaplan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:44:08 +0000

Consumer Alert: There are three things you need to know about remanufactured ink and toner cartridges:

They are not inferior in quality to new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products. (In fact, in 1997, the US EPA stated that remanufactured products are “as good as new.”)
Using a remanufactured or any cartridge other than that of the OEM will not in fact void the printer equipment warranty. (Not that manufacturers didn’t try. They did but the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 specifically states that a warranty may not be voided because of the use of aftermarket products.)
Buying them will typically save you money and selling spent cartridges will typically make you money.

(This information comes courtesy of Ecogreenoffice.com whose primer about the truth about remanufactered print cartridges contains lots of additional information.)

There are two sides to greening your ink and toner purchases: The Buy and the Sell.

The Sell. The act of selling ink and toner cartridges is one of the easiest ways to make money and be green at the same time. On the revenue side, cartridges are valuable (some are worth as much as $22). If cash isn’t what your looking for, retailers such Office Max, Office Depot and Staples have rewards programs that give up to $3 in store credit for each eligible cartridge and have drop boxes in stores. (Office Max also has a postage-paid shipping program for those who recycle high volumes of cartridges—up to 300 a month). In any event, selling spent cartridges is easy and sometimes even lucrative.

The Buy. Want to know the impact of all those cartridges you’re using? The folks at SB Office Supplies, an online office supply retailer with an extensive green catalog, have a nifty Remanufactured Cartridge Savings Calculator that tells how much oil is saved and how many cartridges stay out of land fills when you buy remanufactured cartridges.

Convinced? They are basically two routes to go.

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Aakron Stadium Cups Go Green

John Simonetta — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:09:39 +0000

The Aakron Line is now offering 50 products made from Aakron’s SAFE Plastic® including their very popular 12oz and 17oz Stadium Cups.

Aakron’s SAFE Plastic® contains an additive that makes their manufactured plastic products biodegradable, while petrochemical plastics would normally take from 100 to over 500 years to “biodegrade”. Rates of degrading varying based on conditions, thickness of plastic, etc.

Three points from the Aakron SAFE Plastic® flyer;

Plastics manufactured with these additives will fully biodegrade in home compost heaps, commercial composting operations (both high heat and low heat, vermiculture, process), buried in the ground, buried in landfills, tilled into the soil, having been littered, etc.
Aakron certifies the biodegradation of polyolefins (any of the polyethylenes and polypropylenes) and EVAs, manufactured with at least a 1% load of these additives. This is based on more than 8 years of testing worldwide by the manufacturer, universities, customers, prospects, and competitors. Independent laboratories and scientists have also performed tests on these additives.
Plastic products manufactured with these additives will have the same life expectancy as the same plastic products manufactured without these additives under all conditions except under conditions where the product is in constant contact with other material that is biodegrading. For example, a shampoo bottle or motor oil bottle manufactured with these additives will last in the warehouse and on the store shelf as long as it would without these additives.

In addition the cups are top shelf dishwasher safe and have a life expectancy as long as traditional stadium cups. Bottom line is that these cups will go away eventually in landfills, faster in commercial composting operations, while traditional plastic cups will not. Also at an EQP of $0.46 at 5,000 units for a standard 12oz Stadium Mug, items made from Aakron’s SAFE Plastic® are competitively priced to traditional cups.

Any ecopreneurist targeting the summer crowds or sporting events should certainly consider these stadium cups. Any event that currently is using traditional stadium cups should certainly think of switching to Aakron’s SAFE Plastic® units.

If you wish to learn more about the full line of Aakron SAFE Plastic® items visit their website. If you are interested in these items to promote your own business contact your local promotional items vendor or email info@proformagreen.com for information and pricing.

Just The Facts II

John Simonetta — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:09:10 +0000

As I wrote about in Just The Facts Please, the use of facts in marketing, especially when talking about green issues, is very powerful. Facts that can be supported by a clear and trusted source are often the best way to educate and win over clients.

This is an idea that Jeff Kiec, LEED-AP, Principal at Urban Sustainable Solutions has seen work time and again in the real world. Urban Sustainable Solutions assists companies in developing processes that help reduce their costs and their impact on the environment. Over the course of his time in this business Jeff noticed he was collecting a lot of facts about how different actions and materials impact the environment and the bottom line.

Well Jeff started to write them down.

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The BigFoot of Climate Change

Maryanne Conlin (mcmilker) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:25:10 +0000

This is another in our series of environmentally focused cartoons we are featuring from Seppo Leinonen a cartoonist from Finland. I met Seppo through Twitter @sepponet and loved his business oriented green cartoons - I think you will too!