Green Business Tips: Choose an Eco-Friendly Printing Company

Individuals are increasingly aware of the environmental practices of companies, and those practices can influence buying decisions for your key customers and clients. One of the simplest and economical ways to improve your environmental practices is to use green printing for all your marketing and sales materials.

PSPrint is one printing company that has taken action to offer environmentally-friendly services. Below are some of the benefits they offer with their services:

Printing on Recycled Paper
PsPrint offers 100% recycled paper stocks for most of their printed products. Your business should consider using high-quality recycled papers for everyday office printing and faxing, along with promotion of your services via brochures, business cards, and catalog printing . Show your green efforts to your clients by printing a line on your sales materials – “Printed on 100 percent recycled paper”.

Printing with Soy-Based Inks
PSPrint uses soy-based inks which are much safer for the environment than traditional petroleum-based inks. Soy inks emit fewer VOCs (volatile organic compounds) than traditional inks, and they help save the environment by making paper easier to recycle.

Recycling Paper Waste
Consider the life-cycle of the production of your printed materials, not just the quality of the finished product. PSPrint recycles all of their paper waste, while the printing industry on a whole produces tons of paper waste every year.

At Green Nation Today, we encourage you to go green with your business’s printing. The price will be similar to your current processes, and you’ll have the added benefits of reducing environmental impact and having one more sales point for your environmentally-sound clients.

While Genetically Modified Foods Quietly Proliferate, Disquieting Questions Remain

The promise of the potential benefits of genetic modified (GMO) plants (and animals and even plant/animal hybrids) is indeed tempting. Imagine combining the genes responsible for drought resistence of, say, sagebrush or yucca, with rice or corn. The result could potentially be the utilization of vast tracts of Nevada, for example, for intensive food production that would have been extremely difficult to impossible given the vast periods of time that would be necessary for selective breeding to accomplish the same goal.

An example of a plant-animal hybrid gene is an anti-freeze gene taken from fish that was added to tobacco and potatoes to avoid frost damage. Genetic engineering can also be used to enhance a plant’s resistence to disease, insects, chemical exposures (such as herbicides) and so on.

The most tauted example of a benefit and apparent success of genetically modified food crops is so-called “golden rice,” a rice variant that is genetically altered, through the addition of daffodil and bacterium genes, to contain high amounts of Vitamin A (Wikipedia – Genetically Modified Food). Another particularly tempting benefit has been the genetic engineering of poplar trees to remove heavy metal contamination from polluted soils.

Are Genetically Modified Foods Safe?

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How Green is our “Stuff” Culture?

Have you ever wondered if our culture of “buying stuff” is truly sustainable?  And how did we become a consume-and-dispose society?  I encourage everyone to watch the video at the top of this article, a simple education tool for our youth, yet still eye-opening presentation called “The Story of Stuff”.  Annie Leonard, an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, narrates this 20-minute, quick-hitting look our consumption-first economy. She highlights important social, political, and environmental considerations, and asks thought-provoking questions along the way.

On the consumer front, hopefully more people will start asking deeper questions of themselves and corporations when considering purchases:

• Do I absolutely need this product?
• Where did the raw materials come from, and are they potentially toxic?
• Who assembled the product, and were they paid a fair wage to work in a healthy environment?
• Is this product built to last?
• How and when will I dispose of the product?

For more specific information on products, check out GoodGuide (which is also available as a free iPhone app) and SkinDeep.

Green Mattresses: Eco-Friendly and Healthy to Sleep on

Your mattress: chances are that it contains a slew of toxic chemicals and petroleum-based polyurethane. Whether you have a traditional or memory foam mattress, its impact on the environment is problematic–landfill space is dwindling in many populated states, and petroleum dependency is cause for much political and environmental turmoil.

In an effort to reduce the sleep industry’s footprint, a company called Essentia has patented a 100% natural foam mattress that does not use petroleum-based chemicals. The foam is produced from sustainable plant-based resources (latex and organic plant extracts), is allergen-free and completely biodegradable.  You can check out a comparison of the toxic chemicals and VOCs of mattress types here:  Mattress Components.

The prices and warranties for a green mattresses are similar to traditional memory foam standards, so why not give one a try for the sake of sustainability and good health?

The Greenest (and best) Team in Major League Baseball

The 2008 World Champions of Green?  The Philadelphia Phillies are not only top competitors on the field, but also are leading Major League Baseball toward an eco-friendly future.  The Phillies are the first MLB team to join the EPA’s Green Power Partnership program, which encourages organizations to buy green power to reduce the environmental affects associated with purchased electricity use.

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Paul L. Newman, Organic Food Pioneer and Philanthropist

Paul Newman is a humble philanthropist, Oscar-winning actor, and, to many in my generation, well-know for the tasty salad dressings and pasta sauces we see on grocery shelves.  With his Newman’s Own brand, he helped bring organic food to mainstream America during the past two decades–long before Whole Foods Market and the organics aisle were in vogue.

Mr. Newman started the company with writer A.E. Hotchner in 1982, and since then has grown a highly popular brand with a devoted following.   Read more

Greenwashing: Buyer Beware of Wet Paint

Ahhh, the new age of eco-consciousness.  We now have a massive segment of the consumer population with a hunger for organic food, recycled packaging, energy-efficiency, clean air and water–anything that we think will make a difference.

And there’s a flood of green product marketing following the crowd. Companies continue to launch populist advertising and green product labels that are often, at best, misleading.

So how much of this eco-friendly marketing is simply greenwashing, and how do we recognize it?  Who can we trust to regulate ads, packaging, and the truth?
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