Category: Uncategorized

Recognizing the growing interest in increasing recycled content in packaging as a sustainability strategy, GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition has released a report on the opportunities and challenges for using recycled fiber in packaging. Packaging World

Plastic bag manufacturers are battling a growing movement to ban or tax single-use bags, like those employed to carry groceries, by expanding recycling efforts for plastic films…The bans have reduced plastic bag litter in at least some cases, says Anne Bedarf, senior manager with GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a ­non-profit industry working group based in Charlottesville, Virginia. American Recycler

…James Ewell, who directs the chemicals program at GreenBlue, a nonprofit co-founded by William McDonough, FAIA, and chemist Michael Braungart, has been managing the organization’s CleanGredients database for preferable ingredients used in chemical-intensive products. He concludes that all of the available hazard-assessment resources available to specifiers are useful, but at the end of the day, environmental risk-and-benefit evaluations require weighing the results and are therefore judgment calls. Architect Magazine

Store Brands Decisions, in collaboration with GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), today is presenting “Sustainability for Store Brands Packaging. Store Brands Decisions

Have you noticed any of the new package recycling labels? Some manufacturers are voluntarily using the labels in an effort to make recycling easier. One of the biggest problems with the status quo labels is related to plastics — specifically, complaints from consumers and recyclers who say many people don’t understand the chasing arrows resin ID codes. The new Package Recovery Label System was developed for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Plastics News

Starting in June, observant consumers at Costco warehouse stores will notice new recycling labels on the cans, bottles, bags, overwrap and boxes for some 12 Kirkland Signature private-label items…The labels are an ambitious test of the voluntary Packaging Recovery Label System being piloted by a handful of companies this year, with the goal of eventually becoming an industry standard. Supermarket News

Sustainability non-profit GreenBlue has opened membership for its newly formed Forest Products Working Group, which brings together companies that rely on paper, wood, and other forest products to share their knowledge and develop new and sustainable business solutions. Packaging Asia

The materials we use in our society are valuable. Yet in the U.S., we only recover about one third of municipal solid waste annually. Packaging materials represent a large and visible part of this waste stream. How can we capture the value of those materials instead of throwing them away after a single use? Packaging Digest

An excellent documentary film from last summer, Page One: Inside the New York Times, covers topics ranging from the Tribune Company bankruptcy, WikiLeaks, online news business models, and many current subjects impacting the Times and the news industry in general. There are many interesting elements of the film, (including any part with David Carr, the Times media columnist), but what I thought was particularly interesting was when the filmmakers asked the Times journalists and editors where they thought the newspaper industry and credible journalism was headed. In a nutshell, “Where will we get our news and will it be credible?” And though these are extremely well informed people at the Times, there really wasn’t one consistent answer amongst them and most admitted that they simply did not know.
Another interesting question that comes out of the film is related to an unknown future for print media. Industries that rely on print, such as the newspaper industry, are facing decreased demand as readers move online. Therefore, so is the demand for paper in these industry sectors. This does not mean, however, that pressure on the forest will decrease. In fact, there are important questions we are confronted with as a result, such as, “How will transforming industries affect the world’s forests?” and “How do we incorporate intelligent, science-based, sustainability solutions to protect and ensure healthy forests worldwide?”
For example, will a tree farm in South Carolina that supplied wood fiber for newspapers be untouched and standing in a future without demand for its fiber for newspapers? Or, will this forested area be used for another wood product? Cleared for a shopping mall? Maybe used for bio-based energy? Forests face new pressures as the world population increases and their demands for forest-based resources evolve as well. Finding solutions led by principles of sustainability that are relevant to a changing marketplace and a world with more demands on the earth’s forests must play a role.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwTMFXgf95c
For those that are interested, here’s a description of Page One: Inside the New York Times:
Page One: Inside the New York Times deftly gains unprecedented access to The New York Times newsroom and the inner workings of the Media Desk. With the Internet surpassing print as the main news source and newspapers all over the country going bankrupt, PAGE ONE chronicles the transformation of the media industry at its time of greatest turmoil. It gives us an up-close look at the vibrant cross-cubicle debates and collaborations, tenacious jockeying for on-the-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching that produce the “daily miracle” of a great news organization. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of journalists continuing to produce extraordinary work under increasingly difficult circumstances.
At the heart of the film is the burning question on the minds of everyone who cares about a rigorous American press, Times lover or not: what will happen if the fast-moving future of media leaves behind the fact-based, original reporting that helps to define our society?
 
 

Recognizing the limitations of the U.S. waste management system, where only about one-third of all municipal solid waste (MSW) is recovered by recycling or composting, GreenBlue® has released a report that assesses a variety of material recovery systems around the world in order to inform U.S. policies and approaches. Greener Package