Green Options » green innovation

Eco-Libris: Greenbottle - The Green Future of Milk Bottles is Already Here and its Made of Recycled Paper

Raz Godelnik — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:29:43 +0000

This article was originally published on Eco-Libris blog on September 17.

I really love milk, so I was very happy to hear about this new great idea that is coming from the UK: a milk bottle that is made mainly of recycled paper and can be recycled again. In one word: Greenbottle.

Greenbottle (http://www.greenbottle.com) has developed a much greener solution which can replace plastic milk bottles. The outer shell is made from recycled paper which can then be further recycled, or if left it will just decompose within a matter of weeks. The inner liner, which takes up less than 0.5% of the space of a plastic bottle if dumped in a landfill, prevents liquid from contaminating the paper outer.

The GreenBottle, according to their website, consumes about a third of the energy required to make a plastic bottle and has a carbon footprint that is 48% lower than plastic.

The Telegraph reported last month that Asda, the big supermarkets chain, is stocking its Lowestoft store in Suffolk with the Greenbottle after a successful trial in a move that could herald the demise of the plastic bottle. According to the article the supermarket chain hopes to agree a roll-out of the packaging to stores across the east of England, with the potential to take it nationwide further down the line. Sounds like great news to all the UK green milk lovers!

Just to give you an idea what this bottle can save - according to the article, Britons drink around 180 million pints of milk every week, of which around two-thirds is bought in plastic bottles.More than 100,000 tons end up in landfill each year - equal to 260 jumbo jets. They take 500 years to decompose.

One last fact that made me fall in love with Greenbottle - Its inventor, Martin Myerscough, came up with the idea in the pub. You can never be wrong with such ideas of course, later on he worked on it for 18 months before Asda started a ‘concept’ trial last year.

Kudos to Martin and Greenbottle. This is the kind of innovation we need to move the green revolution forward. I hope to see these bottles very soon on the shelves of the supermarkets here in the U.S. (and actually everywhere) as well.

$800 Million Prize for Alternative Energy to Power Africa’s Villages

Sam Aola Ooko — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:14:16 +0000

Watch this space: Africa is fast becoming an important player in cleaner energy sources. If only 0.3% of sunlight falling on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts can potentially provide all of Europe’s energy needs because of its intensity, according to a report, how about everything else?

How much wind blows from Nouakchott to Natal, and how much of this is ever utilized as an alternative energy source? How much water flowing in the Zambezi is used to power villages in Zambia and Zimbabwe; and how much more of the great Nile waters that flow into the Mediterranean can sustainably be harnessed to run corn mills in Nakuru and cotton ginneries in Jinja and Khartoum or fisheries in Cairo?

And now some bold African should emulate John McCain. He may be better known for his tenacity inside the muddle of US politics than for his expertise on the quest for cleaner energy sources. But many surely gaped at the figures he offered for a battery to power America’s engines in the wake of the oil price burst recently.

Recession Proof Your Green Business

mcmilker — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:39:06 +0000

There’s been a lot of talk recently, as the country slides into recession, about the impact this will have on innovation.

Will companies pull back from risky projects? Or will they re-jigger their efforts to support products that thrive in a recession…new or not.

Suddenly, innovation has a bull’s-eye on its back. As the recession debate shifts from “what if” to “how long,” claims a recent article in Business Week on the world’s most innovative companies.

Green entrepreneurs have no choice. Innovation is why they are in business. But, what strategies make the most sense for eco-friendly businesses facing a not-so-friendly economy?