Green Options

Raining Rose - the first in the promotional items industry to offer a USDA certified organic promotional lip balm - is getting ready for the 4th of July celebrations in the US by releasing three new lip balm wraps ready for the addition of your companies logo and contact information.

Tranter Graphics is now offering a solid disposable corn plastic cup designed for hot liquids in 10oz, 12oz and 16oz models. I encourage all ecopreneurists using disposable cups to take a look at these items.

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.

On April 21, 2009 Drinking With Benefits held their latest open house event at the State and Allen Lounge in downtown Dallas.

The goal of Drinking With Benefits is to “develop an awareness and call to action for local communities through businesses that implement the ideals of an eco-friendly community, thereby creating an active ‘go green’ network of lounges, bar and nightclubs”. Part of their education and advocacy outreach is recognition by Drinking With Benefits of those businesses who recycle their waste—in particular glass, which has the most connection to the patrons of these businesses.

As part of their program Drinking With Benefits needs to get their message out by identifying the bars that are members of their organization. Enter the Dakota Burl plaque from Norwood. This plaque is made entirely of sunflower husks and when laser etched really looks very elegant. Each new member of Drinking With Benefits is now presented with a Dakota Burl plaque to place in their establishment to show their participation in the program and to help promote it. That was part of the reason for the April 21st event.

Through a deal with Allen Color Craft the new BPA CamelBak Free Better Bottle, as well as the CamelBak Classic Bottle, CamelBak Chiller and CamelBak Podium Bottle, are now available to the promotional items market.

In the run up to Earth Day bags and water bottle orders seem to become the main topic for the promotional products industry. For our office the bag that we are selling the most of is the Debco NW4300. The reason seems to always come down to cost and imprint size.

Regardless of what goes in the bowl these new biodegradable pet bowls from QuickPoint are sure to be a hit with any Ecopreneurist focusing on our four legged friends.

The new Chubby Eco Gel Pen from Sweda is a great place to start. We all use pens and for most ecopreneurists they are also cheap, easy giveaway item. The thing about the Chubby Eco Gel Pen is it doesn’t “look” green. It looks fun.

What I got was a sample of Kanata’s new blanket made from Repreve, a 100% recycled nylon material. Like the E.C.O fleece items from AshCity, this material feels amazing, like a cross between cotton and wool.

That’s right sports fans, picture waving, crazy crowds of pure adrenaline all going green at once and likely not even knowing about it. Seriously, sport and concert crowds are huge. It is great when mass appeal product like the Bam-Bams can be produced in a more eco-friendly manner.

The new mugs look more like traditional travel mugs however they are still made in the USA using US produced corn. This is a good selling point as the economy slows and - right or wrong - the demand for Made in America promotion products increase.

Raining Rose, Inc. was at the 2009 Dallas ASI show last week showing their line of 66% organic lip balms. They are USDA organic certified and I think these are great products for any Ecopreneurist looking for a different spin on giveaway items.