Earth Hour is coming – are you ready?

It started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia.  Over 2 million homes and businesses turned off their lights for one hour.

By 2008, it had become an international event with over 50 million people in 35 countries taking part.  The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Coca Cola sign in Times Square became dark for one hour.

Earth Hour 2009 is a call to all the people of the world to turn off their lights for one hour.

Earth Hour 2009 is Saturday, March 28, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

www.Earthhour.org  or  www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CRs-7lRlPo

Thanks to Vicki Dabrowka for this great info about Earth Hour.

In an effort to protect our children from toxic chemicals, the Environmental Protection Agency will announce a way to test whether industrial air pollutants around schools is harmful to our children’s health. The EPA’s new administrator Lisa Jackson, has made it her mission to test 50- 100 schools where pollution might pose a health risk in industrial areas. The agency will also work with state and local regulators to monitor for a variety of toxic chemicals in the air.

Children are much more susceptible to toxic chemicals, because they breathe more air in proportion to their weight than adults, and their bodies are still developing. An increase in health issues such as breathing disorders or asthma are results of chemical exposure, as well as an increased potential for cancer years down the road.

The USA Today has been investigating this issue and released a report in December that showed toxic levels at over 435 schools. They have since teamed with Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland to test air samples near 95 schools in 30 states. At 64 of the locations they tested, they found elevated levels of chemicals.

We have long since been aware of the toxic environment inside many schools that have increased the potential for processing disorders, learning diabilities, or breathing issues. Now we need to focus on cleaning both inside air pollution and outside.

Yesterday, the EPA announced it will follow through with its plan to measure air quality around schools in urban areas. The action was largely inspired by the USA Today’s “Toxic Air and America’s School” project. In a statement, Lisa Jackson says:
“I’m a mother first, and like all parents, I want to be sure my children are breathing healthy air at school. Questions have been raised about air quality around some U.S. schools, and those questions merit investigation. EPA will work quickly to make assessments and take swift action where necessary. Our job is to protect the American public where they live, work and play — and that certainly includes protecting schoolchildren where they learn.”

Let’s hope she can move this along!

Little Rock, AR (February 27, 2009) CynerGreen, a leading supplier of eco-friendly stainless steel water bottles has been chosen as a finalist and nominated for a Counselor Magazine 2009 Product Design Award. Counselor Magazine, published by the Advertising Specialties Institute, enlists product nominations from its 26,000 distributor and supplier members. Each may nominate as many products they deem the best designed, in 12 categories. In 2008 there were over 1000 votes cast for the winners.

CynerGreen’s “Elegance” sport bottle with its unique curvy shape was chosen as a finalist this year. The bottle is a 600ml, 20 ounce BPA free bottle, made from 304, stainless steel. The message behind the bottle is to reduce the use of plastic water bottles which continue to plague landfills, creating an insurmountable mound of waste. It takes one plastic water bottle 700 years to decompose in a landfill. CynerGreen paves the way to a greener, healthier lifestyle by offering its line of versatile, colorful, eco-conscious water bottles for kids and adults.

To determine Product Design Award finalists, a panel of Counselor editors reviews each product submission. CynerGreen is a finalist in the Elegance in Drinkware category. The finalists are voted on with winners announced in the coming months. Voting began on February 23 and ends March 13, 2009. To vote, ASI members may visit www.asicentral.com, under Counselor Magazine.

Winners receive recognition in a future edition of Counselor Magazine and on the ASI website www.asicentral.com as well as at an awards ceremony later in 2009.

CynerGreen, LLC
A pioneering company based in Little Rock, Arkansas that develops, markets, sells eco-friendly, reusable, stainless steel water bottles to the hospitality industry and consumer markets. Founded by business partners and husband-and-wife team Joe and Danelle Hoffer in 2007, CynerGreen (www.cynergreen.com) is a unit sales leader in the stainless steel bottle category with customers including Microsoft, Staples, Marriott, American Express Publishing, and Terra Hotels and Resorts.

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties. Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 22,000 ASI distributor firms. Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers. ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools. Visit www.asicentral.com.

For additional information on CynerGreen’s products and programs, visit www.cynergreen.com.