Watch for CynerGreen’s debut on QVC in August 2009!  We’ll be selling three of our special edition bottles. 

Don’t miss this one time opportunity to own your set of 3 beautiful red, blue and green eco-safe water bottles.

WED, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action

http://www.unep.org/wed/2009/english/

The Plastiki Expedition

In Summer 2009, David de Rothschild and a crew of experts, scientists and creatives will sail 12,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney in a boat made out of plastic bottles and recycled waste products. This epic voyage is named The Plastiki taking inspiration from Thor Heyerdal’s 1947 expedition The Kontiki.

http://www.adventureecology.com/theplastiki/main.html#/menu/aboutplastiki/

The you tube is kinda fun in it’s retro-ness

Thanks to Vicki Dabrowka for this post – CG Kidz Contributor!!

Frankfurt, Germany, 28th May 2009 – An impressive shortlist of entries was reduced to one Gold and one Silver winner after “a great deal of debate” according to judges of this year’s prestigious IMEX Green Meetings Award.

Eventual winner, the US Green Building Council (USGBC), was presented with the Gold Award at the IMEX Gala Dinner last night by Chairman, Ray Bloom. The Award was made in recognition of an outstandingly “green” event – the Greenbuild Convention held in Boston in 2008. This is the second time that the Council has accepted this honour, having previously triumphed in 2006.

On accepting the Award, Kimberly Lewis, Vice President of Conferences and Events said, “The IMEX Green Meetings Award provided us with a platform to tell our story and to encourage the conference and events industry to move further towards sustainable practices. The Council is honored and humbled to be recognised by IMEX for our 2008 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.”

The IMEX Green Meetings Award is presented in partnership with the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC). The Award sets stringent standards and judges applicants against their ability to demonstrate innovative efforts to significantly minimise the environmental impact of a meeting or conference. A judging panel, which consists of senior industry experts, examines a variety of success measures. They include energy efficiency, air and water quality, water conservation, waste minimisation and environmental purchasing criteria. Judges also ask applicants to explain their economic indicators, if and how their meeting helped commitment to change within the local community, and also how it aided conservation.

In the case of the US Green Building Council, the organisation demonstrated a deep understanding of both how to track and measure environmental targets and also how to enthuse and motivate new suppliers to support its event ambitions.

“The US Green Building Council (USGBC) has two major accomplishments to celebrate as a result of their 2008 Greenbuild Conference and Expo. The first is the level of participation on the part of the suppliers in Boston. Together they were an excellent example of how a committed organisation like USGBC can use its buying power to influence change by enrolling its suppliers. You don’t have to be green in the first place to win this kind of business. You just have to be committed to change – and to start. The second accomplishment is that USGBC is the first North American organisation to have their entire meeting management department BS 8901 certified. Great job!” explained Amy Spatrisano of MeetGreen (formerly Meeting Strategies Worldwide) and President of GMIC.

This year’s Silver Green Meetings Award 2009 was given to the Oracle OpenWorld Conference 2008 in San Francisco. Judges were once again impressed by the high standards that Oracle set itself across the whole enterprise and its long-term commitment to improving sustainability within its global meeting division.

Oracle OpenWorld is an annual trade show with 40,000 participants. The event uses five separate meeting venues and a total of 85 hotels. In the judges’ view, the company achieved some impressive energy savings, especially regarding power consumption. Of the 2,300 computers in use over the five days of the conference, 90% were “EnergyStar” enabled laptops. All desktop monitors were also shut off at close of business. Oracle also used 37.5% less paper than the year before by reducing on-demand printing consumption. In addition, the company worked closely with local AV suppliers and reduced its shipping volumes by half compared to the year before.

On collecting the award Christiane Schluter, Marketing Director Western Continental Europe Technology, Oracle said, “Oracle is committed to developing practices and products that help the environment. One of the key ways we can do this is by running sustainable meetings and events. Oracle OpenWorld is our signature event that we run annually and we have committed to running this large event in as sustainable and eco-friendly a manner as possible, and to be recognized for doing so.

We are honored to be recognised by IMEX for the work we are doing, and our goal is to continue to work to receive attention by taking an active leadership role in the corporate community and challenging others to run their events and meetings sustainably to contribute to the solutions necessary to combat global warming and environmental degradation.”

Others on the final shortlist and worthy of a special mention were: Disney, MPI EMEC (European Meetings and Events Conference), MPI WEC (World Education Conference), the Steigenberger Hotel Berlin and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

- ENDS

OAKLAND, Calif. — Plastic bag manufacturers working with the American Chemistry Council have set a goal to increase the recycled content of plastic bags to 40 percent by 2015.

The Full Circle Recycling Initiative, developed by the Progressive Bag Affiliates of the American Chemistry Council, would require a $50 million investment from industry members to increase the collection of bags and update manufacturing processes.

The Initiative also aims to have 25 percent of that 40 percent content come from postconsumer recycled plastic. To achieve the two goals, plastic bag makers would need to use 470 million pounds of recycled plastic (300 million pounds of which is postconsumer) annually, the equivalent of 36 billion bags.

In 2007, the latest year there are figures available for plastic bag recycling, 830 million pounds of plastic bags and plastic wrap were recycled.

Progressive Bag Affiliates plans to work with grocery and retail stores to increase in-store plastic bag drop-off programs for customers to use. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) runs PlasticBagRecycling.org, which lists locations that have collection bins for plastic bags, plastic wrap from items like paper towels, newspaper bags, dry cleaning bags and other #2 and #4 plastic bags and wrapping. Plastic bags are overwhelmingly not accepted through curbside recycling programs or at drop-off centers.

While the ACC tries to increase recycling of bags, many companies like IKEA and Whole Foods have eliminated their use entirely, and various cities in the U.S. and other countries have set or proposed bans or fees for using plastic bags.
Thanks to www.greenbiz.com