trees

Tubeless Toilet Paper

- Adam Clare

Nobody really thinks that much about toilet paper and I think that needs to change. Kimberly Clark took five years to respond to Greenpeace’s campaign to get the company to kill fewer trees.

Today Kimberly Clark they have done one more green thing and this time with no needed push from environmental organizations. In order to save trees and money Kimberly Clark has announced the tubeless toilet paper roll.

The 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced annually in the USA account for 160 million pounds of trash, according to Kimberly-Clark estimates, and could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. That’s from here to the moon and back — twice. Most consumers toss, rather than recycle, used tubes, says Doug Daniels, brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. “We found a way to bring innovation to a category as mature as bath tissue,” he says.

He won’t disclose the tubeless technology used but says it’s a special winding process. A similar process is used on tissue the company sells to businesses but not to consumers.

Behind the marketing push is a growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products.

One environmentalist applauds the move. “It’s a positive example of how companies are seeking creative ways to reduce environmental impact,” says Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But more relevant than nixing the tubes would be more recycled content in its paper, Hoover says. While Scott Naturals normally has 40% recycled content, this test product does not — but future versions will, Daniels says.

Read more about toilet paper here.

Using Trees To Provide Clean Water.

- Dan Harrison

It turns out that trees can do more than just provide power! The Moringa tree, which grows in Africa, India, South East Asia, and Central and South America, is drought resistant and capable of producing cooking and lighting oil, soil fertilizer, and nutritious food.  In addition, it has be recently publicized that the seeds can reduce the bacteria count in previously untreated water by 90.00 – 99.99%! Although the process can be quite involved, it still has the potential to allow people to have unrestrained access to clean water.

Read a bit more at Gizmag.com, or read the entire article as published in Current Protocols in Microbiology.

Fake Plastic Trees

- Adam Clare

I wonder if these fake plastic trees will look like the real thing. Researchers are advocating the use of fake trees that absorbs CO2 and turns the gas into something useful. I wonder if these fakes can be what we need all the time near highways and airports.

The “tree” uses plastic leaves that capture the carbon dioxide in a chamber. The carbon dioxide is then compressed into liquid form. The tree captures the carbon without the need for direct sunlight, which means that, unlike traditional trees, the synthetic trees can be stored in enclosed places such as barns, used anywhere, and transported from one site to another regardless of conditions.
Lackner says the captured CO2 could be used to create fuel for jet engines and cars, the two most common carbon emitters. In other cases, the CO2 could be used to enhance current production of vegetable produce.

I wonder if you’ll need a fake plastic watering can for these trees. I know that doing that would wear me out; if only I could be who the trees wanted.

The only reason I posted this is because when I read the article I couldn’t get this song out of my mind:

Love Trees

- Adam Clare

Mike sent in a note letting us know that the campers at Camp Wenonah are planting trees to make the world a little better. The trees were donated from the business Love Trees which aims to, obviously, plant more trees.

From Mike:

Each camper, POLARIS, and WCIT is planting a tree at Camp this Period thanks to donations from LoveTrees. Neat little idea – they donated 2000 trees to the Canadian Camping Association

More on Love Trees:

Love Trees is a business built on giving.

  • giving kids a Wish Tree as an educational tool to as many children as we can;
  • giving businesses and individuals a chance to help kids and the planet by purchasing tree planting certificates;
  • giving the planet more trees;
  • giving environmental charities a portion of every sale

    • .

Love Trees manages a powerful and unique educational tree planting program. We sell Wish Tree Certificates to clients worldwide. Love Trees then donates and distributes tree seedlings to schools and kid’s organizations in North America and Africa so kids can have a Wish Tree to plant and make a wish for the planet. It’s a great way to learn about the environment – and help make the world a better place!

Peru Planting Trees Like Crazy

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Peru has a great program that is designed to combat climate change – they’re planting 512,820 tress per day on average.

Peru’s Ministry of Agriculture has decided to single handedly attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change using a nation-wide tree planting project.

The campaign began on 13th December, and aims to have 40 million trees planted by 20th February.

Forty million trees in three months. That’s the same as 512,820 trees per day. Which is a lot of tree planting.

A workforce of 130,000 people, in fact, with each person planting an average 4.5 trees per day.

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