Making fabrics so poison free they're compostable
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Oct 30, 2007 |
 McDonough is working with corporations to make products and materials--from sneakers to tires--safer for the environment. First up: environmentally friendly textiles. He and his partner, German chemist Michael Braungart, 44, have joined with several textile manufacturers to develop fabrics, mainly for carpets and furniture, that can be recycled or composted and are free of potentially harmful chemicals. Don't underestimate the demand for such products: America is full of people who think that landfills are immoral and synthetic dyes will kill you.
McDonough has a "seal of approval" that manufacturers will stamp on their products as a marketing tool.
Convincing the textile industry to embrace the environment would seem akin to asking a dying man to dress nicer. Last year 116 U.S. mills closed, and even firms serving the commercial interior and office furniture market are hurting in the weak economy. They've got other things on their mind. "Environmentally intelligent" textile design accounted for less than 1% of all sales last year. But pioneers in eco-manufacturing argue that when costs are roughly the same--as they sometimes are--buyers will be eager to select the environmentally safe item.
To view the full version of this execellent article
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0415/110_print.htmlLabels: corporate responsibility, environment |
posted by speedquill @ 10:48 PM  |
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Making fabrics so poison free they're compostable pt. 2
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 Indeed, designers and architects say their clients have been pressing them for such products. Says Susan Lyons, an executive vice president of Designtex, a unit of Steelcase: "We're in a crummy business cycle right now, but one area where we haven't seen business drop is with our sustainable initiative [environmentally friendly products]."
McDonough worked with a Designtex supplier, a Swiss mill called Rohner Textil, to help produce Climatex Lifecycle, a recyclable fabric used for commercial upholstery and wall coverings. McDonough first suggested Rohner remove polyester from a fabric that also contained wool and ramie; the polyester thwarted recycling and composting. Rohner reworked the makeup of the fabric to retain durability and texture. Next, McDonough wanted to test the dyestuffs Rohner used to make sure they didn't contain carcinogens, mutagens, toxic chemicals or heavy metals. That required getting the chemical companies producing the dyestuffs to open their books. Sixty chemical companies refused to cooperate, but finally Ciba Specialty Chemicals, then known as Ciba-Geigy, agreed to let its dyestuffs be tested. Of the 1,600 tested, Braungart found only 16 that met his standards for environmental purity. With these, Rohner could make any color but pure black (its chemicals can harm the environment). It took nearly two years, but Rohner was able to come up with Climatex Lifecycle. While synthetic upholstery fabric starts at $15 a yard and averages closer to $30, Climatex runs $40 to $50. But it's competitive with worsted wool. Climatex accounts for a third of Rohner's approximately $8 million in revenues. Okay, the stuff isn't all McDonough cracks it up to be. He told his San Francisco audience Climatex is "the fabric of choice for airlines." So far not a single airline uses it. Rohner Chief Executive Albin Kälin says the fabric has cut his waste processing costs. He no longer has to pay to send trimmings from Climatex to be burned at a Swiss-regulated incinerator. Scraps of the all-natural product are made into a feltlike material and sold to a gardening outfit for use as mulch or ground cover. Thus Rohner's waste has become food for plants. This bears out a McDonough slogan: "Waste equals food." Labels: corporate responsibility, environment |
| posted by speedquill @ 10:46 PM |
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A Box That Saves The Planet As You Drive
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Oct 29, 2007 |
 QUEENSFERRY (Reuters) - The world's richest corporations and finest minds spend billions trying to solve the problem of carbon emissions, but three fishing buddies in North Wales believe they have cracked it.
They have developed a box which they say can be fixed underneath a car in place of the exhaust to trap the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming -- including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide -- and emit mostly water vapor.
The captured gases can be processed to create a biofuel using genetically modified algae.
Dubbed "Greenbox", the technology developed by organic chemist Derek Palmer and engineers Ian Houston and John Jones could, they say, be used for cars, buses, lorries and eventually buildings and heavy industry, including power plants. 
"We've managed to develop a way to successfully capture a majority of the emissions from the dirtiest motor we could find," Palmer, who has consulted for organizations including the World Health Organisation and GlaxoSmithKline, told Reuters.
The three, who stumbled across the idea while experimenting with carbon dioxide to help boost algae growth for fish farming, have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure.
With the backing of their local member of parliament they are now seeking extra risk capital either from government or industry: the only emissions they are not sure their box can handle are those from aviation.Labels: biodiesel, environment, greenbox |
| posted by speedquill @ 8:16 PM |
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A Box That Saves The Planet As You Drive- Capture Rates Pt 2
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 Although the box the men currently use for demonstration is about the size of a bar stool, they say they can build one small enough to replace a car exhaust that will last for a full tank of petrol.
The crucial aspect of the technology is that the carbon dioxide is captured and held in a secure state, said Houston. Other carbon capture technologies are much more cumbersome or energy-intensive, for example using miles of pipeline to transport the gas. "The carbon dioxide, held in its safe, inert state, can be handled, transported and released into a controlled environment with ease and a minimal amount of energy required," Houston said at a demonstration using a diesel-powered generator at a certified UK Ministry of Transportation emissions test centre. More than 130 tests carried out over two years at several testing centers have, the three say, yielded a capture rate between 85 and 95 percent. They showed the box to David Hansen, a Labour MP for Delyn, North Wales, who is now helping them."
Based on the information, there is a clear reduction in emissions," Hansen told Reuters."As a result, I'm facilitating meetings with the appropriate UK government agencies, as we want to ensure that British ownership and manufacturing is maintained."The men are also in contact with car-makers Toyota Motor Corp of Japan and General Motors Corp. of the United States. Houston said they have also received substantial offers from two unnamed Asian companies. Labels: biodiesel, environment, greenbox |
| posted by speedquill @ 8:14 PM |
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A Box That Saves The Planet As You Drive -Secrets Pt 3
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 If the system takes off, drivers with a Greenbox would replace it when they fill up their cars and it would go to a bioreactor to be emptied.
Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.
This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.
The process also yields methane gas and fertilizer, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain's auto emissions would take up around 1,000 acres
The three estimate that 10 facilities could be built across the UK to handle the carbon dioxide from the nearly 30 million cars on British roads.
The inventors say they have spent nearly 170,000 pounds ($348,500) over two years developing the "three distinct technologies" involved and are hoping to secure more funding for health and safety testing.
Not surprisingly, the trio won't show anyone -- not even their wives -- what's inside the box. After every demonstration they hide its individual components in various locations across North Wales and the technology is divided into three parts, with each inventor being custodian of one section.
"Our three minds hold the three keys and we can only unlock it together," said Houston.
© Reuters2007All rights reservedLabels: biodiesel, environment, greenbox |
| posted by speedquill @ 8:12 PM |
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Albert Einstein says e=mc2?
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 Just as Albert Einstein did with e=mc2.
You can reduce saving the planet to one simple easy to remember equation:
1-1=0
For example, with electricity production, here in Australia most country electricity is produced by diesel generator. Closing a system of co2 flow with a algal biofilter to produce biodiesel, you take out all the carbon so the process begining again. The thinking on my part that sets this apart is that, depending on the strain of algae, 50% of the algae is in the form of oil (biodiesel) and about 50% green waste;to my thinking the green waste can be burned and the exhaust gases from this turned once again into biodiesel, closing the loop.
This new power station would then produce no emissions, while supplying it's own fuel at low cost.
Some of the benefits of this process are
* No co2 emissions to the atmosphere.
* No nox emissions to the atmosphere.
* No transport costs for fuel oil.
* It's a continuous money making frachise for who ever wants to own one.
Imagine the amazing benefits for the emerging third world.Labels: carbon neutral, Genius |
| posted by web2blogs @ 8:10 PM |
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