A Word or Two on Paperboard

My good friend Gigi just accomplished a very green beautiful thing. Our little community will now have a paperboard recycling bin behind city hall. The closest drop off available to us before this momentous green Gigi moment was downtown Indianapolis…about 10 miles away... very difficult to travel with paperboard boxes tied to your back while peddling your bicycle. Personally I just drive my fuel burning automobile downtown to deliver the paperboard…also a very difficult thing to do, difficult on my conscience anyway.

So what is paperboard? Paperboard is flat, not corrugated like cardboard. We are talking about cereal boxes, granola bar boxes, 6 pack beverage cartons, etc. Not the waxy finished products like milk cartons.

Over 57% of Americans have easy access to paperboard recycling, up from 46% in 2000. Additionally, the number of communities collecting paperboard for recycling increased to 41% in 2005. Paperboard is circling back around.

Paperboard is rather green since it is 100% recyclable. The extended list of brands using recycled paperboard is as obvious as Tom’s of Maine all the way to giants aka Xerox Corporation. See www.rpa100.com.

Better than plastic? Paperboard Materials are made of sustainable materials using specially-raised crop trees, waste products like sawdust and wood chips, and recycled paper/paperboard fibers. Sustainable wood fibers from farm-raised trees are the primary raw material in paperboard packaging. The forest products industry plants 1.7 million trees a day – which exceeds the number of trees harvested.

I have to mention the reuse factor of paperboard too…those school projects…the mock up cereal box villages with double-decker buses created out of animal cracker cartons and Creamette Thin Spaghetti smoke stacks.

When will a generation of children consider the smoke stack a relic synonymous to a phone booth? I don’t have the answer to that question…yet.

Some Green Chic Thoughts

Pedestrians,

Sometimes the newspapers, the scientific studies, evening news, and magazine articles about global warming, miles of garbage piled high, and swirling trash in our ocean…can all get a little depressing and overwhelming. I know that I am selfish and don’t want to give up my nice disposable lifestyle. I should be doing so much more. Well I found someone who shaded me a little “greener” and made me laugh out loud.

While in Chicago meeting green suppliers we were thrilled to meet Christie Matheson, writer of green chic: Saving the Earth in Style.

Her book is the perfect antidote for the newly greens who don’t like taking themselves too seriously. The book has been featured in Glamour Magazine, Boston Globe, and Boston Herald. According to Us Weekly, green chic was being read by Leonardo DiCaprio. I wonder if he gave up his disposable shavers? According to Christie, two billion disposable razors wind up in landfills every year. She suggests the reusable handle types where you change only the blade.

Her section on antiperspirants and deodorants is hilarious. In the end Christie chose not to give up her antiperspirant, but she gives the honest facts and tests all options. One of the options made her smell very manly (according to her husband) and no matter how much slower she walked and tried not to sweat…after three hours with a natural deodorant she was not pleased with the smell. I did learn that if your odor and perspiration levels aren’t too bad, you can go semi-green with aluminum and paraben-free Adidas 24 hour Control. I like semi-green…a new word to use in my blog.

Remember in the old days the party with the most trash in the morning wins. Not anymore. Christie pointed out that 25 percent of the food produced for humans in the United States gets thrown out---that’s almost 50 million tons of food annually. That number made me cringe when I thought of the hungry people lined up at food banks and soup kitchens. This percent does not include all the booze bottles and cans…think about it. She suggests NOT making so much food. Buffet-style set ups are the biggest food wasters since you have to make enough of every single dish for every single person. Personally I pick my way through a buffet and then come back for seconds seeking that one favorite choice. I do recommend plenty of chocolate desserts…they always get eaten.

Christie’s book is printed on recycled paper, with a portion of its proceeds going to a green cause.

Enough semi-green thoughts for you, my green hearted friends. Until next time…

Sign up to win a copy of Green Chic