US city governments seem underinformed

The online edition of the Detroit News makes disturbing reading. “Recycling isn't cheap, doesn't pay for itself and preserves little landfill space, said Tom Horton, president of Waste Management of Michigan, which operates several landfills and recycling programs "you're not going to save landfill space by recycling. You're not going to even break even. There's no dollars-and-cents argument. The reason to recycle is because you believe this is a method of waste disposal that matches your ideology." "We all want to do the right thing for the environment, but the economy is so bad," said Daniel Paletko, mayor of Dearborn Heights "you have people trying to survive just day to day, then you weigh the cost-benefit analysis and you wonder." A handful of legislative efforts to increase recycling have stalled. One proposal would expand the 10-cent bottle bill to juice, tea and sport-drink containers. Another would raise dumping taxes to $7.50 a ton and use the proceeds, $170 million a year, for recycling. The partnership, which wrote the study, wants to fund programs with a 1-cent fee on retail purchases. These guys are clearly unaware of what’s happening elsewhere, how Ireland has used a tax on plastic bags to cut usage by 90% and how profitable that was for their exchequer, how cutting edge companies like OzmoTech are generating diesel from discarded plastic containers, and how we in our modest way are converting discarded plastic bags into reusable ones. The problem is huge but enough people working at it will make things happen.

Ecological innovators. Love them Ozzies!

They're really leading on the eco-innovation front. What a delightful story this is; full of hope for us all. An innovative Australian technology that converts plastic bags, ice-cream containers, milk crates and wheely bins into clean diesel fuel suitable for cars, trucks, trains and buses is seducing environmentally conscious investors and local governments across Europe. Starting this year, OzmoTech will ship 31 plants - all manufactured in Melbourne - to 14 European countries, beginning with Germany later this year. The Berlin plant will transform 42,000 tonnes of plastic waste into 38 million litres of diesel fuel annually. In 2007, plants will be established in the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Slovakia, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the Czech Republic. "We have a lack of energy and we have a lack of fossil fuels," says an EU business spokesman. "And we are realising now that in our waste there's more potential in converting some of those products into fuel. "Of course, there is money to be earned but most investor groups we have now are also concerned about the planet. So the profit is one factor but so is the future of the planet. "It was not sexy to invest in garbage and waste, but now it is becoming a professional, innovative market and therefore also interesting for venture capitalists to invest in," he says. "In Europe, people are realising that if you don't invest in waste, in clean water, clean air and clean soil, then your children and grandchildren won't have a life in 25 years." Technological advances helped EnvoSmart convince governments and venture capitalists that alternative fuels generated from waste were a sensible investment. Local authorities were also under pressure across the EU to reduce landfills. Under a Brussels directive, biodegradable waste going to landfill must be reduced to 35 per cent of the total within 10 years. "In the past, industrial processes for recycling plastic wastes were not profitable, because fuel was not produced in sufficient quantities, but with the Australian technology, the output is raised to 99 per cent. Each kilo of plastic gives almost one litre of diesel. Boats, trucks, buses, generators, every type of diesel motor could use the diesel produced." OzmoTech chief executive Garry Baker says the Melbourne group has orders for more than 60 plants worldwide, of which only 14 are destined for Australia. OzmoTech purchased the intellectual property rights to the ThermoFuel technology from a Japanese inventor three years, refining and advancing the process. OzmoTech has no competitors in the energy-to-waste industry. "As far as energy from waste and the waste-management industry broadly is concerned that has not worried us because we're working in a very specific field," Middleton says. He says he likes to give potential clients the example of one ice-cream container stuffed with plastic wastes that could be turned into diesel fuel that would drive a car 11 kilometres. "This plastic will go to landfill but we can turn it into something genuinely beneficial. It reduces demands on fossil fuels. Its environmental benefits are broad. Some of them are only modest. Regarding air emissions, the benefits are marginal but still are genuine. "There is a perception that alternative fuel is still backyard stuff. But I think we're right on the cusp now. There is a genuine shift in acceptance that this type of technology is operationally effective and financially viable." We also try, as you can see here. One day I hope we can come close to matching the scale of what these guys are achieving. More power to you, Ozmotech!

Reusable gift bags from fabric are a great way to go

Lucky Crow is a new Seattle-based business featuring upscale and eco-savvy fabric gift bags. Founded by Kristen Ragain, the company is striving to help consumers kick their disposable gift-wrapping habits in favor of their timesaving, eco-happy, and stylish alternative. "With over 2.7 billion dollars spent on gift wrap annually, it is obvious that we love to wrap our gifts. Our goal at Lucky Crow is to provide a simple, hip and reusable gift wrap alternative that soon becomes the norm in a society that fills up landfills at record speed." Says Kristen Ragain, Lucky Crow's owner. Their fully reusable 100% cotton gift bags feature retro, vintage-replica, and other stylish prints. Each gift bag has a classic grosgrain ribbon sewn into the side seam. For many, wrapping gifts is stressful and time consuming. Lucky Crow Gift Bags eliminate the need for wrapping paper, tissue paper, tape and scissors. Just pop your gift into the bag, tie a bow, and your gift is ready to be given. No stress, no mess, and it helps the environment. Lucky Crow Gift Bags are designed to be re-gifted, reused and recycled for years to come. They are sold in five sizes ranging from $3.99-$12.99 and are available for purchase at www.luckycrow.com Well done, Kristen. Celebrating Christmas with her extended family, she noticed that bulging plastic bags filled with discarded gift-wrapping materials stood next to their colorful Christmas tree at the end of the day. Sound familiar?! This typical scene, characteristic of most birthdays and Christmas' celebrated in our family, was suddenly very unappealing. She pictured countless families around the globe doing the same and knew there had to be a better way! So Kristen started making her own cotton gift bags and is now a great success. We wish her all success. If you'd like to do what Kristen has done but don't want to get into manufacturing, use us as your back-end. From cotton to jute to organza and taffeta we offer gift bags and wine bags to solve the very problem that got Kristen going. Our bags are so modestly priced that you'll probably find it more economical to buy from us than to make them yourself. Click on the link in the right column and see for yourself. That's not all. We'll customize them for you with your own selection of prints at a very nominal cost or even give you theme designs if you like.

It's catching on! Half-Price-Books start giving away re-usable bags.

Environmental groups estimate that 100 billion plastic bags are used annually in the United States. Once discarded those bags become trash, clog landfills and drainage systems, and cause harm to marine wildlife. Half Price Books, one of the nation's largest new and used bookstore chains and a dedicated supporter of national literacy projects and environmental issues, is making a commitment to further reduce the use of its recycled plastic bags by urging customers to use fewer bags and to utilize reusable bags whenever they shop. "The most effective way to reduce the amount of plastic litter in the environment is to reduce consumption. Half Price Books is using this Earth Day to announce its commitment to reduce the amount of bags used in stores by asking each customer if they need a bag rather than automatically handing one out, and by reissuing usable bags that come back into the store," said Kathy Doyle Thomas, executive vice president of Half Price Books. Additionally, in conjunction with Earth Day on April 22, the company is offering a re-useable canvas tote bag free with any $30 purchase between April 1 and April 30, while supplies last. The large bags can be used in lieu of a plastic bag when shopping. Since the plastic bag's introduction about 25 years ago, worldwide consumption rates have soared to more than 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost one million per minute. In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade, and as they breakdown into tiny bits, they contaminate soil and water. An estimated 4 billion plastic bags end up as litter each year. Tied end to end that's enough to circle the earth 63 times. So many brands and corporate bodies claim to be concerned about the environment because they know it earns customer respect and goodwill, but too often their concerns don't manifest themselves in a manner that is tangibly visible to their customers. Giving away a reusable cloth bag is a great way to go. It gets seen. Every customer walking around with it becomes a walking billboard for the brand. It surprises me that more savvy marketers don't use this potent weapon. Particularly because cotton bags are so affordable. Check out our website to see how affordable they can be.

Hong Kong stores will charge for plastic bags

More than 20 young cyclists rode through the busy streets of Kowloon Wednesday to ask shops to participate in Hong Kong's first No Plastic Bag Day on April 15. Members of environmental organization Green Student Council were joined by other cyclists for the morning ride from Tsim Sha Tsui's landmark Clock Tower to Mong Kok and back. Along the way they played a recorded message on a speaker to promote No Plastic Bag Day, and invited shop owners to join. Shops participating will not offer free plastic bags to customers for the day. Instead, shoppers will have to pay 50 cents for each bag. Proceeds from the event will go to Oxfam Hong Kong. Green Student Council chairman Angus Ho said the event addressed concern over massive overuse of plastic bags in the city. Hong Kong consumes 33 million plastic bags - 5 per resident - every day. Australia, with 20 million people, uses a quarter of that number of bags a day, and Ireland, which introduced a bag levy in 2002, uses a third. By Wednesday, 1,200 supermarkets and retail chains had agreed to join the day, including leading supermarkets ParknShop, Wellcome, China Resources Vanguard (Hong Kong), Maxim's Cake shop and Sa Sa. Ho said that the number is very encouraging. No Plastic Bags Day will also serve as a pilot scheme for the government, the public, businesses and nongovernment organizations to work together to reduce the use of plastic bags, Ho said. He believed it was important to let the public experience having to pay for plastic bags. "People can experience having to pay for the waste they produce, before the government implements a plastic bag tax," Ho said. Housewife Yeung Siu-fun, 50, who bring her own bags when going shopping, supports the event. "It can help reduce bag use as people will find it is often unnecessary for them to use bags," she said. Tsuen Wan convenience store worker Mary Pang said her colleagues also want to promote a reduction in plastic bag use and they are going to propose placing placards bearing the message next to the cashier and newspaper racks. "Not to put newspapers in a plastic bag can not only help our company cut costs, but reduce our workload too," Pang said. I wish that instead of charging 50 cents on just that one day, they’d charge a token 5 cents every day (in Hong Kong 5 cents won’t even buy you peanuts, its that small an amount). Just the fact of paying even a nominal token amount reminds people of the harm that plastic bags do. Avoiding the use of plastic bags is easy and economical (see http://www.badlani.com/bags) but as long as plastic bags are given away free, people are going to use them.

Welsh party Plaid Cymru calls for a 1p levy on plastic bags

Plaid Cymru's environment, planning and countryside shadow minister Elin Jones called for primary legislation to tackle waste management in Wales. The Ceredigion AM said: "We need to ensure the National Assembly is able to implement waste management policies in Wales as a matter of urgency". She added: "The levy of 1p on every plastic carrier bag has already been introduced in Ireland and has been very successful. We should be doing the same in Wales as reusing plastic is just as important as recy-cling. "This levy would be beneficial in getting supermarkets - a major culprit in pumping out vast numbers of plastic carrier bags daily in Wales - to be more responsible in their actions." Ms Jones said Wales is lagging behind other EU countries in diverting waste from landfill. Plastic bags make even less sense when better alternatives are so easily available and so economical. At http://www.badlani.com/bags you can see just how inexpensive and elegant reusable bags can be.

Provigo pushes reusable bags

Canadian retail major Provigo is making some very intelligent moves. They’ve started pushing a 99 cent reusable bag at their 456 stores throughout Quebec. Louis-Paul Allard, president of the Quebec Environment Foundation, said he was pleased to support this environmental initiative by Provigo Inc., a project on which the QEF has been working since summer 2005. "People were very enthusiastic about Provigo's reusable bags, distributed at our annual gala and the Salon des générations in Montreal, and I'm convinced that their launch on the market will be a great success. The public always reacts very positively when offered inexpensive, effective and aesthetically pleasing solutions. As a partner, we would like to congratulate Provigo Inc.'s banners and encourage people to adopt new habits that truly will help the environment." Provigo Inc. will donate 5 cents to the QEF for each reusable bag and Eco-bin sold, up to a maximum of $25,000, which will be used for projects that protect and enhance the environment. Look at the branding implications of this. Provigo isn’t doing any charity. At 99 cents they probably even make a small profit (reusable bags aren’t expensive. Just look at how economical they are at www.badlani.com/bags), and they are going to come out of this smelling like roses; looking like a more responsible corporate citizen than any of their competitors. Each customer walking around with a Provigo bag will be acting as a walking billboard for them. Write to us and we’ll work with you to tailor such a program for your brand.

Sophie's Choice

What a wonderful thing the Internet is. Yesterday, a very interesting guy called Jack Simms called me to discuss whether there was a good answer to give accountants who want to know how a brand can be valued. The galling thing, Jack felt, is that if a company buys a brand, it can be shown on their books, but if a company creates a brand, it can’t. I’ve been pondering what Jack discussed and have concluded that neither possible or even necessary to find an answer to that question, for two reasons: 1. Brands are complex and their value cannot be expressed in simplistic terms. Any valuation a buyer does is done in the context of their own circumstances and expectations from the brand they are contemplating acquiring, 2. No one, except the most naïve today, believes that the financial reports of a company reflect anything but a fleeting financial snapshot of a company. A company contemplating acquiring a brand is usually doing so in response to an internal need. No such company ever believes that it will just acquire a particular brand and then leave it to function the way it has historically done. They will want to enhance it because of some opportunities for growth that they believe they are uniquely positioned to tap. Thus two companies wanting to acquire a brand will never value it at the same level as their criteria are bound to be influenced by their own experiences and perceptions of their own abilities to enhance the value of what they buy. His point was valid, that if you buy a brand you can place it on your annual report with a tangible monetary figure attached to it, but that is also just at that point in time. You can’t, next year, change that value to reflect what you believe that acquired brand is worth after you’ve worked on it for a year, can you? The concept of management accounting came into existence in response to these very limitations that financial reports have in reflecting the true state of a company. Using this tool, one can hope to, if not in precise numbers, look at the potential a company has, and identify its strengths and weaknesses. Forget folks like us who are into brands, no financial analyst in the world evaluates companies purely on numbers, do they? They consider general market trends, industry trends and whole host of other phenomena that have a bearing on the future of a company and these don’t lend themselves to piecemeal quantification either. In my opinion the effort to find a flat, universal method of valuing a brand is quite futile. As futile as it would have been to ask Sophie to quantitatively justify the horrible “choice” she was called upon to make. Don’t you agree? Brands sadly get discussed mainly in the marketing sense, but the values that drive a brand are internally critical to a company as it helps them define who they are and what behaviour they want people to expect from them. Today, my partner Sanjiv and I discussed a crisis that we’ve been confronted with. We took a decision that requires us to take a financial hit but allows us to still feel good because it is in consonance with our beliefs and values. Thank heavens we’ve taken the time to articulate a set of values for Norquest. How would you a put a price on that?

Now: water repellant jeans

Seems a company called Cotton Inc has launched Storm jeans, where they apply water repellency treatment on the garment rather than the fabric. Good idea, because if you do the treatment on the fabric, that inhibits the post-stitching finishing potential of the jeans. You wouldn’t get the same interesting washes and hand. They claim these will offer “not only the comfort of cotton, but also wear better and longer, repel water and protect against the cold”. That sounds like a bit of stretch to me but it’s a good idea all the same, and quite easy and inexpensive to do. We enjoy innovation and I love stories about what folks are doing to push the envelope.

Helps to know what people really want

The state of Wisconsin has decided to hold a referendum on April 4th to find out whether residents think American troops should stay in Iraq or be brought back. While this will not directly impact American policy, it’s a very good way to find out what people really think. All around the world, including in India and the US, governments are actually losing touch with what their people want. Wisconsin has kicked off a very good idea. Here’s hoping governments everywhere learn from this. Governments are elected by people to further their aspirations and it helps for governments to know what people actually want. Doesn’t require a degree in nuclear physics to figure out that delivering on people’s wants and expectations will make them more successful than they presently tend to be. If we lost track of what our customers want, we’d be in deep you-know-what. For example, many people now advocate taxing plastic bags. But governments don't seem to be listening.