General Motors said last week that 62 of its manufacturing plants (representing 43 percent of its global production) no longer send any production waste to landfills. The company’s goal, first stated in 2008, is for zero waste at half of its operations by the end of 2010, and it´s 87 percent of the way there.

Zero waste, or "Nil to Landfill," has been a rallying cry in Europe, and it is national policy in New Zealand, but it´s still a fledgling movement in the United States. Still, some major corporations, including Wal−Mart, Nike and the carpet maker Interface, have embraced zero waste goals.

For decades tire companies and would−be entrepreneurs have been searching for a way to process discarded tires by using a technology known as pyrolysis. Such a solution is considered the holy grail of tire recycling.

While technically feasible, tire pyrolysis − a process in which tires are subjected to heat in an oxygen−starved environment and converted to gas, oil and carbon char − has been inhibited by the high capital investment required and steep operating costs, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

BioBag is the world´s largest brand of 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable bags and films made from the material, Mater−Bi. All of our products contain GMO free starch, biodegradable polymer and other renewable resources. No polyethylene is used in the production process. BioBag products meet ASTM D6400 specifications and California Law requirements. We will never compromise our earth or our standards. We invite you to review the numerous certifications we have been awarded and the quality of the Mater−Bi product. We thank you for visiting our website.

Together we can begin…
Changing The World Without Changing The Earth

For years Orli Cotel, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club and host of the nationally syndicated show "Sierra Club Radio," hosted clothing swaps as a way to freshen up her wardrobe for free and recycle clothes among her friends.

Then a few months ago, she and Brianna Cayo Cotter, a communications manager at Rainforest Action Network who once worked at a domestic violence shelter, came up with an idea: Why not use the environmental principle of recycling to raise money for another passionate cause?

"The Plastic Bag" questions the environmental impact of consumerism in a world that treats it like trash.

The bag takes its first breath of life in a grocery store. A woman takes it home and reuses it in various ways; the critical turning point comes when she uses it to pick up dog waste, at which point the bag quickly heads into the garbage and then into a landfill.

Three years ago, I encountered the worst smell of my life: cow waste.

Never had I been so close to so much methane and ammonia gas, or so many of its bovine emitters. I was visiting Vermont´s Blue Spruce Farm during a Society of Environmental Journalists meeting.

But the cows there weren´t just creating stink (and millions of gallons of milk) − they were also producing millions of kilowatt hours of electricity.

The trailer−sized Green Energy Machine (GEM) is the first all−in−one, on−site device to produce clean energy from trash, letting business parks, universities and towns make their own power.

No water.
At ECO2, we think using water to recycle plastic beverage containers makes no sense. When our process is the standard, billions of gallons of water will be saved each year. More water for drinking − not cleaning.

No waste.
We don´t dump anything down the drain − water or chemicals. Our process is FDA−approved, using a biodegradable solvent and liquid carbon dioxide in a closed−loop system that cleans and reuses the cleaning agents again and again. We reuse when we recycle.

Plastic soda bottles, Big Gulp cups and empty sour cream containers get fed into the top of the three—story machine. About 10 minutes later, out the other side comes a light—brown synthetic oil that can be converted into fuel for a truck or a jet airplane.

The Envion Oil Generator, scheduled for an official unveiling at Montgomery County's Solid Waste Transfer Station on Wednesday, represents a local company's decade—long effort to fight rising fuel costs and help protect the environment. As part of a pilot program, the company recently assembled the first of its fuel—producing generators at the Derwood waste facility...(more)