If you’re not already eating naked, you should be. No, we don’t mean literally eating naked. We mean filling up your diet with more nutritious, unprocessed foods. You can also forget about counting calories. Nutritional therapist Margaret Floyd has just released Eat Naked, a book geared towards making a healthy diet simple and achievable by replacing harmful overly processed foods with fresh organically grown ones. It’s time that the harmful effects of the processed-food industry on health, the environment and the economy come to light. Margaret has included over 40 recipes and also gives useful suggestions for eating on a budget. She's also created a series of cooking videos which can be found on her youtube channel here. Check out the author introducing the book in the video below:

An Oregon-based start-up called Agilyx is turning heads with its economically viable technology for turning waste plastics of all types into synthetic crude oil. The company is eyeing plastic handlers and recyclers as potential customers, and has recently received an additional $22 million from a group of prominent investors.

The company's 8-vessel system heats up plastic to convert it into liquid, gas and then condense it into crude oil. Agilyx's technology can currently convert about 10 lbs of plastic into 1 gallon of crude oil at a viable price of $45 per barrel. The company states on its website that a typical Agilyx set-up can recycle 20 tons of plastic and product 4,500 gallons of crude in a day. Agilyx has already recovered over 1 million pounds of plastic and produced over 120,000 gallons of oil.

The lightweight gasses that are not condensed by the Agilyx system are treated by an Environmental Control Device, and the company states the net carbon footprint from its conversion technology is favourable. Moreover, this technology has the potential to reduce the amount of unrecyclable plastics ending up in landfills. The crude oil created by this process can also be further refined into transportation fuel or converted into new plastics, relieving pressure from rising oil prices. Brian Wawro, a senior vice president with Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital (among the investors in Agilyx) also suggested that installing the system on a barge could deal with harmful sea debris like the Pacific Trash Vortex. This is an interesting breakthrough for closed-loop manufacturing, as it can facilitate the reclaiming and reuse of currently unrecyclable plastics.

Check out a short video about their facility below:

Photo credit: Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden

A national reach study on plastic recycling collection sponsored by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) was released this month. The study was conducted to determine what percentage of the American population has access to recycling different types of plastics. It found that 94% of Americans had access to PET and HDPE bottle and cap recycling and 40% had access to all bottles, caps, and non-bottle rigid containers recycling (they define rigid containers as plastics such as bottles, bins, cups and toys). When compared to a previous study conducted in 2008, the results found that access to recycling had improved dramatically. However, the study also notes that even though access has improved, actual recycling rates for PET and HDPE bottles remains under 30%. The researchers attribute this low rate to confusing and often incorrect information given to the public about recycling programs, and they call for a universal language to describe recyclability.

Fortunately, the ACC is partnering up with the Sustainable Packaging Coalition to launch the Labelling for Recovery Project, an initiative that aims to better communicate the recyclability of a package to consumers. The project REstarttheCYCLE.com website will be launching this June. More on this as the project develops.

As the global culture begins to shift toward sustainability, demand for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (R-PET) has been rising steadily over the past few years. According to ICIS Chemical Business, R-PET demand in Europe has increased by 10% per year for the past four years, and some industry forecasters expect growth in this market to increase by as much as 25% this year. This demand growth is due to an increased focus on sustainability from corporations such as Coca Cola, which plans to include 25% R-PET content in all its European bottles by 2012. Car manufacturers are also demanding R-PET flakes for car interiors, looking to minimize their costs and boost their environmental image. R-PET is also in demand in the garment and textiles industry as cotton prices increase. Companies such as H&M are launching lines of apparel made from sustainable fabrics including recycled plastics.

This surge in demand has resulted in rising R-PET prices and a supply shortage of the material. Companies are investing in reprocessing plants to increase production. Coca Cola recently announced a partnership with bottle recycler Eco Plastics to build a new plant in Lincolnshire, England. This project is expected to increase UK’s R-PET capacity from 35,000 to 75,000 tonnes per year. However, industry experts point to collection rather than production being the source of the shortage problem. Reprocessing capacities have increased but bottle collection rates have remained flat globally. Some recyclers have stated that they could sell 30% more R-PET than they currently have.

Clearly more investment in collecting mechanisms is necessary if the recycled plastics industry is to continue to grow. Consumer confusion about plastic types and recycling processes is one factor that has contributed to low curb-side collection rates. However, most recycling programs around the globe are led by governments and the private sector has not yet taken initiative to increase recycling rates. However, with the prices of both virgin PET and cotton rising, companies may find it in their interest to take action on this issue.

Photo Credit: chrissatchwell

I was very pleased to have been invited to attend COP16 by my new friends and colleagues at Safe Planet. I went to the conference expecting great things despite the poor results (or perhaps better stated "lack of results") generated at the previous climate conference in Copenhagen. I was extremely optimistic about this particular conference in great part due to the visionary work being executed by the UN's Safe Planet group and in part due to the great advancements I have witnesses and been fortunate enough to participate in in the "green business" sector. 

It comes as no surprise to anyone then that I left Cancun feeling as though the independent Green Solutions Conference and Safe Planet's Exhibit were far and away the most progressive, stimulating and impactful events that took place in Mexico in the last two weeks. 

Clearly the time has come for action to speak louder than words. That's not to say that communication is not important but unless we follow up our words with actions, we run the risk of remaining impotent in the face of our greatest challenges. 

I would have liked to seen more recycling present at the venues. I would have liked to hear of more people having purchased offsets for their flights to Cancun. I would have liked to see more people picking up garbage instead of the pretty shells on the beach. I would have liked to see web stations set up for those who wished to participate without producing the impact of a flight to Mexico. I would have liked to see the community more involved - not just the soldiers and their M16s. I would have liked to see more dialogue between the "green" business sector and the government sector.  

A new study is said to confirm that recycling plastics, specifically PET and high-density polyethylene, results in significant savings in energy and greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Franklin Associates Ltd., used life cycle inventory (LCI) methodology to quantify the energy requirements, solid wastes, and atmospheric and waterborne emissions for the processes required to collect post-consumer PET and HDPE packaging, sort and separate the material, and reprocess it into clean recycled resin.

Based on the LCI study results and data from U.S. EPA, the generation of cleaned recycled resin required 71 trillion Btu less than the amount of energy that would be required to produce the equivalent tonnage of virgin PET and HDPE resin. In other words, the amount of energy saved by recycling PET and HDPE containers including bottles in 2008 was the equivalent to the annual energy use of 750,000 U.S. homes. The corresponding savings in greenhouse gas emissions was 2.1 million tons of CO2 equivalents, an amount comparable to taking 360,000 cars off the road.

Calculations were based on the tonnage of post-consumer PET and HDPE recovered in 2008, and the energy required to collect, sort, and domestically reprocess the tonnage of plastics containers (including bottles) recovered in 2008.

Numerous organizations and companies have committed to making the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games more environmentally friendly. Whether it is the Olympic medals comprised partly of electronic waste or the Olympia electric ice-resurfacing machine, next to gold, green is the color of choice when it comes to the 2010 Winter Games.

Coca-Cola is taking part in a variety of sustainable efforts that are the largest and most comprehensive in the history of the company. The soft drink giant, an Olympic Games partner since 1928, is committing to be carbon neutral by reducing the company’s Olympic carbon emissions by 100 percent.

“Coca-Cola will deliver a net-carbon neutral sponsorship during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games – to our knowledge a first for any Olympic sponsor. Our carbon neutral and zero waste efforts and the roll-out of our PlantBottle package comprise the most aggressive environmental protection plan ever undertaken by an Olympic Games sponsor,” according to Coca-Cola Company’s Petro Kacur.

Just in time for World Water Day (today) and after nearly four years of development, eco-adventurer David de Rothschild has launched his most ambitious expedition yet.

The Plastiki, an innovative catamaran made from 12,000 post-consumer plastic bottles, set sail on Saturday for a 100-day voyage from San Francisco to Sydney. Their mission is to witness some of the most devastating waste accumulation on our planet, including the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch.

According to his twitter feed, David and the crew had eggs for breakfast on their first morning at sea. (Read our previous coverage and see the NG Plastiki site.)