Sustainable is Good | Where design, lifestyle and packaging meet

High BPA Levels found in Holiday Food Staples

The Breast Cancer Fund recently released a report focused on BPA levels found in canned goods routinely used to prepare holiday meals.  The results of the report, BPA Levels in Thanksgiving Canned Goods, is unsettling. 

High levels of BPA were found in holiday staple items like Campbell's Turkey Gravy, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, Del Monte Fresh Cut Sweet Corn Cream Style and Libby's Pumpkin.

The report found that in more than half of the products tested a 120 gram serving of the canned item contained enough BPA to show adverse health effects in lab studies.

The study included alternatives to the canned items it focused on including similar products packaged in Tetra Pak packaging or frozen items.

Download a PDF of the report

 

Whole Living Magazine Thanksgiving Ideas

 

Still searching for some yummy sustainable sides for Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday?  Look no further than the November issue of Whole Living magazine.

Regular readers know I'm a big fan of Whole Living which is Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's (MSLO) monthly focused on living healthily and incorporating sustainability into your life.

The November issue has a features six Thankgiving Sides You'll Want to Eat All Year.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Grapes with Walnuts

Creamy White Bean and Vegetable Mash

Green Bean and Shallot Ravioli Salad

Sweet Potato Cauliflower Gratin with Crispy Sage Leaves

Whole Grain Skillet Corn Bread

Stuff Acorn Squash with Quinoa and Pistachios

Check out the magazine for those recipes and lots of other interesting info.  Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. 

New Balance newSKY Shoes

New Balance has been doing some innovative things with eco-friendly materials in their shoes.  Several years ago they released the 070 shoe which was a big hit.  The 070 was made with materials like rPET and rice husks and constructed using water-based solvents.  I was a big fan of the 070.

Recently the company released its latest venture in eco shoes the newSKY shoe.  Available in both a mens and womens version the newSKY features an upper made of 95% rPET.  Each shoe is made from rPET fabric which comes from recycled PET plastic bottles.  The bottles are cleaned and made into a flake material which is then spun into a very durable and versatile rPET fabric.  Each pair of newSKY shoes is made with the equivalent of eight 20oz plastic bottles.

I've been trying the newSKY shoes for a week or so now and I have to say I really enjoy them.  They are incredibly minimal in terms of design.  The shoes are lightweight - what I would imagine a ballet shoe feeling like - but they are also surprisingly durable and warm. One thing I did notice was they seem to be a bit more narrow than a standard shoe so factor that in when choosing your size.

The New Balance newSKY are available in several color configurations in both a men's and women's shoe for about $95

 

 

Conscious Box Lets Consumers Try Variety of Green Products

Conscious Box is a new concept in the green marketplace.  Consumers subscribe and each month receive a box of eco-friendly and natural products.  The products have all been carefully screened and reviewed by the staff at Conscious Box before being included.  Companies cannot buy their way into having their products included in the box.

Why is this an interesting idea?  Well I think most consumers who are looking for green or more eco-friendly products will appreciate being able to try products before committing to buy a larger size version. 

With green products there is constant change in the marketplace with new products popping up and other ones failing.  The Conscious Box allows a consumer to try a number of products in small quantities before buying them at the store. 

Lets face it eco-friendly products are expensive and some of them don't work out as we had hoped.  Also many green consumers are highly concerned about waste if a product doesn't work out or isn't something they like.  Conscious Box allows the consumer to try products.

Another interesting feature of the Conscious Box is its packaging.  The makers of Conscious Box placed a high level of importance on making the box and the shipping container as green as possible.  They worked with Salazar Packaging in Chicago to develop the ideal packaging solution for their product. 

Dennis Salazar, president of Salazar Packaging and a SISG contributor said the box and shipper are made from 100% recycled corrugated content produced by wind power.  He told SISG the Conscious Box team was adamant about using the greenest possible packaging.

Read more about the packaging for Conscious Box at Inside Sustainable Packaging

Ekobrew Reusable K-Cup for Keurig Coffee Machines

 

Finally a refillable K-Cup that people actually like is available for Keurig Coffee machines.  The Ekobrew was developed by the Seattle based company Eko Brands and is designed to allow consumers to use their own coffee in Keurig K-Cup machines.

The Ekobrew starts to address a major problem with the K-Cup systems - waste.  Estimates have more than five million K-Cups being discarded annually by consumers in the US. 

The overwhelming majority of consumer reviews and feedback on the Ekobrew are positive.

What amazes me about this is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) who own Keurig didn't develop this themselves.  The company was pushing a refillable K-Cup called My K-Cup but it had mixed reviews and never really caught on with consumers.  In addition there had always been talk about developing a more eco-friendly K-Cup but that never seemed to take off.

See previous coverage on the K-Cup problem.