In celebration of Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary, InkCycle, announced a whitepaper regarding Barkley’s recycling efforts.

Barkley’s Green Recycling Diverts Electronic Waste From Landfills

Currently, Barkley has sponsored four Green Solutions Electronic Waste Drives, diverting more than 8,000 pounds of waste from area landfills. The company has worked hard to remain true
to its commitment to be green by reducing its waste via recycling, utilizing eco-friendly products and incorporating daily operational energy-saving tactics.

To learn more, check out Barkley’s Whitepaper.

The fear of a double-dip recession may be lessened after reports from March show the largest gain in payroll jobs for one month since 2007. I would like to share an article written by Diane Stafford from the Kansas City Star, about payroll jobs increasing during the month of March, and how InkCycle was a part of the increase in payroll jobs.

Payroll jobs rose in March

In the third straight month of gains, manufacturers added 17,000 jobs.

Among them was InkCycle in Lenexa. The producer of aftermarket toner and inkjet cartridges brought about 15 employees on board last month and reached 304 on payroll.

“We’re working hard to staff a second shift based on a 20 percent increase in orders,” said Robb Urschell, who is recruiting for the company. “We have 86 actual openings right now, some of which we’re using temporary staff to fill.”

To read full article

Mark Rogers, a material handler at InkCycle in Lenexa, was hired by the ink recycling company full time in March.

E-waste is an important issue, not just in the US or North America, but globally. Its an important issue on a number of fronts. Most people are aware that virtually every major city in the US that their landfills have been closed—theyre at maximum capacity now. So where does excess landfill material go? It has to be shipped somewhere. So were creating a problem somewhere else. Thats general landfill space, but when we look at electronic or e-waste space, the problem is a lot greater. In less scrupulous environments, e-waste is typically sold and bought by the pound and goes offshore.

China has significant problems in a couple of different provinces and regions right now because their whole economy is based on e-waste. In Hong Kong, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, there are days when you cant breathe outside. The air is that thick, it makes you choke, its brown, its black. What happens with this e-waste is that there are certain chemicals; there are certain components that are of value say gold in electronic circuitry that they need to extract out of that. They do that by burning off the rest of the material. So there are toxic fumes there are toxic chemicals that are created when they try and extract the little bit of value out of this e-waste that here is. What happens to the rest of that material? It ends up being burned; it ends up being stockpiled in areas.

The thing about electronic waste: its growing, not just as a problem but its growing in terms of total units. What do we buy anymore that doesnt have some electrical or electronic componentry to it. But the two big ones that sometimes people forget are computer monitors. Those have to be handled in an environmentally appropriate way. They cant just be thrown into the garbage.

The other is the growing area of the home theatre stuff. Bigger and bigger screens and its all shorter life. So there is a growing amount of electronic waste that is being created and we have to find environmentally responsible ways to be able to deconstruct that material, to be able to truly recycle it in ways that are not just preferable but environmentally safe.

I want to thank Valerie Mitchell for featuring grenk on Sweeps4Bloggers for their promotional giveaway.

Giveaway – Grenk Printer Ink Cartridges – 5 Winners – Ends 5/2/10

For all information about the promotional giveaway go to: Sweeps4Bloggers

I would like to thank Erika Pitera and myshoppingconnection.com for giving grenk an excellent review in their article; Greener Choices for Electronics.

Greener Choices for Electronics

We live in a very tech-centric society, and our daily activities inevitably leave behind a carbon footprint.

Luckily, more and more companies are offering us ways to save energy, reduce waste and generally be more eco-friendly when it comes to the gadgets and electronics we use.

Here are just a few companies making strides in the world of green tech.

grenk

Even if you only print a little bit at work or at home, your ink and toner cartridges have a fairly significant carbon footprint. Enter grenk, an eco-friendly company that remanufactures cartridges to conserve natural resources and control waste from manufacturing processes.

grenk’s package design and manufacturing standards were developed by InkCycle, and grenk uses a self-regulation process for remanufacturing and distributing ink and toner cartridges.

Some of their efforts include: a commitment to maximize the reuse of materials from an ink or toner cartridge to minimize landfill waste and reduce end-waste cycles; environmentally friendly package design that uses the highest available content of recycled material with certified chain-of-custody (such as oxygen-degradable film, air pillows and shredded test sheets from the plant to help cushion the delicate cartridge).

Make sure you tell your office manager about grenk!

For all the products in their review click here

Here is an article from the United Kingdom highlighting the illegal trade of electronic waste from around the world.

London’s illegal trade in electronic E-waste

E-waste is our fastest growing form of rubbish. Eager for flat screens and HD pictures, London dumps more than 4,000 TVs daily.

These TVs are packed with lead and toxic metals, and the law requires all electricals to be recycled within the UK.

To avoid paying for proper disposal in the UK, criminals ship containers of electrical waste and illegally dump it in Africa.

But when our reporter Mark Jordan visited a dump site at the ‘Sodom and Gomorra’ slum in Ghana, he discovered tonnes of our E-waste that had been illegally shipped and dumped – some bearing the names of UK banks, health authorities and a police force.

This waste is dismantled for metals by children as young as five – unaware of the serious health hazards involved from heavy metals and carcinogenic agents.

The UK has banned the export of electrical waste, but that green law has turned toxic as criminals smuggle it out for recycling in one of the poorest countries on earth.

(read more)

I want to share the third annual State of Green Business Report for 2010 conducted by GreenBiz.com.

State of Green Business Report 2010

In this third annual edition of our State of Green Business report, we continue our efforts to measure the environmental impacts of the emerging green economy. This year’s effort was colored by the Great Recession and its myriad of impacts on individuals, companies and governments around the world. Would the economic downturn nip the green economy in the bud?

Of course, 2009 also was a time of political transition in the United States, the principal arena of our focus. How would regime change affect companies’ environmental policies, performance and progress? Would companies envision a new era of environmentally activist government? If so, would that compel them to become more proactive or to dig in their heels?

The answers aren’t simple, and therein lies the foundation for this report. As in previous years, it shows a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging news and trends.

On balance, however, we were pleasantly surprised by what we found. First and foremost, green business activity did not go away amid the harsh economic environment. It survived — and even thrived. In some cases, such as with energy efficiency, the recession provided a stimulus, as the need to cut operating costs in order to maintain competitiveness became ever more valued by executives, their boards and their shareholders.

(read more)

Here is an article about the postal service and their initiatives to recycle from USA Today.

Postal Service: Stop! We’ll help you recycle that mail

The U.S. Postal Service may seem so last century, burning fossil fuel to deliver paper mail, but it’s increasingly going green. Its latest endeavor: more lobby recycling bins.

It’s adding these bins to encourage customers to “read, respond, recycle” their P.O. box mail while still in the post office lobby, instead of throwing the paper away at home.

The number of post offices with recycling containers will increase 2,435, bringing the total to 8,064, an increase of 150% since the lobby recycling program began in 2005, the U.S. Postal Service announced last month. That’s still, however, a fraction of the 27,161 post offices it operated last year.

(Read More)

I want to congratulate Sprint for taking the lead on sustainability initiatives and testifying before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. Below is a press release from MarketWatch, providing information on the issue.

Sprint Challenges Wireless Industry to Embrace a Greener Future
Hesse testifies before Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet

WASHINGTON, Feb 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Sprint Nextel [NYSE: S] CEO Dan Hesse testified today before Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and members of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet about sustainability initiatives undertaken by Sprint and the wireless technology industry to benefit the environment. Hesse focused his remarks on how Sprint’s environmental efforts and goals are challenging the technology industry to creat”greener” future.

Hesse announced two new initiatives as Sprint continues its leadership in developing aggressive, measurable sustainability goals. Sprint has implemented green product guidelines for all its manufacturers, and is introducing an innovative wireless recycling Buyback program. Below are excerpts from Hesse’s testimony:

(Read more)

With the Winter Olympics in full effect in Vancouver, I want to highlight some of the initiatives being taken to make the games more green. Here is a video from GreenopolisTV, explaining how this years Olympic medals in Vancouver are made from electronic waste.

Olympic Medals made with your recycled TV?
From: GreenopolisTV | February 17, 2010 | 1,572 views

For the first time in Olympic history, the medals at the Olympic Games contain gold, silver and copper that has been recovered from electronic waste (e-waste). Each medal was made with a tiny bit of the more than 140,000 tons of e-waste that otherwise would have been sent to Canadian landfills. More than 1,000 medals to be awarded at the Vancouver games this year.

The recovery of medals from e-waste is important, because it reduces demand for scarce metals such as gold and copper. Check in your community for e-waste recycling centers and drop off points and go for GOLD.