Fashion Start-Ups Use Wood-Based, Cotton Alternatives

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Fashion Start-Ups Use Wood-Based, Cotton Alternatives

For a great many years now, cotton has been touted as the ultimate fabric for the manufacture of all kinds of clothing, due to its natural, breathable composition and its comfortable feel against the skin. However, according to Waterfootprint.org, cotton farming requires the most amount of water in the apparel supply chain. In the case of making a single T-shirt, research from National Geographic estimates that 2,700 liters of water is required, from beginning to end.

In addition, it literally requires acres and acres of land to grow any significant amount of cotton plants, and a great deal of water is consumed in the nurturing of those plants. From this, it should be fairly obvious that any kind of new direction for the world of fashion is long overdue and that new direction seems now to have arrived, in the form of wood-based alternatives for the manufacture of clothing.

Wood-based alternative clothing

An Austrian manufacturer, Lenzing AG, has been developing environmentally friendly clothing for several years now, by converting eucalyptus tree pulp into a fiber which mimics cotton’s breathable nature, but is also far softer to the touch, and much less susceptible to wrinkling. In the year 2000, Lenzing was given a prestigious award by the European Commission, for its forward-thinking contributions to conservation of the environment in making wood-based clothing alternatives.

This wood-based clothing product is known as Tencel, and it is being adopted by more fashion companies around the world each year. Since the entire production process for Tencel is much less impactful to the environment, it has become one of the most popular new fabrics, especially for all those who feel a responsibility for the conservation of the global environment.

Other creative and environmentally friendly products are appearing as well, to contribute to this new direction of the fashion industry. A 17-year old teenager named Sian Healy recently became a finalist in the Miss England competition, while wearing a dress made for her by Pooling Partners, and which was entirely constructed from old wooden pallets. While this kind of special-purpose dress may not be economically viable for mass production, it does at least point out the possibilities for using wood-based materials as an alternative to the traditional ones used commonly in clothing manufacture.

Beyond Tencel

In Culver City, California, another startup company called MeUndies, has developed a fashion line of men’s and women’s underwear, all made from wood pulp fiber which has the appealing property of wicking moisture away from the body. Called MicroModal, it uses beechwood rather than Tencel’s eucalyptus fibers, and is garnering strong appeal for its comfort and sustainable characteristics. Additionally, another fashion designer based in London named Alice Asquith has launched a line of towels, bearing her name, which are made from bamboo fibers and have far greater softness, durability, and absorptive qualities than traditional cotton towels.

Other startups are emerging around the world to take advantage of some of the wonderful characteristics provided by wood-based fabrics, which are much friendlier to the environment than some existing materials. Whereas plants like cotton are farmed with the intent of manufacturing clothes, wood-based based fabrics use wood by-products as their main ingredient. By developing effective uses for these parts of the forest that would normally go to waste, clothing manufacturers are doing their part to make sure that every part of a tree is used when it’s harvested.

Resources

The Recycling Symbol

Wood Pallets Are Diverted from Landfills

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Wood Pallets Are Diverted from Landfills

In the year 2014, approximately 258 million tons of waste materials were generated by Americans and eventually reached various landfills stationed around the country. A report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke down the components of this enormous tonnage as follows: 28.2% was comprised of food waste and yard trimmings, 26% was attributable to paper and cardboard products, plastics accounted for 13% of the total, rubber and textiles contributed 9%, metals were 9%, wood products made up 6%, and glass accounted for 4% of the total.

Photograph by Wikimedia; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

More good news about landfills

Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, a globally known corporate giant, has pledged to keep plastics entirely out of landfills by the year 2020. Plastics aren’t the only by-product of manufacturing that the company intends to shield from landfills though. It has announced that other by-products will be recycled right at the manufacturing locations as well, so there is no need for shipping them to landfills.
Using a process that shreds previously unwanted materials and compressing them into sheets, they can be used as building materials, says the company. The stated landfill avoidance goal of the company is to achieve zero percent waste materials that need to be shipped off-site, and instead recycle them all into materials usable for other industries and applications.

Wood pallet landfill avoidance

One of the biggest landfill avoidance undertakings that currently goes on, and is expected to increase, is that of recycling wooden pallets. According to the research published in “Pallet Reuse and Recycling Saves High Value Material from Landfills”, in 1992, only about 50 million wood pallets were recovered from landfills and recycled for further usage. Three years later, that figure jumped to 150 million pallets, and by 2006, the number had increased to over 350 million. By recycling so many pallets, it has been calculated that 5.7 billion board feet of lumber were saved in this country, by not having to produce new pallets from freshly cut lumber.
Wood pallet recyclability has been steadily increasing because lumber is a valuable and limited resource. To discard it in a landfill would truly be a waste. New studies are currently being conducted to determine how many wood pallets are diverted from landfills.

Resources:

5 Reforestation Projects in the United States

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5 Reforestation Projects in the United States

Photograph by Flickr; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

If you ever doubted that the great forests of the U.S. are under attack, consider the following forces which are acting daily to diminish one of this nation’s greatest natural resources. Infestations of harmful wood-boring beetles literally kill off tens of thousands of acres of trees every year. Forest fires consume vast tracts of forested lands every year, and even though eventual re-growth occurs, that takes a long time. Changes to the climate, especially drought, are also putting forests under tremendous stress, making them more susceptible to the harmful impacts of pests and forest fires.

Fortunately, there are some projects underway to help counteract all these negative forces, so there is yet hope that trees will remain as guardians of earth, providing their benevolent influence. International forest certification programs like Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) ensure that forests are sustainably managed, so that for every tree that is harvested, at least one new tree is planted in its place. Without them, there would be a great deal more harmful carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, much of our water supply would go unfiltered, and there wouldn’t be a reliable and consistent supply of lumber for future generations to come.

Even though all forests in North America have been certified for decades, we continue to see the effects of climate change, wood boring pests, forest fires, and poor forest management practices that occurred in the decades and centuries prior. These five projects supported by the Nature Conservancy are an effort to reverse those impacts.

Central Appalachians Project

Red spruce forests in this region were decimated by heavy logging and forest fires throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some trees were re-planted, but the red spruce has not grown back as readily as other species have. The Nature Conservancy has partnered with other concerned organizations to help restore some of the great red spruce forests of West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Maryland. This program really got in full swing in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and is still going strong today.

Longleaf Pine Project

Vast forests of longleaf pine stretched across much of the southeastern U.S. 200 years ago, but that enormous stretch of pine has been virtually wiped away by poor logging methods, and conversion of the land for farming and industrial usage. A serious effort was begun more than a decade ago to reverse this regrettable policy, and today the tiny individual stands of longleaf pine are making a remarkable comeback in some areas, with roughly 4 million acres now enjoying protection from logging and other usage.

Mississippi Bottomland Hardwood Project

The biggest stretch of forested wetlands in America used to be found along the Mississippi bottomland, with cypress and other trees taking up 24 million acres of wetland, and providing home to a diverse collection of animals and other plants. After years of farming and clearing for home-building, only about 5 million acres of those wetlands remain. The Nature Conservancy has worked for the past 30 years to try to protect and restore these Mississippi bottomland areas, and progress is finally starting to gain traction.

Shortleaf Pine Project

Over the past 30 years, the formerly prolific shortleaf pine has seen huge tracts of forest eliminated because of pests and timber management policies. The Nature Conservancy has recently spearheaded a drive called the Shortleaf Pine Initiative to protect and better manage the remaining stands of shortleaf pine.

Urban Trees Project

Numerous metropolitan areas have joined forces with The Nature Conservancy and other organizations to promote a re-forestation of trees in urban settings. Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles are just a few of the huge cities which have recognized the value of planting as many trees as possible in their urban landscapes, to help improve the quality of life for all their citizenry.

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History of Earth Day

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History of Earth Day

Image attribute: Photograph by Google Images; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

Earth Day was the brain child of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was horrified after witnessing a terrible 1969 oil spill near Santa Barbara, California. Sen. Nelson hoped to tap into the restless energy which was still being expressed by the counter-culture movements of the time, to publicize and promote national awareness of the environment. Up to that time, relatively little mention of the environment had ever been featured in the media, with only a few voices calling attention to the diminishing resources, increasing pollution, and indiscriminate recklessness toward the earth.

Organizing the first Earth Day
Sen. Nelson persuaded Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey to be co-chairman and appointed Denis Hayes from Harvard as his national coordinator. Mr. Hayes quickly assembled a national staff of 85 like-minded individuals to help with the event, and April 22, 1970 was chosen as the date for the inaugural Earth Day in America.

An amazing 20 million Americans turned out that day to demonstrate in favor of greater environmental awareness and protections, enlisting the aid of millions who had already been fighting pollution and other discrete areas of environmental harm. The groundswell of support for the movement led directly to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of a bill promoting clean air, clean water, and protection of endangered animal species.

Earth Day goes global
Twenty years later, in 1990, Denis Hayes again took the spotlight for organizing a global Earth Day. For that effort, more than 200 million people in almost 150 countries participated, and it brought the issue of environmental conservation into focus for the entire world. One of the biggest outcomes of this global involvement was a formal program of recycling which began to be adopted almost everywhere on earth. In 1995, President Bill Clinton awarded Sen. Gaylord Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts in founding Earth Day.

Earth Day today
In 2010, the Earth Day Network brought more than 250,000 people to the National Mall for a rally focused on the climate, and initiated the launching of the world’s largest environmental service undertaking, called ‘A Billion Acts of Green’. This called for forest preservation and conservation in the form of planting trees in 192 countries, by more than 22,000 partners of the Earth Day Network.

Earth Day has grown into the biggest observance in the world by private citizens, with upwards of one billion people participating annually. It continues to gain supporters every year. In addition, the movement continues to spur new legislation that acts to protect the environment and the creatures which make use of it. With major impacts already being wrought by climate change, and even greater impacts anticipated, the value provided by Earth Day becomes more evident and more crucial with each successive year.

Resources

Meet Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day

Wood Pallets are USDA Certified Biobased Products

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Wood Pallets are USDA Certified Biobased Products

Photograph by Wikimedia; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

If you live in North America and regularly buy fresh produce at a grocery store, you’ve probably seen organic produce displayed for sale. In the United States, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees the certification program to show that certified agents are protecting natural resources, conserving biodiversity, and using only approved substances.  Seeing the “certified organic” label on food purchases gives consumers confidence that those products achieved those goals. How can one be certain that other widely used products, like detergents, oils, carpets, fertilizers, building materials, and shipping materials are produced in the same spirit?

In the United States, the answer to that question is the USDA BioPreferred® Program. This program was created in the 2002 Farm Bill legislation and was expanded in the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills. The program is intended to increase the use of renewable agricultural materials to reduce dependence on petroleum based products. Products identified by the BioPreferred Program are known as “biobased” products.

The United States government recognizes the many benefits of biobased products. They tend to perform as well as or better than their petroleum based counterparts and are competitively priced. According to An Economic Impact Analysis of the U.S. Biobased Products Industry, biobased products displace about 300 million gallons of petroleum each year in the United States. This is equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the road!

According to Kate Lewis, the program analyst in charge of the USDA BioPreferred Program, as of 2016 the biobased economy contributes $393 billion to the U.S. economy each year and supports 4.2 million jobs (source). In other words, for every 1 biobased products job, 1.76 additional jobs are supported in the United States. To date, nearly 3,000 products have been certified under this program.

US Federal law directs that the Federal government must show purchasing preference for biobased products in order to increase the government’s investments in renewable resources. To date, there are 97 categories of products that have mandatory federal purchasing requirements. Participating in the BioPreferred Program is voluntary but use of the label is limited to biobased products certified by the USDA.

Through the work of the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association, wood pallets designed with the Pallet Design System software are now certified under the BioPreferred program. For a quick explanation of wood pallet sustainability in North America, watch our 2-minute video in the link listed below.

Resources

 

8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Forests

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8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Forests

Photograph by Wikimedia; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

It’s estimated that about 30% of the Earth’s land area is covered in forests. The rainforests of South America, Central America, Africa, Southern Asia, and Australia hover around the equator while the Boreal forest in the Northern Hemisphere span across several continents. Check out this list of fun facts you probably didn’t know about forests.

  1. More than 25% of medicines we use originate in rainforest plants. These medicines are used to treat conditions like malaria, glaucoma, Parkinson’s disease, pediatric leukemia, and Hodgkin’s disease.
  2. The Boreal forest covers 14% of the Earth’s land. Countries that include the boreal zone are Canada, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Japan.
  3. Forests are like the lungs of our planet. As trees grow, they use photosynthesis to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, aiding in the fight against global warming. Trees continue to store carbon throughout their life cycle which often spans decades.
  4. The tallest tree in the world is taller than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty! The coastal California redwood tree called Hyperion stands at 115.61 meters tall.
  5. The oldest living organism on the planet, Pando, is believed to be a group of trees connected by the same root system. This set of aspen trees is estimated to be 80,000 years old.
  6. According to the United Nations, in 2014 it was estimated that 13 million people worldwide were employed by the forest sector.
  7. When a tree is harvested, about 85% of it is graded for building construction applications. The remaining 15% is used to make wood pallets and crates for shipping, wood pellets for clean energy, garden mulch, oriented strand board (OSB), and several other products.
  8. No part of a tree goes to waste. Even the sawdust is collected and used to make energy in cogeneration plants to power homes and office buildings.

Nature’s Packaging is committed to North American’s sustainably managed forests and to the wood packaging industries it supports. For more information, visit the Resources section of our website listed below.

Resources

Wood Pallets Help Kids at Refugee Camps

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Wood Pallets Help Kids at Refugee Camps

According to the UNHCR, developing countries host 86% of the world’s refugees and about 51% of all refugees are children. To be clear, a refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. With so many children at refugee camps, their childhoods are impacted by the experience of fleeing their home country for fear of their safety. Humanitarian aid ships to them on wood pallets yet many children are left without toys.

Jon Robbins, a 33 year old advertising and design professional, wants to change that. Instead of shipping food, medicine, and water to refugee camps on one-way wood pallets, he wants to ship them on wood pallets that can be converted to sports equipment. That way, the kids at refugee camps can play and have some fun!

Jon said, “I was inspired by a friend telling me about his visit to a refugee camp and how eerily quiet it was. And it turns out that although more than half of the refugees in the camp are children, they aren’t playing, which is why it seemed so quiet. I love sports and I really believe in the importance and healing power of play, so I was inspired to try to see how to help get some sports equipment out to those children.

It’s a tough sell to get play equipment on a pallet that’s transporting food, water, and medicine to refugees, so we began designing and developing a pallet that is also a completely self-contained sports equipment system.”

His first patent-pending design is an all-inclusive basketball set. The 48×40 pallet includes instructions, spare parts, a hoop, net, and ball. Each pallet is designed to be reconstructed into two stand-alone basketball nets and includes everything needed to construct it. Other designs he has planned are soccer goals and skateboards. The wood pallets are manufactured in upstate New York.

According to the UNHCR, there are 21.3 million refugees in the world and less than 1% of the world’s refugees are ever resettled. Although refugee camps are intended to be a temporary stay, for many, they are long-term. Giving kids at refugee camps toys to play with gives them hope and joy.

For more information or to help the cause, visit the Play Pallets website.

Resources

Forest Health Benefits from Genomics

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Forest Health Benefits from Genomics

Photograph by Flickr; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

In addition to sustainably managing North American forests, foresters are working hard to ensure that the trees planted today will survive for the next generation. Canadian scientists working in field called genomics are identifying the trees that natural selection seems to favor and using those saplings to plant the next generation of North American forests.

Natural selection in forests favors the survival of trees capable of withstanding insect attacks, animal attacks, and changing climate conditions. For instance, trees vulnerable to beetle attacks, specifically pines, are either weakened from drought or otherwise unable to produce sufficient amounts of sap to ward off the attacks. Trees that thrive in spite of these hardships have adapted to survive. Using genomics, foresters identify those beneficial genetic traits to ensure they will be passed on to the next generation of trees planted in forests.

The saplings for the next generation are not being genetically modified. Genetic modification is different than genomics. According to the University of Nebraska’s Ag Biosafety department, genetic engineering is the process of manually adding new DNA to an organism. In genomics, no new DNA is being added to the tree’s original DNA.

The benefits of planting more trees that natural selection has favored are plentiful. According to its website, Genome BC, one of Canada’s leading genomics research firms, has invested $77.6 million in funding for forestry related research products. These investments are expected lower costs for the Canadian forest industry. In Canada, all lumber that is imported must be tested for pests and pathogens. In using genomics, those tests could be expedited and could indefinitely lower testing costs.

Another application is selectively breeding cedar trees that have more terpenes. Terpenes are chemicals that leave a bitter taste and increasing the amount of terpenes in cedar saplings would prevent deer from eating them. Sustainably managing forests also means ensuring that there will be forests for our future. If saplings cannot survive then there will not be forests for our future.

Resources

4 Ways to Prevent Bluestain

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4 Ways to Prevent Bluestain

Bluestain is the most common type of fungi found in wood products that is commonly confused with mold. Unlike mold fungi, bluestain is not linked to human health issues. Bluestain is not airborne. Also, because the bluestain fungi do not digest the wood cell wall, they have minimal impact on the wood structural integrity. In other words, although it looks harmful, it will not decay the wood.

According to the report “Wood Discolourations & Their Preventions, with an Emphasis on Bluestain” there are two types of bluestain: deep and surface.

Deep Bluestain

Photograph by Wikimedia; distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license

Deep bluestain fungi are typically from the genera Ceratocystis, Ophiostoma, Grosmannia, Leptographium and Sphaeropsis that grow deep into sapwood causing dark blue or gray discoloration. The fungi attach themselves to insects that attack trees or logs, especially bark and ambrosia beetles, such as the mountain pine beetle. Any tree or log that is attacked by beetles is likely bluestained. Thus, if a tree has its bark intact, then it won’t be impacted. Trees and logs with damaged bark are also susceptible to be colonized by bluestain fungi. Once the bluestained log is converted to lumber, it shows long blue or gray streaks of color, hence the name “bluestain.”

Unlike decay fungi (or dry rot), bluestain fungi does not destroy the wood cell’s wall. Its impact on the strength of the wood is minimal and it will stop growing once the wood has been heat treated or it has a 19% or less moisture content. Because deep bluestain infiltrates the tree via insects prior to it being felled or as a log in inventory, not much can be done to prevent it from discoloring the wood. Some industries may try to chemically bleach impacted lumber but this is not a widespread industry practice.

Surface Bluestain

Surface bluestain is caused by similar bluestain fungi of the genus Ophiostoma, with Sporothrix or Pesotum anamorphs that invade sapwood after the logs have been processed through a sawmill into lumber. They don’t penetrate the wood deeply but cause discoloration in the wood’s surface that’s sometimes confused with decay mold. Bluestain does not destroy the wood cell’s wall to force decay. As with surface grown molds, these fungi can be removed from the surface of the wood by planing it.

Follow these steps to reduce the chances of fungi from impacting your wood packaging inventory.

1.    Keep it dry. Bluestain thrives in wood that has a moisture content greater than 19%. Keeping it dry and in low-humidity conditions will prevent it from growing. If your inventory is stored outside, tarps or paper wrap are useful, but make sure there are holes that allow for ventilation.
2.    Keep it ventilated. Storing wood pallets in an unventilated space creates ideal conditions for new bluestain growth, especially in warmer weather. If you must store your wood products inside, providing sufficient air ventilation will reduce the likelihood of bluestain.
3.    Keep it clear. Remember, surface bluestain transmits via insects. Ensure the area surrounding your wood products is clear of vegetation or debris that might harbor insects or pests that transmit bluestain.
4.    Keep it off the ground. A 6 to 8-inch elevation will ensure that the bottom layer will stay dry from puddles of rain that might form. This will keep your products dry.

Resources

Is it really mold?

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Is it really mold?

For many companies, discovering black discoloration on your wood packaging products can be troublesome. At first glance it might look like mold fungi, which are a great cause of concern regarding human health, but it might be something else entirely. There are types of fungi that grow on lumber called bluestain but they are not linked to human health concerns.

Interestingly, there are also other types of naturally occurring defects in lumber that might look like mold but in fact are not biological. Before you “jump the gun” and ask your supplier to replace all your wood pallets with fresh ones, keep in mind there are many types of naturally occurring, non-biological defects that may look scary, but are not caused by microorganisms (fungi, bacteria, etc).

Understanding the difference could save you time, money, and a great deal of worry. The report “Wood Discolourations & Their Preventions, with an Emphasis on Bluestain” discusses the different types of discoloration commonly found on wood products and how to identify them. The report at the bottom of the article includes pictures and examples of each of these discolorations.

Iron stain

Iron stain is considered the most common type of black stain found on wood products. According to the report, “it is caused by elemental iron reacting with phenolic chemicals in the wood to form black iron tannates, or common black ink pigment.” In other words, if particles of iron are deposited on wood during railway transport or if steel wire, staples, or nails are in direct contact with wood and the wood becomes wet, the wood might become stained dark with iron. Even saw blades will sometimes cause these streaks.

Brown Stain or Zebra Stain

In western hemlock, a type of discoloration occurs only after the wood is dried in a kiln. Whereas the unaffected areas appear light yellow, affected areas appear dark brown, making for noticeable differences in surface color variation. Below the surface of susceptible pieces, sometimes the brown stain will appear black after the wood is dried. This is known as zebra stain. Zebra stains happen when iron or manganese darkens the browning and makes it turn black.

Sun Exposure

If your wood product is left outside and exposed to the sun, over time it will darken (like a sun tan) and may make the wood appear dirty or damaged. The impact of sun exposure causes a chemical change in the tannins of the wood that, over time, react to the sun’s exposure. If this happens to your wood packaging product, or other lumber product, it’s said to be “weathered.”

Enzymatic Discolorations

Red alder, oaks, beech, maples, and other hardwood species are commonly susceptible to enzymatic discoloration. This is the reaction of enzymes or  polyphenolic compounds in living cells. This produces a grayish or brownish tone in sapwood.

Mineral Discolorations

Typically seen in the forms of dark lines or streaks in oak, green or brown patches in sugar maple, or purple to black areas in yellow poplar; mineral discoloration sometimes develops in standing or fallen trees in mineral rich soils.

Preventing discolorations caused from iron stain and weathering are quite manageable. If you store wood products outdoors, keep them covered yet ventilated to prevent weathering. Also, keep your ferrous metals from having direct contact with lumber to prevent black ink stains. Other types of black stains and discolorations, like zebra stains, enzymatic discolorations or mineral discolorations, are naturally occurring and challenging to control.

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