Around the globe there is a growing emphasis on protecting our environment. Sometimes referred to as reducing the carbon footprint, this movement has resulted in an outpouring of products relabeled as green. Buyers are motivated by emotions and often will pay more money to support planet-friendly products and operations. The challenge for buyers is determining when a claim is valid (green) and when the message is just clever word play (greenwashing).

It seems that every company has launched a line of GREEN products to show that they are environmentally friendly. In some cases, the various operations and processes are deemed to be green because of minimal waste. With or without some kind of formal certification, it is possible to demonstrate the “green” nature of a product. Some of the factors that are analyzed during an environmental impact assessment are harmful emissions, recycled content, water use, energy efficiency, and reliance on renewable resources.

Check the specifics of certifications for applicability to your project needs. Be alert to the use of buzz words and take time to carefully assess product options as they relate to the needs of your application.

Following is a brief listing of some certifications that are available in different areas. Links to websites will provide more detailed information about the different ways a company can move towards greater environmentally responsible management.

Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) – this certification sets a high standard by examining the entire life cycle of environmentally safe and healthy materials.

Energy Star – this identification is placed on products that use substantially less energy than comparable products. Used in North America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.

Environmental Choice – This is a Canadian organization, and similar to C2C, it certifies a product’s environmental responsibility based on life cycle analysis of harmful emissions, recycled content, water use, energy efficiency and other factors.

European Eco-Label – This EU organization has established strict scientific criteria for minimizing environmental impacts.

Good Environmental Choice – Australia has this independent organization that identifies products and services that have a smaller ecological footprint that their competitors.

Green Guard – This institute certifies low-emission building materials and indoor products..

Green Seal – certifies low-emission paints, adhesives and cleaning products.

Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) – certifies food, flowers, fish, electricity, wood products and manufactured goods, for various levels of environmental performance. The Indoor Advantage cert guarantees that products used indoors have minimal or no VOC (volatile organic compounds).

Aside from certifications, there are some words and terms commonly used to designate a product or process as having attributes that are environmentally responsible. It is useful to become familiar with these terms as they relate to the goals of your application.

Green – not only is this the name of a familiar hue on the color palette, it is also used to indicate environmentally friendly products or processes. In the following two examples using this word, the first statement can be easily supported with physical evidence, while the second case it tells the buyer nothing specific about the company’s commitment to environmental responsibility and bears deeper investigation.

“Company uses only recycled packaging made from 100% post-consumer materials.”[can be proved on inspection].

“Every employee of the company has a GREEN focus”.[statement has no substance]

Sustainable – The US Dept of Commerce defines sustainable manufacturing as the creation of manufactured products that use processes that minimize negative environmental impacts, conserve energy and natural resources, are safe for employees, communities, and consumers and are economically sound. “The company recycles 100% of production waste into energy using their onsite trash-to-steam generator to produce half of the plant’s total energy needs.”

Low-impact materials – Environmental impact is reduced by using products that can be grown or naturally replenished or cleansed at a rate that exceeds human depletion of the resource. For instance, bamboo is a rapidly renewable resource, whereas certain kinds of stone, fossil fuels, etc., are finite resources. The process of extracting stone or fossil fuels degrades the environment, and decreases the value and viability of the land for its inhabitants. The two examples following demonstrate different levels of participation in environmental responsibility. “The company only uses 100% reclaimed lumber to manufacture their widgets”. “The mining operations rely on wind turbines to produce the energy needed for extracting metal ores from the earth.”

Low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) – Volatile Organic Compounds are organic chemical compounds that can significantly vaporize and enter the atmosphere during use, application or drying out of paint or other coatings. This process can lead to unsafe toxins that can be inhaled by workers or inhabitants. Manufacturers must disclose the VOC content of products on Material Safety Data Sheets, and management should utilize all available resources to create a safe and healthy workspace where VOCs are present. Evaluate the claims in the context of your project requirements. How much less is enough to make a difference? “the company’s green products have x% less VOCs than the competition”, the company has eliminated all VOCs from its product line”

Renewable energy – Energy derived from resources that are regenerative, rapidly replenished, or for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. Examples: solar photovoltaic power generation and solar thermal energy; biomass from landfill gas, municipal solid waste gasification, and wood-waste; and geothermal, hydro, and wind power generation. “The company installed three wind turbines this week, and expects that they will produce 75% of the plant’s electricity requirement.”

Energy-efficient – A product or building technique that reduces energy waste, thereby helping to reduce energy bills. “the company installed a living rooftop and expects a 30% reduction in costs to heat and cool the plant”.

Embodied energy – Embodied energy is an accounting methodology which aims to find the sum total of the energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle. This lifecycle includes raw material extraction, transport,[1] manufacture, assembly, installation, disassembly, deconstruction and/or decomposition. It is difficult, if not impossible to quantify, and there is no accepted standard for calculating it.

Carbon footprint – The sum of carbon emissions associated with a lifestyle, building or activity. This term is usually used to illustrate the higher or lower amount of carbon dioxide emitted between otherwise comparable alternatives, such as the difference between shipping products by air (which has a large carbon footprint), or driving them using biodiesel (which has a low carbon footprint). This is a difficult calculation with many variable factors.

Carbon emissions – Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane and fluorocarbons, all of whose absorption of solar radiation has possibly contributed to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Carbon emissions are a greenhouse gas. Methane is also a greenhouse gas, and is more severe on a molecular level than carbon. However, greenhouse gas emissions’ most apparent and concerning source are carbon emissions.

Carbon-neutral – A term used to describe a building design that consumes no fuels that will release carbon dioxide, or a design that has used renewable fuels as energy sources to ensure that the total production of carbon dioxide related to the project is zero.

In summary, the ever-increasing focus on sustainable living has extended to virtually every aspect of our existence. Compliance requirements vary from one country to another. A wealth of informational resources are available online. Voluntary participation in taking action to reduce one’s carbon footprint is encouraged; “green” product offerings may well complement a company’s existing environmental management plan, and the links provided above will be useful resources.

Permabond is a leading manufacturer of engineering adhesives, supplying high-quality industrial adhesives to customers worldwide. Permabond has offices in The Americas, Europe and Asia and a worldwide network of distributors to assist you with your specific bonding and sealing requirements. To learn more, please visit Epoxy.

Please Note... All links within articles are placed by their author-owners and not by this blog.Products with in those links may or may not be the best in the world.If it sounds too good to be true it could be a scam.Articles are posted for their info,ideas and or entertainment value only.

Powered By WP Footer

MOP – Maximum Oil Pickup
The Planet’s Only Cradle-to-Cradle Green Oil Spill Product Happens to be the Best Too.

One of the biggest challenges faced by green products is the common misperception that by creating a sustainable product you must sacrifice quality and effectiveness in the process.

Not so with Maximum Oil Pickup. In fact, I’d wager that MOP, and its compliment of deployment products, is the most effective, environmentally sound, invention to date for rapidly mitigating oil spills of any size from the Exxon Valdez to your garage.

From a sustainability perspective, one of the things that makes MOP even more intriguing is that it is a cradle-to-cradle green product. Created by recycling an otherwise-unrecycled* fiber product in a plant powered by hydro electric energy, the production of the MOP sorbent (the name for the oil spill cleanup product) is all created, from beginning to end with green technology and green energy.

Certified in 2008 by the EPA and Environment Canada for oil spill cleanup on both land and water, MOP is one of the few products capable of providing mitigation in both environments.

About the (AB)Sorbent
The MOP sorbent comes in two forms one optimized for land cleanup and one optimized for water cleanup. Using a patented process involving biodegradable materials the final product makes the sorbent  Oleophyllic (oil loving/absorbant) and hydrophobic (water hating/repelling). The moment that the sorbent is spread on the oil spill on land or water, it sucks up the oil and repels the water. This means that as the sorbent is cleaned up only oil is captured with it.

Using any one of several different processes, the oil can then be extracted for reuse from the sorbent and the sorbent can be burned as fuel. Extraction yields 95% of the usable oil. MOP Environmental Solutions, Inc. (the company name) is currently designing a carbon negative biomass energy system which will be able to burn the used sorbent. One 20lb bag of MOP will capture as much as 600 lbs of oil.

Just what does this mean for the companies that deploy the MOP system? To begin with it means that they can stress the sustainable nature of the oil recovery process they use. They can also recover the oil and use or sell it. For a recovery company, this means they add an entirely new profit center to their operations. They charge for the recovery and mitigation and then they are able to sell the recovered product. It’s the best of all possible worlds.

For shippers, drillers, refineries and others in the oil drilling, moving or refining business, they have a mitigation system that offers rapid deployment, exceedingly effective cleanup, oil consumption for small amounts of oil missed in any cleanup and recovery of the product. Again, the best of all possible worlds.

Rapid Response Capabilities and Delivery Systems
Since development of the sorbent is only part of the solution, the folks at MOP Environmental Solutions have been working on a whole host of delivery systems for the sorbent, including: booms, pillows, loose material and the fabled MOP Canon. The MOP Canon looks a little like the offspring of a vacuum cleaner and an artillery gun, but operates like an air canon, shooting the loose dry sorbent out as a speed of 150 MPH and spreading it evenly over a distance of 50 feet.

According to President Charles Diamond, “In a series of tests designed to evaluate the speed of deployment, the company found that one MOP canon could apply enough MOP to neutralize the harmful effects of an oil spill at a rate of at least 1,000 bbl/hr. “That’s a conservative estimate, and it can be as high as 1,500 bbl in one hour’s time,” Diamond confirms.

According to Diamond 10 MOP canons, placed on fast-moving boats, could completely neutralize an Exxon Valdez-sized spill in about 24 hours.”

Different deployment scenarios exist depending on the weather conditions. “We can spray MOP on top of a spill if the weather is cooperative,” says Diamond. “Where more difficult weather patterns exist, we have a deployment method that allows us to bring our product in underneath the spill, essentially bubbling it up into the spill.”

Pickup onshore can be performed with shovels, heavy equipment and hand implements. Offshore pickup can be performed with skimmers dragged behind a boat.

MOP’s “301” land sorbent is optimized for land use and contains a fine grit additive that immediately restores traction and safe footing on hard, slippery surfaces.

Product Cost, Storage and other Factors.
Already competitive on a volume basis, the level of product efficiency, and the ability to reuse the spent sorbent for fuel, result in a significant reduction in remediation costs, according to Diamond. “There are savings both in the low cost of the product itself, and in the operation. Because MOP has a much higher pickup ratio than alternatives like clay, MOP uses one-tenth as much space for storage and is much easier to handle. Imagine one worker carrying two 20-lbm bags of MOP versus two workers unloading a ½-ton pickup truck loaded with 25 to 40 bags of clay for the same oil spill.”

MOP is also lightweight and has a unit cost that is less than one-third the cost of clay. “Arguably the most important feature of MOP is the option of 95% oil recovery for as little as USD 0.25 per gallon and subsequent elimination of hazmat disposal cost. What was formerly on the expense side of the ledger is transferred to the bottom line as profit instead.” according to Diamond.

MOP Environmental Solutions has several expansion plans in the works for MOP this year including an entire value added line of spill kits for every conceivable need.

Diamond is optimistic that the MOP Environmental Solution’s holistic approach to oil remediation will be a positive draw for any operator facing the potential for oil spills in any process. “This technology could be seen as taking a very negative environmental event, an oil spill, and turning it into a positive.

In the first place, you’re intercepting a material [the Fiber-based starting material from a fiber-manufacturing process] that normally would not have a recycling path,” he continues. “You give it a recycling path by converting it to MOP, and then apply it in the field to solve an environmental problem without creating any additional waste streams and minimal by-products. Essentially, you’re taking a problem material and using it to solve a bigger problem.”

For more information about MOP and other remediation technologies, visit www.mopenvironmental.com.

* an otherwise-unrecycled product in sustainability jargon is called a “recovered material” meaning that it is an item for which no other market currently exists in the waste stream. The US EPA has made the use of recovered materials among its highest priorities in recycling guidelines because recycling of these materials can play a significant role in reducing the waste stream.

Wayne D. King is President of Moosewood Communications and Editor of “Greener Minds” a sustainability Blog found at http://www.GreenerMinds.Blogspot.com.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/the-planets-only-cradletocradle-green-oil-spill-product-1246956.html

Please Note... All links within articles are placed by their author-owners and not by this blog.Products with in those links may or may not be the best in the world.If it sounds too good to be true it could be a scam.Articles are posted for their info,ideas and or entertainment value only.

Powered By WP Footer