The Next Generation of Green Products

It's not easy being green, but with innovative design, it's getting a whole lot easier.

The new crop of environmentally conscious products on display at the Green Products Expo last week gave us hope that things are getting greener in 2010. Each exhibitor in attendance at the expo strives to find eco-conscious ways in which to produce, improve and/or deliver the products and services we use everyday.

Here are some of the innovative green products on display at the show:

Recylced Materials
Building suppliers like EcoStar, make slate and shake roofing tiles, among other things, from 80 percent recycled materials. The synthetic products look amazingly real, divert millions of pounds of waste from piling up in our landfills, come with a 50-year labor and material warranty and contribute to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) requirements for tax credits. Just check out how amazing they look (above), which just goes to prove it's all in the re-thinking.

Plastics
TekPak, a packaging manufacturer has re-examined and re-thought the manufacture and degradation of plastic in our landfills and found that the introduction of certain microbials in the making of plastic yielded a product that breaks down naturally in the environment. This company's goal is make all our water bottles and take-out food containers 100% biodegradable in any environment -- we wish them luck!

Using plant-based plastics (PLA) is a different way to tackle the problem of plastic. Polylactide materials (PLA) also yield a product that can be recycled quickly and reduced back to their original form. One company using PLA materials, Re:newal, produces plant-based water bottles, with plant-based labels filled with pure water that are being distributed in Cancer Treatment Centers of America nationwide.

Re-usable Packaging
My first thought about Conserve Cleaners from BaumGartens was that they had designed a cleaner that effectively reduces the amount of product consumers will buy from them -- which must mean they really believe in saving the earth.

However, I realized I was mistaken: They are not reducing the amount of product, but merely the amount of waste. Their cleaners (multi-surface cleaner, glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, etc.) are sold in tablet form. Four tablets come with one plastic spray bottle, and one tablet dissolves in enough water to fill the bottle.

Think of the amount of plastic saved and the transportation waste eliminated with this simple concept! Plus the cost of the product is about 40 percent less than other cleaners!

Green Cleaning
Ecover has recently improved their formula to be safer and more effective in cleaning. The company has developed a green version of a surfactant (surfactants are the petroleum-based chemical ingredients that make cleaning supplies work).

This new "eco-surfactant" is made from a biochemical process activated by yeast that proves to be a powerful cleaner. Package all that in a polyethylene and refillable bottle and you have a company making huge strides in the reduction of chemicals in our eco-system.

Another greener cleaning choice is the Ionator HOM, a new appliance spray bottle from Activeion Cleaning Solutions. It ionizes tap water, rendering it an agent that kills bacteria and cleans without chemicals. The housewares industry has been using this technique over the past several years in the form of ionized water baths and sprayers to clean produce. This spray bottle takes the technology one step further in that it is always readily available.

Just how effective is it? Tests have proven it is effective in killing harmful bacteria, including the H1N1 virus. Personally, I'm not sure I'd be completely comfortable cleaning my bathroom with it, and that is a psychological hurdle an innovative company like this one ultimately faces.

The same is true with steam mops. Bissell demonstrated their newest steam mop that works magic on floors with results that can actually be seen, and with no chemicals. However, there's the hurdle of the unseen; customers will wonder: Is the bacteria gone? Is is really clean enough for the baby to crawl on? Going green is a battle of education, and I encourage you to try it yourself and see.

Freshwave, another exhibitor with a rather sweet-smelling booth, produces odor-neutralizing products made from water and plants. Extracts of lime, pine needles, aniseed and cedar wood are combined with water. The charged molecules attract and "grab" the odors in a room and neutralize them. The product is effective with a fresh scent that might take some getting used to, but lacks all the harsh chemicals of a traditional air freshener.

Conserving Water
What about rethinking the royal flush? Kohler, a premier faucet and fixture company, has released a redesigned flushing mechanism that does not rely on the traditional flap style of draining and refilling the tank, but rather on a cylinder which pops open and closed much faster. The mechanism allows for a powerful flush with less water.

Caroma displayed a fixture with a hand-washing sink mounted atop the tank of a dual-flush toilet. The idea being that the clean water would flow from the faucet and the gray water drained into the tank to be used to flush the toilet. Hmmm... we're not sure consumers will buy into this idea.

Another water saver was the LeakAlertor, a small, simple device that attaches to your tank and determines if there is a leak. The device periodically flashes with an indicator light and an audible alert. Fixing leaks can save both water and money.

As I would say to Kermit, it may not be easy to be green, but it is certainly getting easier -- and we must each keep doing our own part to help conserve and preserve our planet.