virgobee’s Recent Comments

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  sustainable beaujolais

  I read a story about winemakers asking for special permission to release this year's beaujolais a little earlier than usual to account for the extra time it would take to ship to the U.S. by ship instead of air.  From Reuters:

  "The two biggest producers of Beaujolais Nouveau are going green by transporting their wine by sea rather than air or packaging the vintage in environmentally friendly bottles.

  Boisset, the second-largest maker of Beaujolais Nouveau, is bottling its entire harvest in PET bottles that are "absolutely recyclable," said Patrick Egan, a spokesman for Boisset America.

  The green shipment is due to arrive in time for the wine's traditional third Thursday in November release.

  Meanwhile, Georges Duboeuf, the largest maker of Beaujolais Nouveau, struck a deal with the French government to allow an early release of his wine so that he could use ships to haul about 75 percent of his 2 million U.S.-bound bottles, instead of the one-third that usually arrives by boat."On Umbra on beer and wine posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  PEVA v. PVC

  I have a shower curtain from IKEA, too.  I was very relieved to see it was not PVC (wouldn't have bought it otherwise).  Here's a good explanation from healthybuilding.net on the difference between the two:

  "What differentiates PVC from the other vinyls is the addition of a chlorine molecule (the chloride "C" in PVC and PVDC).  Chlorine is the source of many of the environmental health concerns with PVC, such as the generation of dioxin, a highly carcinogenic chemical produced in both the manufacture and disposal of PVC. Due to its persistent and bioaccumulative nature (it travels long distances without breaking down and concentrates as it moves up the food chain to humans) dioxin has become a global problem and an international treaty - the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - now prioritizes the elimination of processes that produce dioxin.

  Some of the non chlorinated vinyls (EVA, PEVA, PVA and PVB) are now beginning to be used as direct substitutes for PVC. EVA has been in use for several years as a chlorine free substitute for PVC - primarily in non building materials like toys and athletic shoes, but occasionally as a protective film or binder. In the building industry, post-consumer recycled PVB is now beginning to be used to replace PVC in carpet backing. Absence of chlorine alone does not make these other vinyls the final answer in the search for green polymers. There are still plenty of toxic challenges and untested chemicals in the life cycle of any petrochemical product. As is the case with most other polymers competing with PVC, however, the weight of available evidence indicates that the absence of chlorine in the formula will generally render the lifecycle environmental health impacts of PVB and the other vinyls less harmful than PVC and initial study is bearing this out. Like the polyolefin plastics, the use of PVB and the other non chlorinated vinyls represents a step forward in the search for alternatives to PVC."

   On Umbra on shower curtains posted 3 years, 4 months ago 5 Responses