Among the early-adopter segment of eco-conscious consumers, The Intelligence Group has observed a new trend called “precycling” and believes it will grow.

Consumers who precycle aren’t just content with throwing cans and bottles in the recycle bin and letting waste management sort it out. With increasing consumer interest in sustainable living, those engaged in precycling aim to avoid products that create more superfluous stuff. This could mean everything from buying bulk in order to avoid excess packaging to reusing everything from water bottles to shopping bags (the latter of which has caught on with retailers and the public at large).

In its May Cassandra Report, The Intelligence Group found that 45% of trendsetters and 14% of mainstream consumers have “cut down on bottled water purchases” in the past six months, while 49% and 16% respectively have “cut down on use of plastic bags” during the same period.

Precycling evolved out of a trend the market research and consulting firm spotted in 2007, which it called “wasted.” This is when it noticed excess was emerging as a dirty word. People were looking for ways to pare down packaging and/or repurpose it, for starters. As examples, think Pom Wonderful’s reusable bottles and Chaco footwear’s program that offers customers a 20% discount when they send in used but clean shoes, which are donated to developing countries.

It is becoming a more popular viewpoint that recycling cans, bottles, paper and such is an antiquated misuse of energy, so precyclers remove themselves from junk mail lists, read paper-based media online and even carry around “precycling kits” consisting of cloth napkins and silverware—anything to reduce waste and not contribute to the recycling bin.

“It’s not just about how you dispose of [products and packaging] anymore,”  said Melissa Lavigne, director of marketing for The Intelligence Group, which is a division of CAA. “It’s about being conscious about products you buy in the first place. That’s the idea behind precycling.”

Of course, precycling isn’t replacing recycling completely, especially in its more abstract forms. Consumers are all for donating or reselling their electronic gadgets, for instance, thanks to eBay and other Web resources. Lavigne said, “We asked people how many think of the resale value when they purchase a product, and 49% said they do.”

Source: Brandweek

A newly FSC certified company in the United States is recycling old raft logs - so called boomsticks – into a host of fine lumber products. The company expects to sell much of its product line to developers and builders involved in the environmentally sensitive U.S. construction industry.

Columbia Riverwood received FSC chain of custody certification in April 2008. The company’s FSC recycled products will maximize building material points under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

The Oregon based company acquired over 1 million board feet of floating boomsticks. Over 50 years ago, boomsticks were selected from some of the highest quality logs in order to tow huge log rafts up and down powerful rivers. For decades the river has been covering all but the tops of these logs, preserving the wood.

Each boomstick is lifted out of the river, loaded onto a log truck and transported to an FSC certified sawmill in Mehama, Oregon. Years of accumulated grit in the outer inch of each log requires the use of a large circular saw blade. Once that outer grit layer is removed, the beauty of old growth timber is reclaimed into flooring, window and door stock, beams, molding and one-of-a-kind blocks for woodturners.

“Based on diameter and ring count, our boomsticks range in age from 150 to 350 years old and stood over 200 feet tall before being felled 50 to 70 years ago. Some of the ring counts (more that 30 to the inch) simply can’t be found on the market today,” said Erick Haglund, Columbia Riverwood’s president. “It’s a real thrill to generate an old growth product through recycling.”

Currently, the US recycles only 52% of the aluminum cans being used in the country. Compare this to the global average of 63%, or global leaders like Brazil (94%) or Japan (90%). The US is the world’s biggest consumer of aluminum cans, and we should all be aware of the environmental benefits of recycling them.

According to Greg Wittbecker, Director of Corporate Metal Recycling for Alcoa, the US should appreciate the environmental gains of simply increasing the nation’s recycling rate to 75%. “If we could recover and recycle 75% of the aluminum cans being currently tossed into landfills — 600,000 metric tons of aluminum — we could save 1286 megawatts of generated electricity. That’s the amount produced by two coal fired power plants, and consumed by two aluminum plants,” says Greg. “Replacing this production with recycling would keep 11.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being generated and released into the atmosphere.” It would also reduce the amount of mercury going into the environment, since power plants emit polluting mercury when they burn coal.”

Recycling aluminum saves enormous quantities of energy, otherwise required to make virgin aluminum. Recycling a ton of aluminum uses just 5% of the energy required to make virgin metal. Every ton of recycled aluminum saves about 14,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.

In Omaha, our single stream curbside recycling program makes it easy to recycle aluminum at home. If your company doesn’t currently offer single stream recycling, then have your facilities manager contact Omaha’s FirstStar Fiber right away.

Do you need some help convincing your friends and coworkers to recycle. Take a look at this list, it will give you that hook to get them interested in learning more.

1. Paper products make up 40% of all trash.
2. The highest point in Ohio is a literally a garbage dump that is now called Mount Rumpke.
3. 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,0001 ton of paper! gallons of water can be saved by recycling.
4. Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
5. Recycled plastic is can be made into polyester carpets, plastic lumber, clothing, flower pots, insulation for sleeping bags & ski jackets, car bumpers and other products.
6. Each American uses about 400 aluminum cans a year. If aluminum is recycled, 95% less energy is used than if it were made from scratch.
7. 75% of our trash can be recycled.
8. Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
9. Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups each year.
10. About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging material.