No matter what the color, you could look marvelous in “green.”

Congratulations to Wyndham Hotels for being the first national upscale lodging chain to implement the eco-friendly uniform initiative! The hotel chain’s employees are now wearing ultra soft uniforms made from spun polyester fabrics derived from post-consumer products such as beverage bottles.

Lodging Hospitality magazine even recognized Wyndham with one of its 2009 Chain Leadership Awards for environmental action.

Designed by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., the uniforms come in two collections: an urban line with solid and pinstripe styles emphasizing dark and light blue colors with red accents; and a resort location version featuring nature–inspired earth tones.  The uniforms do not require professional dry cleaning — which, of course, minimizes the use of chemicals in the cleaning process.  The uniforms are now being worn by bellboys, desk clerks, concierge captions, maids and backroom support staff at Wyndham properties worldwide.

“As part of our quest to find new and innovative green practices, we challenged Cintas to design a program that reflected our three Wyndham brand–defining pillars of innovation, personalization and flexibility,” said Faith Taylor, Wyndham Worldwide vice president of sustainability and innovation, in a press release. “Cintas answered the call by selecting trendy, eco–conscious garments that are machine washable, easily modified and mixed–and–matched for a more personal look.”

What’s next? An all-plastics themed season of Project Runway where  each week an aspiring fashion designer is eliminated from the competition for not using enough post-consumer recycled content in their design?

Have you moved to a new home or office lately? What did you do with the collection of cardboard boxes and other packing materials that were used during the move? If you’re like most people, you put them in the trash. Sometimes they get reused, but typically not more than once – and then on to the landfill.

Well, there is a company in Costa Mesa, California called Rent-A-Green Box that shows that it doesn’t have to be that way. Spencer Brown, founder and brain child behind the company, has re-invented the moving box — creating them from 100% recycled plastic trash, mined from local landfills. His invention is called The Recopack, which stands for “Recycled Ecological Packing Solution.” (You can watch several videos featuring Spencer and The Recopack.) The company delivers the plastic bins to you, then you pack them and move to your new location. Later, the company comes to your new location and picks the bins back up. The cost is based on a per bin/per day fee.

The company has introduced a whole line of moving storage products made from materials found in landfills and recycling centers, including HDPE (high density polyethylene; resin identification code #2) plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, used baby diapers, cardboard sludge, newsprint sludge, cardboard food boxes and aluminum cans. So far, it looks like Rent-A-Green Box is serving a good deal of Southern California, but are actively seeking partners to expand their reach.

This is the kind of innovative thinking that we all need to focus on moving forward. Here is a company that has found a seemingly profitable way to not only re-use existing waste, but to eliminate additional waste generation.

Did you know there was an annual Bubble Wrap® Competition for young inventors? Yes, that Bubble Wrap®. The stuff we all like to pop the little bubbles on to scare the dog, terrorize the cat or just pass the time.

According to the Sealed Air Corporation, manufacturers of the well-known plastic packing material, Bubble Wrap® was invented by engineers Arthur Fielding and Marc Chavannes in a Hawthorne, N.J. garage in 1957 when they were trying to invent a textured plastic wallpaper.

For several years now, the Sealed Air Corporation has staged a serious competition for young inventors to “encourage students in grades 5 to 8 to demonstrate their creativity and ingenuity by creating an invention that incorporates the use of Bubble Wrap® cushioning.” Before you think that this sounds like some sort of goofy science project gone wrong, take a look at the 2009 winners that were announced in January.

The top prize went to a young man named Tucker Haas, a home schooled student from North Carolina who used Bubble Wrap® to make a swing for children with movement disorders that provides adjustable back and neck support. Haas competed against 2,200 entries from students around the country, ultimately winning the top prize and a $10,000 U.S. Savings Bond. The second and third place prizes were awarded to equally impressive grade school age inventors.

If you have a child in this age range who would be interested in the 2010 competition, check out the How to Enter part of the competition’s website.

Congratulations to the winners as well as all of the participants for taking this already useful plastic product and making it even more so.

(If this post gave you the urge to pop some Bubble Wrap®, and you just can’t wait, you can virtually pop some online here.)

I am delighted to report that SPI is addressing, in one way or another, each of the 10 goals that Plastics News has put forth in its bold manifesto: “’09 Goal’s for the Plastics Industry” (Viewpoint, 01-05-09). In fact, it might be reasonable to assume the editors put the list together by consulting the SPI Web site or our membership brochure. Most likely, they did not. Some of us at SPI thought they interviewed SPI President Bill Carteaux for his input. But they did not do that either. The goals do look extremely familiar since they touch upon many of our existing programs AND are already in motion by SPI at the direction of our membership. First take a look at the list, and then read on…

New and exciting SPI initiatives already up and running include our commitment to promoting sustainability in the plastics industry – which Plastics News wrote about in June. We even co-sponsored Sustain ’08 with Plastics News in November, and our sustainability push is carried through on our blog, in videos and in the numerous presentations Bill Carteaux makes around the world. Additionally, NPE 2009 will feature sustainability as a part of the multi-faceted education track.

The research phase of our Consumer Outreach Initiative – also written about in Plastics News – was just completed and implementation will soon begin on a multi-faceted online media campaign to promote the benefits of plastics to Millennials, policymakers and industry employees.

Some goals are being addressed through long-standing programs: the SPI-OSHA Alliance and annual SPI Safety Statistics and Awards Program; statistical reports such as Size and Impact of the Plastics Industry on the U.S. Economy, Global Business Trends, and the Committee on Equipment Statistics Annual & Quarterly Reports; and the on-going work of our International Trade, Government Affairs, and Industry Group committees and staff.

Plastics News would also like our industry to speak with a unified voice in 2009. Not only does SPI represent every facet of the plastics industry via the Industry Groups of our Equipment, Processor, Material Supplier and Bioplastics Councils, but both Bill Carteaux and Steve Russell, managing director of the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, enjoy a strong relationship and are mutually committed to having a unified industry. The joint Plastics Ambassadors Program – which mobilizes companies and their employees to promote the benefits of plastics and plastics recycling within their communities — is a recent manifestation of this alliance. (Plastics News wrote about this in September.) In addition, Carteaux is now acting secretary general of the Council of International Plastics Associations Directors (CIPAD), which represents 64 plastics association directors acting in 49 countries from five continents. CIPAD is staffed by SPI.

We look forward to Plastics News’ continued coverage of these SPI initiatives, as well as to its own contributions toward the industry’s achievements in 2009.

I’m not from Philadelphia – I was born in Trenton, NJ – but I spent most of my formative years in the City of Brotherly Love. I went to a great Jesuit high School, St. Joseph’s Prep, and then onto Drexel University. I have many great memories of the city; but honestly, in those days, it wasn’t the cleanest place I’d ever been. Fast forward to this week.

On January 6, Mayor Michael Nutter announced that he was making good on a campaign promise to have single stream recycling pick up in every Philadelphia neighborhood on a weekly basis. In the Mayor’s open letter to the people of Philadelphia he writes:

From Monday, January 5th, we will collect all recyclables from the curbside, every week, as Philadelphia becomes the largest city on the East Coast to have weekly, single stream recycling. This is one more step forward in our quest to become the greenest city in the United States… You told us that it was inconvenient to have to separate all of your recyclables – glass, plastic, paper – into multiple bins. You told us that it was inconvenient to have recycling collection on a different day to trash collection. We listened, and we made the changes.

Judging from this Philadelphia Inquirer article, the Mayor’s news was applauded by recycling advocates:

Recycling advocates were jubilant, praising Mayor Nutter not only for following through on his campaign promise to increase recycling, but also for doing so in the face of plummeting prices for commodities… Maurice Sampson II, chair of RecycleNOW Philadelphia and a frequent critic of the city’s recycling efforts, said he was happy with the expanded program. “I’ve never seen a streets department so charged. [Deputy Streets Commissioner] Carlton Williams is becoming my hero.”

Bravo Mayor Nutter!

Why is this important? Well, as Mayor Nutter notes in his letter, the program is designed to remove obstacles to recycling. People complained that sorting was too difficult – single stream eliminates that concern. People complained that having bi-weekly pickup on a different day than their regular trash pickup made it difficult to remember when recycle pickup would occur – this program eliminates that also. Recycling needs to be a part of our daily life. If the great city of Philadelphia can take this step to make it easier and more convenient for its citizens, I suspect that there are a lot of other cities, towns and local municipalities that can do the same.

How about yours? What is your city doing to help make recycling easier?