Our visit to the Go Green Expo in New York City on March 19th, introduced us to some new products on the market, and reminded us about some others we had forgotten! It was also an interesting opportunity to look at how “green” products are showcased and brought to market. Join us now as we share with you some of our “finds” from the show.
We loved the reusable gift-wrap from Shrapps. This gift-wrap is made from fabric, it requires no tape or other packaging material and can be reused indefinitely. All the fabrics are “finished” and add a touch of elegance and “specialness” to the gift wrapped inside. Another “wrap” we liked was a “baggie” from SnackTaxi. Instead of plastic baggies that usually don’t get reused, try out a true reusable bag from SnackTaxi. Send carrots, nuts, popcorn or sandwiches to school or work in style. These “baggies” are machine washable and lined with a waterproof material. Another interesting product we saw is from Its my B, which lets you bring home just your dry cleaning, from the dry cleaners – no plastic wrap or packaging materials. Do you sometimes feel a “twinge” of guilty unpacking “newly cleaned” clothes which are hung neatly on a paper wrapped metal hanger, covered in plastic? (We do!!) Its My B is selling a home hamper, reusable garment bag, take to the dry cleaners bag, all in one! You store, transport, and then “leave” the bag at your dry cleaners, who then packs your clean clothes in the bag and returns it to you to take home! We can’t wait to try it out and see what our dry cleaner thinks about it! We will let you know.
A fun product that “upcycles” recyclable materials is an MP3 speaker from Merkury Innovations. The kids in your life might think this is pretty cool as it uses power from the MP3 so is transportable and doesn’t require an outside power source. The speakers are made from recycled material supplied by Terracycle, which recycles old juice containers and other traditionally “non recyclable” waste materials. Finally, for those of you who occasionally have to “do the laundry” and are looking for a detergent with little or no environmental impact, look no further than Dropps. Dropps formula, which has been approved by the EPA’s Design for the Environment program, comes in a unique, innovative dissolvable pac, which you throw directly in the washer with your clothes. No more big, heavy laundry jugs (which are mostly water) to cart home from the store, saving water, energy and chemicals in your wash!
We expected that NYC would have a “state of the art” green trade show, with the latest and greatest. We 
found a lot of that, but also were a little surprised by the lack of sustainable initiatives by the conference center and the set up for the conference itself. If you were you looking to recycle your disposable bottle at the show, forget about it! One of the exhibitor booths offered this service, but you couldn’t just “recycle” something by throwing it in a container at the show, because there were no recycling bins. Maybe that was a hint that you were supposed to be drinking from a reusable bottle! We didn’t see any new ideas for badges or show catalogs for attendees like we do see at some trade shows these days. The registration badges were the same old, same old, plastic cases with cardboard, material neck straps and plastic connectors, no visible opportunity to recycle for reuse…that’s some of our complaints for the show set up…hoping for more thought on these organizational issues next year.
