Paper products are getting unquestionably more environmentally sensitive. With even big name brands like Kimberly-Clark publicly committing to using fibers from sustainably managed forests, you can expect to see stores make more room on the shelves for at least one “alternative” paper product brand.

One we like to see is the Marcal brand, which has been recycling paper fiber since 1950. We’ve spotted their paper towels at Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores and now we see Marcal paper towels and toilet paper in the main paper products aisles at Kroger grocery stores.

Our local Kroger has carried Seventh Generation paper products, but had cordoned them off with all the other organic foods and products in a special section. The main paper aisle remained a wonderland of fluffy virgin paper products. We see the move to put Marcal front and center as serious progress. Now folks who aren’t looking for environmentally friendly products will at least get an eyeful of Marcal’s bright yellow label and see the company’s appeal to save trees.

Marcal, you see, doesn’t use trees for its paper products, but makes them from reclaimed paper fiber. The Small Steps paper towels we picked up are 100-percent recycled and are whitened without bleach. Also the paper towels come off in smaller sections to discourage waste — in a world where built-in obsolescence and excess have been accepted — that strikes the right note. (Of course, you can reduce your use even more by replacing paper towels with a wash cloth….)

Last week’s news really illustrated the push and pull between green ideals and the realities of life here on Planet X.

The Obama Administration put logging jobs ahead of forest preservation with its decision to allow a road into an undisturbed forest in the Tongass National Forest outside of Ketchikan, Alaska. The forest, a watershed and recreation area, had been left alone under a Clinton-era rule that protects “roadless” forests.

Now, the U.S. Forestry Service will allow two miles of road to be built so a local logging company can access timber. It will help local loggers weather tough times. But conservationists say its a bad call. There’s talk this might be a one-time exception. But then, the road to hell is paved with exceptions. Or is it intentions? In any case, this exception-al road will be bordered with clear-cut timberland. (See more in the Juneau Empire.)

Speaking of blowing up pristine lands, the debate over shearing off mountaintops to obtain coal continues unabated. You’ll recall a few weeks ago climate scientist James  Hansen and Darryl Hannah made headlines while protesting a coal operation in West Virginia.

Another mess, another bank, a different issue

This week, the Rainforest Action Network announced a new tactic in their guerrilla operation to save Appalachia: Go for the money. A newsletter to supporters asks them to call Chase Bank in New York City because the bank is a key financier of these coal operations. They’re not wasting time with some aggravating 800-number either, they’ve got names and numbers of employees and a script to follow. Cute.

So while people chip away at forests and mountains, eco-groups chip back. But what’s missing from these dialogues is, well, you. Consumers are end users of wood products. We don’t know exactly if you’ll be wiping your bottom with the trees from Ketchikan, or settling your lovely tushie on a new chair from Ketchikan. Maybe they have some high-level use in mind for these trees. Hope so.

In the meantime, there are a few small things that you can do to offset the destructive practices in any number of forests where the chain saws roar right now. Buy 100 percent recycled paper with the highest post-consumer content possible. Do this whether you are shopping for printer paper or TP.

Look for these brands, for example:

• Seventh Generation – (their TP is 100 percent recycled, minimum of 80 percent post-consumer fiber)

• Marcal – Their new “small steps” brand is 100 percent recycled “premium paper” (translation: Your tush will be safe)

As for that Appalachian coal. That’s problematic. You can’t ask people to turn off the electricity. But everyone who’s paying an electric bill should check out their power options. In many states you can choose your provider, and often you can choose a clean energy or cleaner energy plan. When you opt for wind or solar you’re keeping the pressure up on the fossil fuel industry.

(Want to know more about coal? Visit the Reality campaign, where they will share tidbits like this one from the US government: “CO₂ emissions from U.S. coal-based electricity are greater than emissions from all the cars and trucks in America.”)

March, take aim and… get great prices on organic yogurt?

Finally, on the green frontlines, was the Wal-Mart story. Bless their ginormous eco-heart, they have done a lot to bring sustainable practices to the mainstream. They’re selling Stonyfield Farm organic yogurt, organic teas, cage-free eggs, and they carried Kleenex Naturals (until that experiment folded).

But they’re still treading heavily on the land with big box stores that make a big thud when they plop down. Check out the controversy over their plans to set up shop next to a historic woodlands and Civil War battlefield in Orange County, Va. Wal-Mart claims it’s not taking a strong offensive; but defenders of history and nature are united in their pique. They want the store moved farther down the road.

The timing of this firefight exposed Wal-Mart’s weak flank: It broke out a day after the world’s largest retailer announced plans to promote green transparency with a worldwide sustainable products index. Ummm.

The moral of the story: It is NOT easy being green. Whoever said that?

(Photo credit: US Forestry Service, Kip Tyler)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

It’s taking some time, but the health care industry is slowly figuring out how to tamp down the paperwork that’s choking doctor’s offices and irritating patients across the nation. Increasingly physicians are emailing in prescriptions and we in the public are getting our rejections for medical treatment via online records. (Hey, at least we don’t have to wait for the bad news!)

Humana Inc., the health insurer based in Louisville, Kty., has taken one small step for forest-kind, with a new program under which customers can opt for email communications. For every person who chooses this eco-friendly, paperless mode of business, Humana will donate $1 to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant trees.

Humana, which provides health insurance to employers and individuals, asks clients to make the switch by clicking on the “My Profile” link at the Humana website.

Needless to say, the U.S. can use the greenery this might generate.

Recent record or near-record forest fires have claimed more than a million acres that the U.S. Forest Service says need replanting, according to a press release on the Humana/Arbor Day initiative.

Of course the need for trees is ongoing, global-warming induced forest fires, or not.

“Trees help protect waterways and soil, restore habitat for wildlife, and help preserve the Earth’s vital forests for generations to come,” said John Rosenow, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation, in the joint release. “Humana should be commended for its commitment to the environment.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

For a movie that explicitly addresses the perils of overconsumption, Pixar’s WALL*E is being used to promote an awful lot of consumer products.

One tie-in in particular is rankling Greenpeace. It seems that the lovable robot’s image has popped up on boxes of Kleenex, a product the activist group has criticized with a “Kleercut” campaign that asserts, “it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex” because the product’s manufacturer Kimberly-Clark “all but refuses to use recycled paper in its products.” (Among other things, they’re trying to get parents and teachers to reject the company’s tissues in classrooms.)

Seeing a wealth of irony (or, as the activist group puts it, “Iron*E”) in the promotion, Greenpeace commissioned political cartoonist Mark Fiore to make his own cartoon parable. The result falls far short of Pixar quality in terms of wit and charm, but it gets the message across: The cute ‘bot meets a new character named Kleer*E, whose chainsaw arms and ferocious jaws are used to turn forests into tissue boxes; his theme song offers bits of hyperbole like “You blow your snotty nose, another tree goes down…”

Requests for comment from Kimberly-Clark went unanswered. At the FAQ on the Kleenex site, the company defends itself by insisting, “Virgin fiber is used in our tissue because it provides the superior softness consumers expect from a premium facial tissue product such as Kleenex® facial tissue.” At the corporate web site, a large Sustainability Report plays up the introduction of a “Naturals” line of products (some of which is carried by Wal-Mart at last check) including facial tissues with 20% recycled fiber, bathroom tissue with 40%, and paper towels with 80%.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Wal-Mart Stores is joining the Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN), World Wildlife Fund’s initiative to save the world’s most valuable and threatened forests. The giant retailer also announced this week that it is moving toward making some of the jewelry it sells meet standards for sustainability and social responsibility.

Both steps are aimed at aiding the environment, with dual goals of assisting wildlife in jeopardized forests, and in the case of the jewelry, mitigating human rights issues in mining operations.

In joining the forest network, Wal-Mart is committing to phasing out illegal and unwanted wood sources from its supply chain and increasing its proportion of wood products originating from credibly certified sources, according to a WWF news release.

The United States is the largest consumer of industrial timber, pulp and paper in the world. The U.S. also is a top destination for imports of wood from areas where illegal logging and trade are common, such as Indonesia, China and Brazil; places where deforestation is stripping endangered species of habitat and contributing to global warming.

Wal-Mart’s commitment includes the importation and sale of all wood-based products with an initial focus on wood-based furniture. Wal-Mart says it sources furniture from the Amazon, Russian Far East, northern China, Indonesia, and the Mekong region of southeast Asia — some of the most biologically diverse places on earth.

Within a year, Wal-Mart says it will complete an assessment of where its wood furniture is coming from and whether the wood is legal and well-managed. Once the assessment is completed, Wal-Mart has committed to eliminating wood from illegal and unknown sources within five years. The company reports that it also will eliminate wood from forests that are of critical importance due to their environmental, socio-economic, biodiversity or landscape values and that aren’t well-managed.

The world’s largest retailer also wants to make its sources for jewelry more transparent, starting with a new line of baubles called Love, Earth.

Through a collaboration with Conservation International, the materials for Love, Earth will be traceable online from mine to store so that customers can see that the precious metals and stones used come from socially responsible mining operations. The criteria for the new line will take into account the environment as well as human rights issues.

The mid-term goal: to have 10 percent of Wal-Mart’s jewelry meet these new sustainability standards by 2010.

Read more about WWF’s work on sustainable forestry.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media