Bye-bye barf: whale vomit no longer necessary to make perfumesambergris-the technical term for hunks of sperm whale vomit-has long been a component in high end perfumes.
California company offers sustainable packaging for meat, fishit may be an obscure biblical reference, but I have to admit that the first thing
That's because the Richmond, Calif.,company's latest product line includes food display and containers that are made out of bulrushes.
The new trays and containers were designed to replace the polystyrene containers that are used usually to wrap up meat
poultry and seafood. They are manufactured by Be Green Packaging. Excellent Packaging & Supply is the distributor.
The company makes a point of noting that these are plants that are used not typically in food production,
so their use as packaging should not compete with food production. All of the plants are renewable on an annual basis,
And they can also handle the rather wet packaging situations that are associated usually with meats and fish.
The reason that you sometimes have to use paper AND plastic at the supermarket when taking your groceries home.
because the alternatives just don't hold up to real use behind the meat, poultry and fish counters.
Our new line of supermarket food and meat trays proves that there is now a viable alternative that's not made from corn, trees or plastic,
and that offers the required durability and sturdiness--even when used with fresh, moist food.
Another recent example of the products it distributes into the food service industry is the Ingeo biopolymer-lined clamshell containers that it is selling in conjunction with Primelink.
which could be used by cafeterias or restaurants to package food-togo, combine bagasse-based shells with a biopolymer coating.
when you are transporting hot or cold food, but they can still biodegrade over time.
For restaurant patrons, this is also great news: the food served in these containers will be as good to eat as
when it left the kitchen, and the containers can be added to the compostable waste stream,
which specializes in table grapes, peppers, stone fruits and citrus varieties, can now look at everything from unit costs
BERLIN--At the furthest end of a century-old beer brewery yard in Berlin, a shipping container with a greenhouse on top hums with the gentle sound of pumping water.
Upstairs, rows of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and even flowers line the walls amidst the zen-like sounds of trickling water.
aquaponics is gaining modern traction in places where food transport and water are costly. Here in the middle of Berlin, the single container farm functions as a prototype for Christian Echternacht and Nicolas Leschke, founders of the social business Efficient City Farming (ECF.
In the U s.,transport costs are often the biggest unnecessary overhead on food prices--but here in Berlin,
000-square-meter (21,500-square-feet) farm just on the other side of the brewery wall.
aquaponic food won't be allowed to carry either the German or the European union's organic seal on supermarket shelves.
Echternacht says regulations prohibit the label for any food not grown in soil --though he doesn't view this as a problem.
The purpose of the organic label has always been to introduce a kind of certification to food about how it was grown,
Though it would take 10,000 such farms to feed all of Berlin--including the grains needed for beer,
grapes for wine and other products--Echternacht said the point is not to replace traditional agriculture,
'Sutherland is teaching bees to associate infected plants with a sugar reward. After they are conditioned,
and porcupines) to pass through the community, and a rooftop pool. And again, the designers propose a mix of live-work spaces.
Water stress concentrates sugar and nutrients in the crops making them extra flavorful. But, dry farming yields are often one-third the size of those from more industrial farms, Coren reports.
Monsanto has another idea for facing the water shortage. The agriculture biotechnology company has been testing out drought-resistant corn seeds.
and farmers still need to put food on our tables (and money in their pockets).
according the UN Food and Agriculture Administration. That's a lot of logs to keep track of.
and new product materials such as soy, corn and mushrooms. Moderator Lance Hosey, president and CEO of Greenblue (a nonprofit focused on sustainable design and production in business and industry) started off the discussion by telling us that we produce some 300 billion pounds of plastic a year
PIE (Project Import Export, Inc.)uses water hyacinth to make wicker furniture. But its interesting to think about the process by which theyre created the method has changed.
There are a lot of different sugars from which were getting bioplastics. Dr. Wool from the University Delaware said the industry is moving like gangbusters toward a time
Corn-based, cellulose-based, soy based, sugar based. Polyethylene is one of the greener plastics;
There are zero federally funded green chemistry centers in the U s. China is a mess environmentally right now
Two female elephants stand in a shed surrounded by fodder and cocky monkeys. Despite being chained at the foot,
Items including jewellery, clothes, lanterns, utensils, curtains, pickles and toys, from all over the country, are spread out like a colorful bedspread under the open sky.
The battle to feed all humanity is said over, Chu quoting author Paul Ehrlich. A subsequent major development was the development of disease-resistant strains of wheat that could handle artificial fertilizer and produce higher yields.
but others criticized it for ushering in an age of monoculture in which farmers turned their backs on biodiversity in the interest of maximizing food production per acre.
Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth,
Trains and planes and ships revolutionized the food market, he said. It really transformed the way people move
and sell ethanol for cooking as well as a modern cookstove designed to use the fuel. The company, formed two years ago by industrial enzyme maker Novozymes and Cleanstar Ventures, is tackling an economic, environmental and public health problem in Africa.
The widespread use of charcoal to cook food has created a $10 billion market. Its production also has devastated million of acres of forests.
Charcoal has exacted more than an economic toll on the folks who use it for cook food.
The facility will produce two million liters a year of ethanol-based cooking fuel from surplus cassava supplied to the company by local farmers.
Beans, sorghum, pulses and soya are processed into packaged food product for sale in cities. Photo: Cleanstar Mozambique Related:
and soil nutrients. The solution was developed by Bulut Ersavas, a former electronics engineer with IBM and Sun who got the idea for a water-monitoring system
Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, raised the idea in Species Protection and Technology, a post on The New york times Economix blog.
Joseph Wolf (1898), via Wikimedia) But returning to the merits of Mulligan's proposal, remember that resurrecting dead
It goes without saying that Mulligan's idea also ignores the actual services that various ecosystems render to us humans refreshing the air, cleaning water, reducing pests, and so on.
USDA) Mulligan's column reminded me of a variation on this cloning idea years from almost 20 years ago.
In the spirit of a thought experiment, he wrote, scientists should consider embarking on an extensive program of documenting,
Maybe the way to think about Mulligan's idea is like satirist Jonathan swift's A Modest Proposal from 1729, in
corn is used for food. So we're using cellulosic biomass waste streams--corn cobs, treetops and limbs, dead pine trees from pine beetles.
A tree is actually sugar. You need to do a bit of chemistry to get the sugar out.
Mother Nature has five types of sugars--we can use two types, six-carbon and five-carbon sugars found in nature.
Smartplanet: Cobalt has seen investment from Vantagepoint, Pinnacle, LSP and Harris & Harris, among others. How did you convince them that biofuels could be done?
RW: You put a slide pack together and go to popular private equity center Sand Hill Road.
Corn cobs are easy to break down into sugar. But that's not a solution to the cellulosic fuel problem.
but you have to realize that with the BP-Transocean oil spill we just poisoned half the food chain down there in the Gulf of mexico.
Coke vs. Pepsi: Beverage giants offer water footprint insightsin conjunction with last week's worldwide push to champion sustainable water consumption practices, Pepsico and the Coca-cola Company have published extensive
reports that detail their specific business practices around championing clean water. The Pepsico one, entitled Water Stewardship:
Good for Business. Good for Society, amplifies the water stewardship goals that the company outlined in April 2010
when it released its broader update on its corporate sustainability efforts. At that time, it set out a goal to improve water efficiency for each unit of production by 20 percent by 2015.
Another big theme for Pepsico is water balance, that is, the idea that it can use technology
This year Pepsico (and Coca-cola, too, as you'll read in a minute) started working with the Nature Conservancy on initiatives focused on water balance.
The report published by Coca-cola and the Nature Conservancy, Product Water Footprint Assessments: Practical application in Corporate Water Stewardship, drills down more deeply into three specific examples of how Coca-cola is working on this problem.
The company defines a product water footprint as the total volume of freshwater consumed, directly and indirectly,
Coca-cola notes that there is a big difference between water footprinting and carbon footprinting. Here's what it says in the report:
The focus of the Coca-cola report is on water footprint assessments of the following: Coca-cola sold in a 0. 5 liter PET bottle,
specifically one produced by Coca-cola Enterprises in The netherlands Beet sugar supplied to Coca-cola in Europe Minute maid
and Simply Orange products sold into the North american market Those assessments are provided for three different types of water uses:
So, for example, the Coca-cola Simply Orange product, when sourced in Florida, has the following footprint per liter:
Here's a comment from Denise Knight, the director of water and sustainable agriculture for Coca-cola:
the lettuce in your Caesar salad might come from the building across the way. Demand for locally grown produce is rising in urban areas,
Rising energy costs and concerns about food security have led some Canadian entrepreneurs to reconsider and reimagine local farms.
including herbs, lettuces, and tomatoes. We look at food creation in the same way as you look at making subway stops,
said Lynn. We're considering high density residencies such as senior's home; there's going to be a boom in the future,
Coming to a cafe near you: a coffee-pouring robotas the type of person who writes words for a living,
But my affinity for it pales in comparison to that of Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan, who writes this morning of a coffee-pouring robot installed at Roy St. Coffee and Tea in Seattle, Wash.
The planet is facing a very serious environmental challenge with respect to food and agriculture and it is clear that we won t solve them without engaging in action with respect to the food system.
 Here s are some of the innovative things that year s winners are doing:
Jim Cochran of the Swanton Berry Farm near Santa cruz, Calif.,gets props as 2011 Food Producer  for being one of the first farms in the nation to adopt organic farming methods for strawberries.
Molly Rockamann, the 2011 Young Food Leader  founded an organization called Earthdance Farms in Ferguson, Mo.
Ann Cooper is the 2011 Knowledge Winner, Â aka the Renegade Lunch Lady. Â She has started several programs that help schools figure out how to transition to healthy ingredients,
even introduced salad bars. She started with her own day job in the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado.
Her nonprofit is called the Food Family Farming Foundation. Pam Marrone is the 2011 Business leader, Â recognized for her championing of biopesticides.
Sustainable Farming Can Feed the World? Â The column by Mark Bittman focuses on a report from the United nations in December 2010, called Agro-ecology and the Right to Food.
 The analysis is focused on the idea of helping smaller farmers be more productive, while being true to the environment.
but like the United nations analysis, it calls for a focus on local and indigenous vegetables as a means of curbing food shortages
and skyrocketing food prices. Said Danielle Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch s Nourishing the Planet project:
The solutions to the price crisis won t necessarily come from producing more food, but from listening to farmers, investing in indigenous vegetables and changing how foods are processed
and marketed. Â Some of the recommendations, which are explored in the report: Listen to farmers,
what is local Look at ways to reduce food waste Focus on water management Harness the skills of women farmers
There is more corn grown in the United states used for ethanol fuel production than for livestock feed.
The company's technology also works with sugar and cellulosic mass. Today, it announced that a new biofuel refinery has joined its early adopters program.
Shell score high on biofuel assessment Fuel to Byrne Cleanstar's plan to use ethanol to clean up cooking
Could cities rely 100%on urban agriculture for their food? While urban agriculture has gained in popularity throughout U s. cities,
food imports from all around the world overwhelmingly feed our cities. But could that ever change?
A recent study by Sharanbir Grewal of The Ohio State university found that it's possible for a city to be 100%reliant on food grown
and raised in the city to meet basic food needs. And at the very least urban agriculture could be doing much more to feed the city.
It could also produce 25%of poultry and shell eggs, and 100%of honey. In addition, if Cleveland used 80%of every vacant lot and 9%of every occupied residential lot,
the city could generate between 31%and 68%of the needed fresh produce, 94%of poultry and shell eggs,
94%of its poultry and shell eggs and 100%of its honey. The study says:
and 1. 8%and 7. 3%by expenditure in total food and beverage consumption, compared to the current level of 0. 1%self-reliance in total food and beverage by expenditure.
Growing food in the city would also keep $29-115 million in the local economy.
(and other desired foods that can't grow in certain climates) to meet demand, but when it comes to basic food needs cities have
what it takes to be self-reliant. Photo: jeffschuler/Flickr
Could skyscrapers soon be made of wood? In the world of skyscraper men, Bill Baker is the dean of the supertalls.
 Baker s team based its study on one of its own groundbreaking buildings the 1966 Dewitt-Chestnut apartments in Chicago,
They did it, in fact, with their landmark Chestnut building and its unique trunk-and-cantilever structural system.
With the closest mill 180 miles away, it's too costly to do much with the harvested timber except sell it as firewood in grocery stores,
a beer mug--reproduce it, and use the print to unlock the Apple iphone 5s. The current bounty has reached over $2500
including bitcoins, wine, Bulleit Bourbon, a dirty sex book and Maker's Mark. Scanning the Twitter hashtag#istouchidhackedyet,
whether a person coming up through a large organization has the chops to continue to be creative.
which to grow food. Not only does vertical farming save land but it also slashes the CO2 emitted in transporting food,
because it allows farmers to grow crops near the point of consumption. But among the current shortcomings, the energy required to power indoor lights can wipe out those CO2 gains.
and rows of various vegetable and herb plants including tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, zucchinis, radishes, peppers, peas, cresses, lettuces, tulips and orchids.
they're usually decorated with plant-specific sugar molecules, which could prompt a dangerous immune reaction
a structure where the problematic sugars are added. The engineered maize seeds produced proteins decorated with sugars that could be converted to human forms.
In the end, they were able to synthesize alpha-L-iduronidase, the enzyme used to treat the rare lysosomal storage disease mucopolysaccharidosis
In May, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first ever drug produced in a genetically engineered plant cell:
but their sugar patterns have been problematic too. If all goes well, however, maize may one day become the go-to way to make complex protein drugs.
it will have the capacity to generate 30 million gallons annually of cellulosic biofuel produced from corn stover residues,
a non-food feedstock consisting of corn stalks and leaves. Using corn stover instead of corn alleviates two problems:
criticism over using food crops for fuel and ridding farmers of leftover stover, which can interfere with planting.
Dupont was able to optimize the process and technology at its pilot facility in Tennessee,
which allowed it to increase the annual capacity at the Iowa plant, the company said.
store and deliver more than 375,000 dry tons of stover per year to the plant. The stover will be collected from a 30-mile radius around the new plant
and harvested of off 190, 000 acres, the company said. Graphic: Dupont Related: BP scraps cellulosic ethanol plant plans Turning pine trees into jet fuel Wood chip-to-sugar maker scales up to replace oil and food crops
Dupont's big bioscience bets: butanol, cellulosic ethanol, omega-3 acidsnew YORK--Dupont wants to help raiseã Â sustainably-farmed salmon by offering them a diet loaded with omega-3 fatty acids that it manufactures from soybeans.
The idea: instead of feeding fish other fish to elevate omega-3 levels, why not provide them with the acids directly?
why notã Â put the acids in everyday foods such as sauces and soups? That was among the more interesting details of Craig Binetti's presentation at the 11th Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference on Thursday.
Binetti, theã Â president of Dupont's Nutrition & Health and Applied Biosciences divisions, says he sees large potential market opportunities for his group that will lead to 7 percent annual growth
Increasing food production. Reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Protecting people & the environment. Growing in developing markets.
Drop in fuels and non-food feedstocks are needed. Drivers: energy security, rural community growth, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, food constraints, green jobs.
Binetti outlined the advantages of cellulosic ethanol: 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Grown on marginal land.
Eating healthy costs $1. 50 more a dayit's confirmed: Eating healthier costs more. But could the difference between a healthy diet
and an unhealthy one be as little as a buck and some change? According to a new Harvard School of Public health study, Â yes.
People often say that healthier foods are more expensive, and that such costs strongly limit better diet habits,
lead author Mayuree Rao of HSPH says in a news release. But, until now, the scientific evidence for this idea has not been evaluated systematically,
including price data for individual foods. They evaluated the differences in prices in four ways:
 They found that healthier diet patterns--for example, diets rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, and nuts--cost significantly more than unhealthy diets (for example, those rich in processed foods, meats, and refined grains).
The highlights: Â Meats and protein had largest price differences. Healthier options cost $0. 29 per serving more than less healthy options.
Price differences per serving for healthier vs. less healthy foods were smaller among dairy, grains, snacks/sweets,
and fats/oils, and not significant for soda/juice. Comparing extremes, healthier diets cost $1. 48 per day more than the least healthy ones.
Over the course of a year, however, eating a healthy diet would increase costs by $550 for just one person.
This would represent a real burden for some families, and we need policies to help offset these costs,
says study co-author Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard. On the other hand, this price difference is very small in comparison to the economic costs of diet-related chronic diseases,
which would be reduced dramatically by healthy diets. The team concludes that best way to make healthier foods more affordable is for governments to subsidize healthy foods and tax unhealthy ones, New Scientist reports.
New york, for example, is attempting this with sugary beverages. It comes down to the food industry and their economies of scale.
According to theâ news release: Unhealthy diets may cost less because food policies have focused on the production of inexpensive, high volume commodities,
which has led to a complex network of farming, storage, transportation, processing, manufacturing, and marketing capabilities that favor sales of highly processed food products for maximal industry profit.
Given this reality, they said that creating a similar infrastructure to support production of healthier foods might help increase availability
--and reduce the prices--of more healthful diets. The work was published in British Medical Journal Open last week.
 Via New Scientist Image: J. Fang
E-business may dramatically cut paper wasteearlier in my career, I helped publish a series of books on The Office of the Future,
which was supposed to come about at the turn of the century. In this futuristic office, paper would be a thing of the past,
with all transactions and documents delivered electronically from workstation to workstation, company to company. Of course, as they say,
the future isn't what it used to be, and there is still too much paper being consumed in today's enterprises.
The Environmental Paper Network estimates that about five million metric tons of paper are used in US offices every year.
and better conserve energy resources. These are all noble goals, and there's no doubt it's in the best interest of companies to save on power costs.
a patent-pending technology that uses a growing organism and byproducts from food production (oat hulls from New york, cotton hulls from Texas and rice hulls from Arkansas) to create a strong composite material.
We also just started making wine shippers. With wine, our material acts as an insulation.
Finally, we re starting to do some consumer products picture frames, bowls for your home. The idea is to think of this as a new kind of plastic.
Ecovative COO Ed Browka, CEO Eben Bayer and Chief Scientist Gavin Mcintyre after winning the Picnic Green Challenge in The netherlands.
Entrepreneurs deliver healthy produce to Indianapolis'food deserts 'What do you get when you combine an entrepreneurial organic food delivery company with a regional healthcare system interested helping address obesity
and unhealthy eating habits in under-served, low-income neighbors? You get a program like Garden on the go,
and vegetables to a dozen such food deserts in the Indianapolis area. For those readers unfamiliar with the term, the phrase food desert refers to urban neighborhoods
or areas where it is difficult to find healthy food options. Garden on the go is a partnership between Indiana University Health and Green B. E. A n. Delivery,
an online delivery company that provides organic produce and natural groceries to customers in Indianapolis and Fort wayne in Indiana;
Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus in Ohio; and Louisville, Ky. The Garden on the go initiative was driven by statistics that show approximately 29 percent of adolescents
is intended to help change local eating habits with the aim of showcasing demand for healthy food alternatives in neighborhoods that have few other alternatives.
Chipotle commits to doubling local produce purchases USDA launches online tool for locating'food deserts'Myplate:
But if I were a restaurant, hotel, school or hospital in D c, . I could just pick up the phone and call Envirelation,
which offers food composting services for hundreds of clients in the region, including Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, Sodexo, University of Maryland and Alexandria City Public schools.
When I was graduating there were more opportunities at hotels and restaurants. I realized I could go into a hotel
But something like a Sweet Green, a smaller restaurant with organic positioning, they have the customers separating their own waste.
they don t clear their own plates. So it s not that big of a piece.
But you can see it at some high-end restaurants that promote the farm-to-table concept;
and what wasn t. Our clients can compost meat and bones and dairy and fish,
-and-go salad restaurant. They all have their unique issues. When we do work with an elementary school,
But if we do National geographic s office cafeteria, they do less with that and more with signage and their biodegradable products.
Milk cartons, orange juice cartons, meat, bones, fish, dairy. The biodegradable products can be made from corn starch, soy starch or potato starch.
People put a lot of thought into some of these products, but it s easy to forget that regular paper cups
and plates can also be composted. And a lot of people get excited about the waxed cardboard. You can t recycle waxed cardboard, like pizza boxes,
but you can compost it. How much are your clients cutting down on waste now that they are composting?
If you look at just restaurants, we expect to see a minimum of a 60 percent diversion.
For a hotel, it s a little different because they also have things coming from places that are not their restaurant;
The EPA says about 12 percent of our total waste is food waste. At restaurants, almost all of it is recyclable or compostable.
You can expect a large conference hotel to compost a ton of food waste a day, and a large restaurant can compost about 1, 000 to 1, 500 pounds a day.
have heard you any anecdotal evidence of your clients employees being inspired to start composting operations at home?
Just the opposite--a lot of them already do it. It s a pleasant surprise. Usually they say,
or animal feed--but we think this is a better use. It s local, and by addressing this energy question it can be part of the solution for global warming.
The food code says all food waste goes into the sewer system. Our sewer system is combined a sewer system,
You said these establishments are required to put their food in the sewer? I ll read it to you.
The District Food Code Regulation Section 2607.2 says each food establishment served by a sanitary sewer and conducting any activity or activities
which generate food wastes has to have and use one or more food waste grinders that are located conveniently near each such activity and
which have adequate capacity to dispose of all readily grindable food waste produced. Is really this happening?
They are required technically to, but they don t. You d have to have a full-time guy with a shovel.
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