Marketing Earth Day

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, and within months, the US Environmental Protection Agency had been created to protect our precious environment.

Earth Day 2018 will be on Sunday, April 22. This year, the focus will be on plastics--specifically, removing plastics from our waterways and preventing plastics from harming the natural environment.

Of course, Earth Day has its own Twitter account (with 48k followers), its own FB account (with nearly 400k likes), a YouTube channel, Instagram account, and a blog housed on its website.

Businesses, educational groups, and other organizations are going green every day and using Earth Day to put the focus on education and action for ecological health. A few examples: Dow has teamed up with Erb Institute (U of Michigan) for a new sustainability education project. Apple announced, in time for Earth Day, that all its facilities run on 100% green energy. Indiana State University has a bike-share program as part of its Earth Day events, which also include bringing vendors on campus to provide info to students and faculty. Major League Soccer is working toward greener goals on Earth Day. The United Nations has declared the day International Mother Earth Day.

Watch for more environmental activities that encourage consumer and business involvement, along with nonprofits providing education and guidance, leading up to Earth Day and beyond.

Reverse Channels for Old or Unwanted Cell Phones

So many consumers are upgrading their smartphones so often that entrepreneurs are figuring out ways to profit by providing a "reverse channel" for old or unneeded phones. The goal is to keep these devices out of landfills where they don't belong and create a way to collect and refurbish them for resale. Consumers win, entrepreneurs win, and the planet wins.

EcoATM is much in the news lately because its automated self-serve kiosks make it quick and easy for consumers to recycle their old phones with the bonus of making a few bucks--right away. "There's no 30-day wait for a check in the mail," founder Mark Bowles tells Businessweek. In essence, customers let the kiosks test their old phones, receive an instant appraisal, and get immediate cash or store credit for the value set by EcoATM, if they decide to accept the offer. (NOTE: The Economist notes that the EcoATM requires fingerprints and driver's license of sellers to discourage the sale of stolen merchandise.)

The EcoATM looks user-friendly, and its green-and-white theme has a recycling feel. (The animated "how to" on the company's home page features a robot who might be a cousin of Eve, WALL-E's companion, as shown at left--both have a white body and big blue eyes!)

There are numerous ways to recycle your old phone, not just through EcoATM but at online buyback sites, the store where you buy your new phone, and other drop-off points. Check it out next time you upgrade.

Less Packaging = More Satisfaction

Less is more: Amazon and Walmart are putting pressure on manufacturers to reduce the amount of packaging on their products, especially targeting those hard-to-open protective plastic shells in which small items arrive. Amazon calls this its "frustration-free" initiative. Already, toymakers are doing away with frustrating and unnecessary packaging.

With the holidays here, less packaging (and less frustrating packaging) can mean more satisfied buyers AND a cleaner planet.

Each American sends about 800 pounds of packaging to landfills each year. The frenzy peaks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, when the EPA estimates that the average US household’s trash load headed for landfills skyrockets about 25 percent.

Think how much greener we can keep our planet if all manufacturers slash the amount of packaging they use. Hasbro recently introduced new Play-Doh packaging (above) without paper labels and with tapered bottoms to stack neatly, encouraging reuse. A big change? No, but that's the point: Little steps can add up to big environmental savings and less frustration.

Think how much time will be saved too: The Daily Mail cites a survey saying that parents blame excessive packaging for much of the time they have to invest to assemble toys such as doll houses and bicycles.

TerraCycle - Worm Poop and More

clipped from www.terracycle.net

If you haven't heard of TerraCycle, you will soon. Its signature product is plant food made from worm poop. In the ecopreneurial spirit, it now offers tote bags, backpacks, and other items made from recycled cookie wrappers, soda bottles, and juice pouches.

The big question is, how many consumers will buy tote bags or shower curtains that are clearly made from the discarded packaging of branded foods and beverages? Will these be the new mass status symbol for save-the-planet people or will they wind up as products in search of a market?