Eco Lips Notes from the Prez

Flood Update

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It's been an amazing week! I could go into detail about the damage done to our city, but I’ll save that for another time…plus you can hear about that on just about any news channel. I am happy to announce that Eco Lips is fully functioning out of our new building (on higher ground-of course). We have been working diligently to relocate, and with the help of our employees and volunteers we're back!
Thank you for the many, many words of encouragement we have received!

The Flood

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I was on vacation with my family and had gotten a call from several employees about the flood. I've seen floods before, and seen water in the streets, as we all have. My family and I had rented a remote cabin in Colorado without cellular phones, television or computers, so we were not able to see any media surrounding the flood. Everyone continued to reiterate how bad it was. I cut my vacation short to come home, help sandbag and relocate Eco Lips if needed. As we drove through, I mean “around”, town on the way home it was clear that this is not your normal flood.

As we arrived home, Eco Lips production manager Billy Valencia was taking care of a flood victim at my house. Billy had helped Art Pennington find dry ground as Art’s house filled completely with water. Art Pennington is a baseball legend so it was quite an honor to loan him some clothes and serve him hot tea. To learn more about Mr. Pennington visit www.artpenningtonbaseball.com

Art left all of his belongings at his house, including his medication, so Billy jumped back in his kayak and headed for Art’s house. Although he was quite shaken up after navigating his way through chest high water in Art’s house, Billy was able to get a few of his belongings including Art’s medicine.
Billy also had the foresight two days before the flood to initiate and manage the move to dry ground of our valuable raw materials and equipment. From what I have heard, everyone thought he was crazy because “the water would never make it this high”. Although our offices are located in the flood zone, it doesn’t look like the water has made it up to the second floor where we reside. I want to thank all of the Eco Lips employees for having the foresight to save this great company. Even though many of the employees have families of their own, and houses which were affected, they still worked diligently to preserve our business. The day it all went down, at 1 in the morning, Billy rode a kayak out of our building. Thank you Billy.

Once the river is tame again, and the power is turned back on, we will rapidly get everything back on track. We have an alternative (clean and dry) manufacturing site being worked on as I write this, and our back-up manufacturer has already begun to help with production. We are working on retrieving data and servicing our customers the best we can. Thank you again for your understanding during our time of hardship. Please continue to spread the word of our great brand of Eco Lips so we can continue on with our environmental mission.

-Steve

Click here to visit artpenningtonbaseball.com

Billy Valencia making his way back from Art Pennington's house.

On diet soda...

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Everything in moderation, right? Well, maybe everything except Diet Soda! I have always kept my soda pop intake to a minimum, and I certainly try to keep soda away from my kids. No matter what, most of us have a pop at some time or another. Oh well, a little sugar and some carbonation never hurt anyone, right? Actually, non diet sodas are using high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, which is questionable in itself, but I’ll write about that on a different day.

My problem is with diet soda. Aspartame is the primary sweetener, which you can read about here.

Yesterday, the New York times posted a study which linked obesity with diet soda consumption.
There is another article on WebMD, that has some interesting statistics.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
• 26% for up to 1/2 can each day
• 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
• 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
• 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
• 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
• 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
• 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
• 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person's risk of obesity went up 41%.

So what can you do if you are a soda drinker? BUY ORGANIC!!!!
Pure, organic soda pop is available from a company called Blue Sky.

It tastes great, and is made with pure ingredients:
INGREDIENTS: FILTERED CARBONATED WATER, ORGANIC CANE JUICE, NATURAL COLA NUT FLAVOR, CARAMEL COLOR, AND TARTARIC ACID (FROM GRAPES).

This is quite possibly one of the healthiest soda options available. No artificial colors, no artificial flavors, and no chemical preservatives or sweeteners. You can find it at most grocery stores now, so give it a try.

If you’re working on losing weight or becoming healthier, there is enough evidence out there proving diet sodas will not help you in this battle. Staying active, making the right food and drink choices, and taking a holistic approach to your health will get you where you want to be. Have a great day!

Blue Sky Soda

How to recycle your old computers

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Lately I have been coming across a growing number of places to recycle computers and monitors. Like cell phones, these are becoming an environmental hazard in land fills and need to be properly disposed of. The nations largest chain of office stores, Staples, recently launched a great recycling program.

This is from staples.com:
Recycling
We make it easy for our customers to recycle by offering a variety of services, including options for recycling computers and office technology products, ink and toner cartridges, cell phones and other personal electronics, and rechargeable batteries. In our internal operations, we are committed to diverting materials from our waste stream.
Computer and Technology Recycling
Staples makes it easy for customers to recycle e–waste by simply bringing their used computers, monitors, laptops, and desktop printers, faxes and all–in–ones to any U.S. Staples store.

All brands are accepted, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples. A recycling fee of $10 per piece of large equipment is charged to cover handling, transport, product disassembly and recycling. Smaller computer peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and speakers are accepted at no charge.

Equipment is bagged and sealed when received at the Staples customer service desk. The equipment is then picked up and delivered to our recycling provider Amandi Services, who uses industry–leading standards for data destruction and disassembles the equipment into its component parts for environmentally responsible recycling.

Ink and Toner Cartridges
In 2006, Staples recycled more than 17 million cartridges in the U.S. through our various ink and toner cartridge recycling programs. We offer a $3 coupon toward a future purchase of ink or toner when HP, Lexmark™ or Dell cartridges are returned to our retail stores for recycling. We also offer two other programs to make it easy for our customers to recycle empty ink and toner cartridges:

Our Recycle for Education program enables customers to support local schools by donating their used cartridges. Participating schools receive $3 for each eligible cartridge received. Staples has donated more than $3 million to local schools and educational organizations since the program's inception in 2003.
We launched our InkDropSM service in 2005. When a cartridge runs out, customers simply drop a new one in the printer and mail us the empty using the prepaid shipping materials. We send a replacement automatically, and all shipping is free.

Cell Phones and Rechargeable Batteries
We offer free recycling service programs to our retail and contract customers for cellular phones, PDAs, pagers, digital cameras, and chargers through our nonprofit partner Collective Good, who refurbishes products where feasible or recycles them and donates a portion of the proceeds to charity. We also offer free rechargeable battery recycling to retail and contract customers in the U.S. and Canada. This service is offered in partnership with the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation.

Visit www.staples.com to read more about their recycling efforts

What is Vegan?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Since we have had a lot of inquiries lately about what the term "vegan" meann, I thought it would be appropriate to explain. This information is from the American Vegan Society:

VEGANS (pronounced VEE-guns) Live on products of the plant kingdom.

Veganism is compassion in action. It is a philosophy, diet, and lifestyle.

Veganism is an advanced way of living in accordance with Reverence for Life, recognizing the rights of all living creatures, and extending to them the compassion, kindness, and justice exemplified in the Golden Rule.

Vegans exclude flesh, fish, fowl, dairy products (animal milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, etc.), eggs, honey, animal gelatin, and all other foods of animal origin.

Veganism also excludes animal products such as leather, wool, fur, and silk in clothing, upholstery, etc. Vegans usually make efforts to avoid the less-than-obvious animal oils, secretions, etc., in many products such as soaps, cosmetics, toiletries, household goods and other common commodities.

Reasons for Veganism:
An equitable, ethical relationship between human and other living creatures
The physiological human design
An enlightened concept of repairing and maintaining health
Practical solutions to the population explosion
Spiritual development

For more information click here