I already love to eat Kettle brand chips. Ironically, I never even enjoyed potato chips until earlier this year when I absentmindedly snacked on a bag of Kettle Tuscan Three Cheese chips at a media event I was attending: From that moment on I was hooked. Since then, I’ve sampled many of the flavors in their line, always delighted by their wonderful crunch and delicious flavors.

Only recently, I happened to notice verbage on the packaging that drew my attention to the company’s sustainability efforts and was pleased to discover the company supports a variety of eco-friendly practices. In fact, green building, renewable energy, habitat restoration, recycling, and reuse make up the pillars of Kettle Foods’ environmental initiative! Awesome practices contribute to their awesome chips!

The new 73,000-square-foot Kettle Foods factory in Beloit, Wisconsin, is the first food manufacturing facility in the U.S. to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)  Gold-level certification for green building. On top, the building features 18 wind turbines that generate enough energy to produce 56,000 bags of Kettle Brand Potato Chips every year – or approximately 28,000 kilowatt hours.

The Kettle Foods headquarters in Salem, Oregon, is home to one of the largest commercial solar power arrays in the Pacific Northwest. As a producer of renewable energy, Kettle Foods’ 616 solar panels generate 120,000 kWh of electricity annually – enough to make 250,000 bags of Kettle Brand Potato Chips each year, and reduce Kettle Foods’ annual CO2 emissions by 65 tons.

When Kettle Foods’ headquarters moved to Oregon in 1999, the company set out to restore a federally designated natural wetlands on the company grounds.  Invasive non-native species including Himalayan blackberry bushes and Scotch Broom were removed and the grounds were replanted with native plants such as Aster, Camas, Red Alder, Lupine, and Sword Fern in addition to aquatic plant species such as Wapato and Marsh Pennywort which enhance biological diversity in the wetland pond. (more…)

Sprint Solio Charger

Sprint has announced the availability of new eco-friendly accessories, www.sprint.com/accessories including the SOLIO Mono solar-powered charger and two new cell-phone carrying cases made from 100 percent recycled plastic water bottles. The SOLIO Mono Hybrid Charger allows cell-phone users to store power from the sun or electrical socket allowing customers to recharge their mobile phone anywhere, anytime.

The SOLIO charger includes a large internal Lithium-ion battery that can easily be recharged via included USB cable, AC Travel Charger, or solar energy and retails for $59.99 (excluding taxes). The new sport carrying cases from Nite Ize are made from recycled water bottles and are available for $19.99 (excluding taxes) in two colors and sizes: large in sage green and small in rust. Additionally, both the SOLIO charger and the sport carrying cases from Nite Ize utilize a high percentage of post-consumer recycled paperboard packaging. These new accessories are now available for sale at www.sprint.com/accessories.

In addition to new environmentally friendly accessories, Sprint also launched a new green-themed website at www.sprint.com/green. The new site details Sprint’s green mobile applications and helps customers learn about Sprint’s sustainability initiatives including e-billing options, wireless recycling programs, and acquire green tips such as utilizing mobile GPS to calculate the quickest route to save gas. Sprint has also added a green channel to its Sprint Exclusive Entertainment TV programming where Sprint customers can view green themed content on their mobile devices.
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Phoenix-based Arizona Public Service (APS) has installed 84 photovoltaic panels on the roof of the Grand Canyon National Park Visitor Center and on ground-mounted platforms adjacent to the building. The panels will produce 18 kilowatts (kw) of electricity - enough to offset 30 percent of the Center

Arizona Public Service (APS) is bringing together two of the state’s most recognizable features – the Grand Canyon and the sun – as the Grand Canyon National Park goes solar.

Eighty-four photovoltaic solar panels are now operational on and around the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, providing the building with approximately 18 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. The panels provide enough energy to offset 30 percent of the Visitor Center’s electricity use.

“This project is symbolic of the commitment we have at APS to environmental protection, sustainability and to make Arizona the solar capital of the world,” APS President and Chief Operating Officer Don Robinson said today at a celebration event hosted by the National Park Service. “We selected the Grand Canyon for this project because of the opportunity that exists there to educate so many people from around the world about renewable energy.”
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