The Promotional Items Industry and Environmental Impact -Article
- By Wes Robertson
- Published 07/10/2008
- Opinion
- Viewed 127 time(s).
Wes Robertson
Consultant and author Wes Robertson has years of knowledge and experience that have helped him dodge countless pitfalls when including custom promotional items in a marketing campaign. He is here to share his knowledge and give a few basic and advanced tips on things anyone in marketing should be aware of.
In the 90s there was a huge push to “Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle” and in some ways we’re seeing a similar rush of environmental concerns in these days of “carbon footprints.” It might be because of the distance of time, but today’s environmental issues seem to dwarf those of the 90s. Even industries like energy are trying to move towards less carbon heavy energy generating methods, and other industries commonly aloof are paying heed. The computer and tech sectors are paying attention now, industries that have always relied on toxic substances or plastics.
Let’s take a look at the promotional industry, especially in the computer products area. Historically, promotional items catalogs have been loaded with lots of plastic products, lots of them easily breakable and likely to end up in landfills. Computer related products seem to make things that much worse, when you take into consideration what we now know about the toxic chemicals that go into their production. Very few people recycle computer equipment (which is changing as states adopt new computer recycling programs), so there are tons of non-biodegradable computer waste piling up in the world’s landfills without the promotional industry’s help.
The Environmental Protection Agency evaluates how “green” a PC is using something called an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Based heavily on the European Union’s standards, the EPEAT has fifty one different criteria that must be met to varying degrees for a particular product to earn either a bronze, silver, or gold rating. Efforts towards the goal of a gold rating are being made, and Energy Star rated computers are as popular as a result.
The EarthDrive, the first 100% biodegradable USB drive, was only created earlier this year.
As can be typical of the promotional products industry, new environmentally friendly products are slowly trickling in to catalogs. A new technology can become popular and still take a while to appear as a promotional product. We’ve had recycled promotional products for some time now, things like keychains made from recycled plastics and of course some recycled paper goods. Biodegradable corn-based plastics are slowly trickling into most companies’ catalogs but it still remains to be seen how popular they end up in general. They aren’t all that popular yet, and with corn prices hitting record highs this might end up as a dead end until an alternative material is figured out.
Taking all this into consideration, would it be fair to say the promotional industry isn’t really doing a whole lot to cut down on computer waste? Certainly, there could be a lot more work done on the whole. It’s not all bleak news, though. A lot of the computer related promotional products we sell are small and incredibly useful. We’re not selling entire computers (maybe someday!) and people are loathe to toss out an incredibly convenient USB drive. The big culprit of computer waste are entire computers and the tons of computer monitors an average computer user goes through over the years.
The changes coming to the promotional products industry are slow in the making, but the progress is still there. Once the demand for eco-friendly computer promotional products grows a little more, the industry as a whole will begin making the changes required. The promotional products industry will step up to the plate with everyone else eventually, just give it some time.
Let’s take a look at the promotional industry, especially in the computer products area. Historically, promotional items catalogs have been loaded with lots of plastic products, lots of them easily breakable and likely to end up in landfills. Computer related products seem to make things that much worse, when you take into consideration what we now know about the toxic chemicals that go into their production. Very few people recycle computer equipment (which is changing as states adopt new computer recycling programs), so there are tons of non-biodegradable computer waste piling up in the world’s landfills without the promotional industry’s help.
The Environmental Protection Agency evaluates how “green” a PC is using something called an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Based heavily on the European Union’s standards, the EPEAT has fifty one different criteria that must be met to varying degrees for a particular product to earn either a bronze, silver, or gold rating. Efforts towards the goal of a gold rating are being made, and Energy Star rated computers are as popular as a result.
As can be typical of the promotional products industry, new environmentally friendly products are slowly trickling in to catalogs. A new technology can become popular and still take a while to appear as a promotional product. We’ve had recycled promotional products for some time now, things like keychains made from recycled plastics and of course some recycled paper goods. Biodegradable corn-based plastics are slowly trickling into most companies’ catalogs but it still remains to be seen how popular they end up in general. They aren’t all that popular yet, and with corn prices hitting record highs this might end up as a dead end until an alternative material is figured out.
Taking all this into consideration, would it be fair to say the promotional industry isn’t really doing a whole lot to cut down on computer waste? Certainly, there could be a lot more work done on the whole. It’s not all bleak news, though. A lot of the computer related promotional products we sell are small and incredibly useful. We’re not selling entire computers (maybe someday!) and people are loathe to toss out an incredibly convenient USB drive. The big culprit of computer waste are entire computers and the tons of computer monitors an average computer user goes through over the years.
The changes coming to the promotional products industry are slow in the making, but the progress is still there. Once the demand for eco-friendly computer promotional products grows a little more, the industry as a whole will begin making the changes required. The promotional products industry will step up to the plate with everyone else eventually, just give it some time.
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