Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day
When the Boss is an Adrenaline Junkie
Ron Farmer is a speed freak. When his knees failed at 52 years old, he quit running marathons and began racing cars. Ten years later, he is headed to Ohio to drive his Corvette in the National Auto Sport Association’s National Championships.
“I always wanted to race a car for the thrill,” he says, “I had that need for speed.” But Farmer started slow, participating in autocross events—timed competitions where drivers navigate a course of traffic cones—in the same Mercedes he drove to work. He found autocross competitions a way to bond with his son BJ, who also liked the sport. But it wasn’t long before BJ moved to the high speed track and after five years of autocross without his son, Farmer decided to shift gears.
“I realized I was doing it because I wanted to do it with him,” he says. “We need things to keep us together.” Farmer learned enough on the autocross track to complete a high-speed certification course in a weekend and was off to the races.
The fear involved in wheel-to-wheel competition engrossed Farmer. The element of danger in turning corners at high speeds with other cars drove him headlong into the sport.
“I drive differently when I see someone in front of me,” he says. “It’s about the competition. I want to win.” Farmer’s attitude toward racing shows itself in his entrepreneurial approach at US LED, ranked No. 910 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list, where he claims he would work for free if it meant thwarting his corporate competitor GE.
For now, however, he will focus his competitive spirit on the NASA Championships in September, where he hopes to celebrate his 62nd birthday with a victory.
By: Andrew Dermont
Just wait till the Hydro Flask Word Head Quarters Opens Oct. 1!!!
Sandals, flip-flops found with harmful chemicals
Some flip-flops, sandals, clogs, and rubber shoes recently tested in the Philippines have shown high concentrations of chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment, an investigation by a Swedish environmental group revealed.
“We have found frightening concentrations of environmental toxins in the shoes that can spread to people and to the environment as the shoes become worn,†Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) president Mikael Karlsson said.
The investigation on toxins in flip-flops, sandals, clogs, and rubber shoes was conducted in seven countries: the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and Sweden.
To read the rest of Ellalyn Vera of MB.com’s article, click HERE.
Should California ban BPA?
An emotionally charged battle is expected to come to a head today (Wednesday) when the California Assembly votes on banning the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, sippy cups, and containers of infant formula and baby food.
The chemical, which has been linked to cancers, infertility, early puberty and neurological disorders, is one of the most widely used in the world. The California vote is being closely watched around the nation: several states and cities, including Connecticut, Minnesota and Chicago have enacted BPA curbs and federal restrictions are under consideration.
Chemical companies, infant formula makers, pharmaceutical firms, grocery chains and can manufacturers have mounted a ferocious lobbying campaign to defeat the bill in Sacramento. A BPA ban passed the California Senate in June but the Assembly vote is expected to be close, with half a dozen Los Angeles Democrats as swing votes.
Public health groups, including the Breast Cancer Fund, Planned Parenthood, several Red Cross chapters, and Physicians for Social Responsibility have been joined this year by the California Labor Federation and the California Teachers Assn. in pushing for the bill.
Got an opinion? Visit www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html and enter your ZIP Code to find which legislators represent your area.
– Margot Roosevelt
Patagonia to SIGG: We’re Finished!
The press release that fell into our inbox on Thursday left no room for interpretation: “Patagonia Terminates Relationship With SIGG Water Bottles,” the headline screamed. Today, the ethical activewear label formally ceases all co-branding and co-marketing efforts with the beleaguered Swiss reusable-bottle company, as well as the sale of SIGG bottles in its stores, through its catalogs, and online.
Breaking up, as they say, is hard to do.
SIGG ad with Patagonia’s founder couldn’t be pulled in time
Eagled-eyed readers of this month’s Backpacker will notice a SIGG ad featuring Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder and owner, holding a SIGG bottle with a 1% for the Planet logo. Created in an effort to support and promote 1% for the Planet, an alliance of companies that Chouinard co-founded, the ad went to print before Patagonia could pull it. Whlle Patagonia will continue to support 1% for the Planet, it will no longer do so through co-promotion with SIGG.
Refunds for Patagonia-purchased SIGGs
Patagonia is currently accepting returns of any SIGG bottle purchased through the company, and it’s offering its customers full refunds. (Unlike, say, a certain bottle manufacturer.) All unused SIGG inventory on Patagonia store shelves will be sent back to SIGG to be recycled.
Meanwhile, Patagonia is on the hunt for another bottle company to hook up with.
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA 
on 09. 8.09
More on SIGG
Should I Dump My Old SIGG That Was Made With BPA?
Are You Throwing Out Your SIGG?
SIGG Update: Did We Get It Right?
SIGG Bottles Now BPA Free. But What Were They Before?
SIGG Introduces New EcoCare Liner
Are SIGG Aluminum Bottles BPA Free?
Water bottle controversy sinks co-branding partnership.
Trouble continues to mount for the metal reusable water bottle maker SIGG Inc. with outdoor gear company Patagonia announcing Tuesday an end to a co- branding partnership that brought together two iconic companies linking health- conscious consumerism with environmentalism.
“They told us there was no BPA in the liner of the bottle, notice the key word there,” Rick Ridgeway, Patagonia’s vice-president of environmental initiatives, said in an interview.
The announcement from the outdoor clothing and gear company, dubbed the coolest company on the planet by Fortune Magazine, comes a week after SIGG’s chief executive officer issued a public apology to customers.
Steven Wasik’s first letter, released days before the apology, set off an online firestorm among customers when he revealed that the epoxy liner in SIGG’s aluminum bottles contained trace amounts of bisphenol A until the company made the switch in August 2008 to its “BPA-free EcoCare liner.”
Older inventory remained on some store shelves in Canada until the revelation.
The question now is whether an apologetic SIGG, newly committed to transparency, can repair its brand.
SIGG was one of many vendors Patagonia vetted in 2005 after the company decided it would no longer sell any consumer products with bisphenol A because of health concerns.
“We took them at their word,” said Ridgeway of SIGG’s BPA-free claim and declaration that technical details were proprietary to a third-party producer of its liner formula.
SIGG, which set itself apart from the competition with stylish designs and environmental pitches like “Simply Eco Logical,” was one of the big winners in the anti-plastics push that took off a few years ago.
In addition to selling Patagonia-branded SIGG bottles and other SIGG bottles at its retail stores, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard recently did a photo shoot holding a SIGG bottle for an upcoming magazine advertisement to promote 1% for the Planet – an alliance of businesses that donate at least one per cent of their annual revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.
All these co-branding and co-marketing efforts with SIGG are now over, Patagonia says.
In an interview, SIGG’s top executive says he’s “disappointed” by Patagonia’s decision, but “respects” it.
Wasik, who served as SIGG’s general manager for the United States from September 2005 until ascending to the top corporate spot in February 2008, also countered that he wasn’t part of any negotiations with Patagonia back in 2005 and wasn’t aware that BPA was in the liner until June 2006.
“I was very interested to learn more and I pressed and pressed and that’s when they told me. And they explained to me the ingredients.”
That’s when SIGG started to develop a BPA-free liner with another supplier that wouldn’t require a confidentiality clause, said Wasik, adding this is part of SIGG’s new commitment to full transparency to repair any brand damage.
“We’re trying to be better, but I think it will take time. Green companies are held to a higher standard and I’m learning that.”
Next Ice Age Delayed by Global Warming, Study Says
Humans are putting the brakes on the next ice age, according to the most extensive study to date on Arctic climate change.
The Arctic is now warmer than it’s been in the past 2,000 years a trend that is reversing a natural cooling cycle dictated by a wobble in Earth’s axis.
Previously, researchers had looked at Arctic temperature data that went back just 400 years. (See photos of how climate change is transforming the Arctic.)
That research showed a temperature spike in the 20th century, but it was unclear whether human-caused greenhouse gas emissions or natural variability was the culprit, noted study co-author Gifford Miller of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
By looking even farther back in time, Miller and colleagues’ newest study reveals that the 20th century’s abrupt warming in fact interrupted millennia of steady cooling.
U.S. test contradicts Sigg’s chemical-free claim
Despite claims by a Swiss company that their old aluminum bottles do not leach bisphenol A, a leading expert says his tests show they do release the gender-bending chemical.
University of Missouri biology professor Frederick Vom Saal said a company-sponsored test of the Sigg metal bottles was a sham.
That test measured the presence of the toxic chemical in parts per billion, he said, while the current standard is parts per trillion one thousand times more sensitive.
“This is appalling. All BPA-lined products leach BPA- end of story, no argument, no exceptions,” said Vom Saal, who has studied bisphenol A for more than a decade.
Sigg company CEO Steve Wasik told the Star he stood by the tests, and by his previous statements that the bottles touted as a replacement for hard plastic bottles containing BPA were safe and did not leach any trace of the chemical, under even harsh conditions.
Bisphenol A is found in polycarbonate bottles and the epoxy lining of food and baby formula cans, and has been found to behave as a synthetic estrogen. The Canadian government banned it in plastic baby bottles last year, after reviewing dozens of studies linking it to breast cancer, prostate cancer, change in brain function and behaviour, and the merging of the sexes in animals.
As an endocrine disrupter, even minute exposures to BPA one part per trillion can cause detectable effects, Vom Saal said.
Consumer concern about the chemical led many people to ditch their old hard plastic water bottles and buy Sigg aluminum bottles instead, thinking they were a safe alternative.
Last month, Wasik disclosed that since August 2008, the company’s aluminum bottles had been lined with a new “powder-based, co-polyester coating” that was “100 per cent free of BPA.” The older model, his online letter says, had “a water-based epoxy liner which contained a trace amount of BPA.”
Vom Saal said he tested the bottles about four years ago and found they did leach bisphenol A in parts per trillion. He never published his results, as at that time the company’s website publicized their liner as an epoxy resin including BPA, he said.
Testing baby bottles for bisphenol A last year, Health Canada set the threshold at 50 parts per trillion 40 times lower than the Sigg tests.
Catherine Porter
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
Ahhh Wal-Mart
I just wanted to share this-aren’t Americans awesome?
