Greetings and seasons greetings,
A few EcoCover news items for you before the
holidays:
EcoCover Lower
Priced Mulch Mat Trials A Big Step in the Right
Direction
The EcoCover plant in Auckland concluded phase one
of production trials last week successfully running
the new lower priced and expected-to-be shorter life
EcoCover mulch mat. Some of the highlights of phase
one:
-
The new lower priced glue performed well and met
or exceeded expectations
-
Production energy costs and inputs will be
reduced due to faster drying times
-
The core of the mat that worked the best was
a roughly 50-50 mix of clean office waste and
newsprint
Some challenges for phase two of the trial to be run
as soon as late January:
-
Modifications to the glue spray system to reduce
overspray
-
Experimentation to see what systems
modifications will allow a higher percentage or
hopefully 100 percent newsprint for the mat core
Overall, we are very pleased with the initial
results. A method for productive use of waste
newsprint is a big step in the right direction.
Lowering energy inputs increases the sustainability
of both the product and the process. More
information regarding phase two will follow as soon
as possible.
Preparations for the North American
Market
EcoCover has registered EcoCover internet domain
names in all 50 USA states, examples
www.ecocover-alaska.com,
www.ecocover-alabama.com,
www.ecocover-arizona.com, etc., and 50 new
websites are online. The major search engines are
indexing these webs and EcoCover is showing up in
search results on Google and other search engines.
This proactive process will provide prospective
manufacturing plant purchasers a
ready-to-go-to-market internet base from which to
begin immediate internet marketing of the EcoCover
products in their local market as well as
nationally.
To paraphrase an old Chinese proverb: When the
product is available, the market shall appear.
Contact Me In New Zealand
I will be in New Zealand from December 26 through
January 21, 2006. If we need to talk by phone you
can call a Tennessee number that will ring through
to me in New Zealand:
931.442.0725.
This is a USA long distance call for you, the
international charges are for my account.
If you want an
EcoCover plant tour , I will be in
Auckland from January 16-21. Come on down!
A Disturbing News Report from the UK
Food crisis feared as fertile land runs out
Maps
show 40% of Earth's land is used for agriculture
Growing
human 'footprint' a risk to the environment
Kate Ravilious in San Francisco
Tuesday December 6, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1659112,00.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes.
New maps show that the Earth is rapidly running out
of fertile land and that food production will soon
be unable to keep up with the world's burgeoning
population. The maps reveal that more than one third
of the world's land is being used to grow crops or
graze cattle.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
combined satellite land cover images with
agricultural census data from every country in the
world to create detailed maps of global land use.
Each grid square was 10 kilometres (6.2 miles)
across and showed the most prevalent land use in
that square, such as forest, grassland or ice.
"In the act of making these maps we are asking:
where is the human footprint on the Earth?" said
Amato Evan, a member of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison research team presenting its
results this week at a meeting of the American
Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The current map shows a snapshot of global land use
for the year 2000, but the scientists also have land
use data going back to 1700, showing how things have
changed.
"The maps show, very strikingly, that a large part
of our planet (roughly 40%) is being used for either
growing crops or grazing cattle," said Dr Navin
Ramankutty, a member of the Wisconsin-Madison team.
By comparison, only 7% of the world's land was being
used for agriculture in 1700.
The Amazon basin has seen some of the greatest
changes in recent times, with huge swaths of the
rainforest being felled to grow soya beans.
"One of the major changes we see is the fast
expansion of soybeans in Brazil and Argentina, grown
for export to China and the EU," said Dr Ramankutty.
This agricultural expansion has come at the expense
of tropical forests in both countries.
Meanwhile, intensive farming practices mean that
cropland areas have decreased slightly in the US and
Europe and the land is being gobbled up by
urbanisation. The research indicates that there is
now little room for further agricultural expansion.
"Except for Latin America and Africa, all the places
in the world where we could grow crops are already
being cultivated. The remaining places are either
too cold or too dry to grow crops," said Dr
Ramankutty. By continuing to monitor changes in land use the
scientists hope that they will be able to highlight
problems and help find solutions.
"The real question is, how can we continue to
produce food from the land while preventing negative
environmental consequences such as deforestation,
water pollution and soil erosion?" said Dr
Ramankutty.
The next phase of the project is to build an
internet-based databank - called the Earth
Collaboratory - that would draw on the knowledge of
scientists around the world, local environmentalists
and members of the general public.
Jonathan Foley, director of the Wisconsin-Madison
research team, said: "[The Collaboratory] will truly
be a brave new experiment that effectively bridges
science, decision-making and real-world
environmental practice - collectively envisioning a
new way to live sustainably."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
The EcoCover Advantage
EcoCover is a highly sustainable product that
improves agricultural productivity, conserves soil
moisture, reduces water pollution and soil erosion.
Organic agriculture will become a necessity as the
cost of petroleum inputs of herbicides, pesticides
and chemical fertilizers increase, along with the
unsustainable use of plastic sheeting for
agricultural mulch.
If you are interested
in the EcoCover manufacturing plant opportunity,
please contact me. Or, if you know of someone who
would be interested, please contact me to discuss.
