Why did I not call it Green Trends then? Simply because these keyword sometimes have the effect to leave people in a trance like state about a certain product, failing to check if the claims the products make are indeed true or, at the very least, based in truth.

So that’s why I choose Green Trance instead of Green Trends.

This includes but is not limited to the following items: Aluminum cans, packaging (carton, plastic, etc.) Junk mail, other paper product like office paper waste, food items (kitchen scraps, food past it’s ‘use by’ date, etc.), metals (electronics, cars, etc).² In other words any product that can be recycled after it’s been used and in most cases (unfortunately) would be discarded (in contrast to pre-consumer waste. These are products that have never reached the end-user/consumer consisting of ‘not up-to-standard’ products that would usually be discarded but have never been used ³).

Usually a product will state: this has been made with XX % of post-consumer materials, for example, Paper towels. If they have been made with an X amount of post-consumer materials it might mean that they recycled used office paper, cardboard and used paper products to create the new paper towels. Examples of this can be found in many products like Seventh Generation, Green Forest, Small Steps, and many more (nice list, for paper/kitchen towels specifically, can be found here )

So that’s it, the first post in the “Green Trance” series. Feel free to comment, add or leave remarks, they are always welcome.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-consumer_waste
² http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=3369
³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre_consumer

The Green Trance series will focus on some of these slogan words. What do they really tell you about a product? Is this word a regulated thing or can it be put on any product? How ‘new’ is the concept? And a whole lot of questions I have heard and personally still have and would like to research.