This is an article I found on Treehugger. Emphasis is mine.  This is part of our idea at Naked Binder that those who preach Green need to practice Green.  We are constantly working to eliminate waste and find new ways to reuse, cut down or repurpose waste. And all of our binders are Naked Binders. Go figure!  Here it is:

Turning really green I really think I’m turning really green I really think so. You too? If you’re an interior designer who’s been thinking about gettin’ over to the green side, or even if you’re just a regular mortal planning to convert an existing office space or home into an eco-friendly environment, then you’ve got to pick up a copy of “Turning Green: A Guide to Becoming a Green Design Firm.” It’s written by members of a Denver-based interior design firm in conjunction with.. 

..the American Society of Interior Designers. In other words, they know what they’re talking about when it comes to going green but not compromising style. The pamphlet offers product recommendations and guidelines as well as a step-by-step process to turn your space into an eco-friendly environment. Here’s a sneak peak at what you'll find:

I. Before you start, establish environmental principles and develop a plan of action. If you make a list of things that you want to accomplish through your efforts, you can also determine how you need to change your current habits and practices to achieve those goals.

II. Start in your own backyard. Inventory your home or office products and processes and determine where changes can be made. Areas to consider: cleaning supplies, office supplies and recycling.

III. Begin exploring alternative product options and green vendors. (Hey, that's what TreeHugger's here for!) Don’t forget to consider antiques and collectibles.

IV. Get others involved and share your solutions with peers and colleagues outside of the office. Create an archive of green solutions that can be used intra- and inter-office.

The guide also includes a ton of useful web sites, and on top of all that, you can download it for free. This is one case where the grass really is greener on the other side. Via ::Metropolis Magazine ::Turning Green [Kara DiCamillo]

You can see the original article here go check the article and TreeHugger!

Naked Binders are the most environmentally friendly binders for the planet.   Why?  Naked Binder explains.

Convenient:

Get 1. Get 1,000. No worries, no minimums.  Most orders ship next day.

Flexible:

With five styles, 9 colors and 4 ring sizes, Naked Binders fit in any office, presentation, art portfolio or home.  Used by museums, architects, LEED buildings, furniture companies, government proposals, banks, law firms and a whole lot of individuals.

Sustainable:

Environmentally friendly, recycled and recyclable.  Our board is  97-100% post consumer waste. Our papers are either Green Seal or FSC certified and the cotton spine wraps we use add both color and protection to the spines.

Durable:

Naked Binders are designed to last ten years and  tested to with in an inch of their life. To insure lovgevity, we have run them through dishwashers and have independent labs flexed the hinge 50,000 times.

Easy to Personalize:

Simple and elegant labeling system offers full bleed printable labels

Closer:

Made in the USA in Des Moines, IA

Recyclable:

Stop paying for more trash pick-up. Naked Binders are 100% easily recyclable.

All Naked Binders are 20% now through November 30th.  Don't miss this!  These sales are not that common and we have a lot more product now than we have ever had before!

The Classic Binder is new with its FSC certified papers and board - 9 colors of spine wrap!

The Project Binder and Naked Binders is now available in 4 ring sizes from 1" to 2.5" and in either round or square spines!!

These binders are the most environmentally friendly binders for the planet.  97-100% post consumer waste board, 100% recyclable, stronger and better looking than anything else on the market. That makes for one sustainable eco binder.

Now even the most unlikely companies are switching to a more carbon neutral stance. Looking at the Newsweek top 500 Green Corporations lists reveals companies in high tech (though admittedly most of their manufacturing is done out of country), Starbucks, Staples and McDonalds all are working to Green their operations.

Treehugger offers up 5 CEOs from unlikely places who have turned around to become environmentally concerned. This list includes Rupert Murdoch, media Mogul of whom Treehugger said 'most of his news outlets are notorious for being vocally skeptical about climate change. And that’s putting it lightly.' He is trying to make News Corp. carbon neutral by 2010.

What does all this mean in the great scheme of things?  A lot.  While some percentage of this 'greening' is lip service, the movement toward a greener manufacturing and business base is not just in words. 

So why the push?  The bottom line.  In the end, it makes sense to curb use of fossil fuels that are rapidly becoming more expensive, virgin wood which is harder and harder to find and to end spewing toxins into the environment (in part due to litigation and government regulation). 

I don't want to suggest that the leaders of these companies are not genuinely concerned for the environment. I do want to suggest that it would be hard to convince a Board of Directors to spend money on measures that would not help the bottom line.

Greening, whether using less, eliminating waste, changing operations or buying recycled products saves money. If you don't believe us, ask Sir Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch or Hewlett Packard.

Awww yea, you know it is that time of year again! Thanksgiving - big food, family, friends - on the one hand or if you are that person - climbing in Red Rocks, or Joshua Tree. Both fine options though I tend towards the second myself.

To celebrate the time of year - harvest time after all, Naked Binder will offer 20% all products from November 23rd to the 30Th. That is right. You can get sustainable, beautiful and fun products you really need and use for 20% off.

A quick singing of praises:

• 100% recycled board binders - 97-100% post consumer waste
  
• 100% recyclable
  
• strong (two grown men couldn't pull it apart...) tested to 50,000 flexes and run through dishwashers for you
  
• Really really good looking
  
• Sustainable
  
• Non-toxic

All binders available in 1", 1.5", 2" and 2.5" rings. The project and classic  binders available in 9 colors. the 11x17 Architect binder in 2 colors and naked in 1" and 1.5" rings.

Many choices, many looks and all environmentally frienldy.

We say our binders are sustainable, environmentally friendly, recycled and recyclable.  So what makes it so eco friendly and sustainable?  We use no virgin wood products at all. Our papers are either Green Seal or FSC certified and the cotton spine wraps we use add protection to the spines, helping them to last even longer (and that is a long time! check out our binder dishwasher testing!)

Our Materials

Board

Most of the board Naked Binder uses is FSC certified 100% post consumer waste binders board.  This unbleached board is created from household and office curbside waste.  When the binder is finished, it is 100% recyclable.

Book Binding Cloth

A durable library-grade 100% cotton book binding cloth which adds protection and color to your binder.  This is the same cloth as all of the books on you bookshelfs

Papers

Naked Binder uses three different papers.

For the Classic Binder we use the FSC certified Ecological Fibers Rainbow series papers. These papers are acid free, carbon free, lignin free and archival. The facilities which makes them only discharges clean process water, recovers coating waste materials which are recycled into an ingredient in potting soil, uses recyclclable scrap paper to manufacture new raw materials and converts non-recyclable waste to energy through incineration.

The Wrapped Binder uses Neenah Eames paper in the graphic grey.  Neenah Eames papers are Green Seal certified, meaning they are at least 30% post consumer fiber and that mill processes, including packaging, are environmentally preferable. Green-e identifies products made with certified renewable energy, including but not limited to wind power, solar power, low impact hydropower, and biomass.

The interior of the Wrapped Binder is lined with acid-free book end paper from an FSC- Certified mill. This is the same end paper that the Library of Congress specifies to protect their bound volumes.  If you have old paperbacks or newspaper that has yellowed and decayed, you have seen what acidic paper can do.  An archival acid-free paper will protect your contents and also lasts much, much longer than other papers.

Our decision was to go with the acid-free paper over a recycled content paper at this time.  If we can find a paper that has both attributes and works well when we flex the spine, we will gladly switch. This is on the list of things we are working towards.

Rings

We use stainless steel binder binder rings, In the 2" and 2.5" rings we use EZD rings, the best rings you can get so the ring holds under the weight of 400-500 sheets of paper. To our knowledge, the rings of the Naked Binder are not recycled.  They are made in China (there are no US manufacturers) and are metal, which means they could be recycled metal, but we honestly just don’t know.  At this time, no one makes a binder ring that is certifiably recycled.

A few comments on terms

Post-Consumer Waste vs. Recycled Content
Post-consumer waste is basically the garbage left after an end product has been used.  This waste was not generated to create a new product, but is, for example, a newspaper after it has been read.

Recycled Content can include waste from the creation of a product as well as post-consumer waste.  In the case of the board manufacturer, some of the board can be used – perhaps it is not set properly or has a defect.  This can easily be put back into the recycling stream to be remade into usable board. 

FSC-Certified
The Forest Stewardship Council was created to change the dialogue about and the practice of sustainable forestry worldwide. The FSC standards represent the world’s strongest system for guiding forest management toward sustainable outcomes.

For those companies who manufacture or trade certified products, a different form of certification applies. Again, to assure the credibility of claims on products, it is important to track materials as they leave the forest and become products down stream. This “chain of custody”(COC) certification process is quite simple. Like any inventory control system, COC allows products to be segregated and identified as having come from a particular source—in this case, an FSC-certified forest.

Green-e certification
Green-e is the nation's leading independent consumer protection program for the sale of renewable energy and greenhouse gas reductions in the retail market. Green-e offers certification and verification of renewable energy and greenhouse gas mitigation products. It is a program of the Center for Resource Solutions.


Green Seal certification
Green Seal is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment and transforming the marketplace by promoting the manufacture, purchase, and use of environmentally responsible products and services.

This article by By Lloyd Alter out of Toronto, Canada  was published Wed May 13 by Planet Green - a blog the Discovery Company (think Discovery Channel etc) puts out. This seems interesting enough to put the whole thing in here - though I must admit to not knowing the etiquette having never republished someones blog.

Naked Binder has pushed to make a product that would never go to landfill. We may not have succeeded yet in all of our aims, but we are working on it, so this struck a nerve with us. Check it out and also check out Planet Green.

"Alex Steffen once said "there is no such thing as garbage, just useful stuff in the wrong place." William McDonough said "We're not talking here about eliminating waste, We're talking about eliminating the entire concept of waste." Seth Godin says "Zero is the new black. The Boston Globe took it to the extreme:

"Imagine an industrial system in which nothing ever really dies or gets discarded....In this perfect system, each unit of energy consumed would be somehow offset. Every industrial byproduct would reassemble into something useful and benign. Every beam of sunlight, scrap of garbage, and flush of the toilet would be pressed into service. No exceptions. Humankind would make obsolete the very concept of "waste."

The fact is, we have been sold a bill of goods by our current industrial system that basically runs on waste, on selling stuff to us but not being responsible for the garbage that comes with it. They basically have transferred the responsibility to you, the taxpayer, who has to pay for dumps and separate it for recycling. It is a big issue, bigger than just the waste, it is the energy made producing things that don't last, replacing bottles that get recycled instead of refilled, picking up shopping bags that get tossed instead of reused.

But it doesn't have to be that way, we don't have to take their garbage. Here are some tips for personally moving toward a zero-waste life, adding a few R's to the usual 3 with some help from Lotus Live.

Refuse
Simply don't buy stuff that is overpackaged. Many companies are working to reduce their packaging, changing from plastics to papers and cards that are recyclable, eliminating waste. Remember that you are paying to dispose of it (many cities now limit the garbage you can throw out and charge if you go over). Refuse to buy bottled water or coffee in paper cups when you can carry your own refillable. With food, make your own stuff from scratch instead of buying all that prepackaged stuff, you will save money and eat healthier, and have very little left.

Rot
Compost what is left over, turning it into valuable nutrients. Read 7 Reasons to Compost.

Refill
In Ontario Canada, 88% of beer bottles are returned to the beer store, washed and refilled; just south of the border in the USA, the number drops to under 5%. But it is available if you look, and those vendors that will refill should get your business. We buy milk in refillable glass bottles and it actually tastes better.

Repair
Fix and mend things rather than replacing them. This often means buying better stuff in the first place, that will last longer, paying a little more for solid quality, but over time it will cost less. Planet Green has some good sources for Learing the 4th R, Repair Manuals for the 4th R: Repair

Return
Some things, like computers, don't have that long a life span as the technologies evolve. But you can buy from manufacturers like Dell and now Apple who have developed some producer responsibility and take back what they sell for proper recycling or refurbishment.

Repurpose
If you are handy, a lot of things can be put to different uses than they were originally intended. CD cases become picture frames; Old tea cups become bangles, Fridge parts have been turned into storage. Also, you can give things a new purpose in life by selling or giving them away through yard sales, donations, swaps and even on eBay.

And last, and yes, least:

Recycle
But remember that you are doing the work for the manufacturer and the waste handler, separating the stuff that you didn't need and or want and paying through your taxes to take away. I meant it when I provocatively titled an article on TreeHugger Recycling is Bulls**t

My favorite description of how recycling is fraudulent comes from Vancouver writer Ruben Anderson, who describes the process of recycling Tetra-Paks, promoted by industry as "green" packaging:

The places that say they recycle Tetra Paks are liars. What does "re" mean? It means again. Can a Tetra Pak be made into another Tetra Pak? No. Tetra Paks are seven incomprehensibly thin layers of paper, plastic and aluminum. The poor suckers who try to recycle them use giant blenders to mush the paper pulp off the plastic and metal, then they need to separate the plastic from the metal.

That isn't zero waste. It is using a lot of energy to manufacture the packaging, ship it around the country to special "recycling" facilities, and to get low grade crap out of it, just to make people feel better, knowing that their purchase is "recyclable." Recycling is a sop to make us feel better about a system that doesn't work. It should be the very last thing we do.

Imagine if you didn't have a dump to take stuff to, or a city garbage pickup, or if you had to pay a buck a pound for all of the garbage you make and cannot deal with at home. You would get close to zero waste very quickly.

 

Every space you walk into has been designed.  Offices, restaurants, parks, homes - any space built by or for people is designed. 

So someone spent a lot of time and effort on these spaces. Some of these are LEED approved.  Some just really really green, solar powered, insullated, geo-thermal green roofed personal castles. 

So who puts a vinyl binder in a well thought out space? 

Who puts a poorly made, poorly designed, toxic to make, use and get rid of, short lived vinyl binder in a well designed space? 

We at Naked Binder can only guess it is a giant conspiracy that involves shadowy characters in the middle of the night trying to ruin the good work, the good spaces the good living of a great many people.

It is time to fight back with a sustainable binder that is well designed, looks good, feels good, lasts for years and makes you want to say,"Wow, that is a nice binder! It looks like it was made for [insert well designed space here]!".

A true recycled, recyclable eco binder.  We are not saying there is a conspiracy against well designed spaces, but we aren't saying there isn't.  Check us out.

First, we would like to say,"Good job!!"

'According to the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), 57.4 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling in 2008. This significant achievement was made possible by the millions of Americans who recycle at home, work and school every day.

In fact, if measured by weight, more paper is recovered for recycling from municipal solid waste streams than all glass, plastic and aluminum combined. Additional good news: every ton of paper recovered for recycling saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.'   (via Earth-911)

When your old magazines go to the recycler they get sorted, cleaned (no more staples, garbage or other objects). What remains is then shredded, procesed a bit and put in huge water tanks to become a slurry. To make the binders board, this slurry is sprayed in thin layers gradually building up an even thickness.  This is then run through a machine that pressurizes that layer so it is even and smooth. 

The binders board that Naked Binder uses is actually three or more layers of this board - re-sandwiched together to get the proper thinkness of board.  This sheet is then dried, cut and sent to Naked Binder where it is made into a binder.

That is the long and short of it.  Your old magazines and newspapers, processed, and returned to you as an environmentally friendly eco binder that makes all your friends say,"Where can I get one of those?" (green envy).

Interior Designers works hard to create space for living.  Color, texture, space and elements combine to set the mood for how people interact with the space and each other.

So why would you let them put a vinyl binder in something you spent ANY time working on? Ugly, outgassing, cheap and disposable these things clog the arteries of any home or office.

Offer alternatives for better living.  Recycled and recyclable eco friendly binders that look great, come in 9 awesome colors and are non-toxic. As refined or simple as you want them and many are FSC certified.

We designed a binder that is made from FSC certified board which is 100% post consumer waste.  Recycled and recyclable, this binder will not enter the landfill stream. Designed to last ten years, this is the strongest binder on the market (we even ran it through a dishwasher). To make you want to keep it that long, we made them interesting, colorful and fun to have.

Naked Binder spends a lot of time exploring office environments. Most of you spend 40 hours + a week in an office, whether at home or at another place that you work. Again, most of you don't even notice your office products until you run out.

So look around.  Your office is more than a place to slave away - it is a creative think tank that allows you to reach out and explore - to go beyond the normal no matter what you do. Creative accounting (be careful), creative marketing, creative architeicture, creative phone banks....

Do you see color? Texture? Interesting shapes? Good design? Are you happy there? Are there toxic products around you? sunlight?

We believe that the office needs to be interesting, colorful, fun.  A creative workplace stimulates the mind, keeping you awake, creative and engaged. All the elements add up to making an environment that actually helps you to do better work, be happier and enjoy what you do.

Offering products with rich colors and interesting shapes that are non-toxic, well designed and work better is more than just a great idea (though it is a great idea).  Naked Binder makes binders stimulate and enhance your working experience.

To paraphrase David Carson, 'Enjoy life, you are going to be dead a long time'.

Naked Binder is mainly an online company, so if you are ordering recycled bare board binders, you are going have to decide how to ship them.

Shipping things around the country can get expensive, so it pays to know more about how UPS works especially if you are in a rush.

The UPS Ground rate is estimated at 3-4 days in the continental US, but the closer you live to the source, the faster the product will actually get there. The Naked Binder plant is located in Iowa (area code 50316).  If you go to the UPS site you can pull up a UPS map that will let you know when your package will arrive if you send it ground.

If you live near by, your shipping will be one day (probably) even if it goes ground!  Two days to anywhere within a fairly large radius. 

So anytime you ship UPS or order something, check the map so you don't overspend!

A truely sustainable 11 x 17 binder is a rare and beautiful thing. 

Naked Binders 11x17 binders are made from 100% Recycled Board, 97-100% post consumer waste.  These binders are sustainable in the cradle to cradle mode - made from recycled board and 100% recyclable. Stronger than nearly any binder on the market, these binder are made from 110pt binders board - a dense board.  We press horizontal creases into which are not only add stability, but also a great design element.

Even if these bare board binders get wet, there is not problem.  We have run bare board binders through dishwashers to test them. Those binders still worked and looked fine after a little drying time.

Stronger, greener, recycled, recyclable, well designed.  The Architect Binder is an 11 x 17 binder that is head an shoulders above the crowd.

We are linking you to a video called 'The Secret Life of Paper' today. We want to thank Inform for putting this out and encourage you to check out their site.

Americans use more paper than anyone else in the world, and yet paper is super resource intensive, water intensive and takes a lot of trees if it isn't recycled. Naked Binder wants to encourage you to look at what you use and choose recycled paper.  Print double sided, recycle and reuse also.  Our forests are finite and we need to protect them.

What has Naked Binder done lately?

Naked Binder has changed to an FSC certified board, and the Classic binder is wrapped in FSC certified paper. 

How much more environmentally friendly is recycled paper compared to virgin paper?
• Recycled paper saves 60% energy vs. virgin paper¹
• Recycled paper generates 95% less air pollution: each ton saves 60 lbs. of air pollution ¹
• Recycling of each ton of paper saves 17 trees and 7000 gallons of water ²

Every year enough paper is thrown away to make a 12-foot high wall running from New York to California

¹  Center for Ecological Technology
²  EPA

According to these numbers, Naked Binder has currently saved:

     • 595 trees      • 265,000 gallons of water        • 2100 lbs of air pollution  

Our Materials

Board

Naked Binder uses FSC certified 100% post consumer waste binders board.  This unbleached board is created from household and office curbside waste.  When the binder is finished, it is 100% recyclable.

Book Binding Cloth

A durable library-grade 100% cotton book binding clorth which adds protection and color to your binder.  This is the same cloth as all of the books on you bookshelfs

Papers

Naked Binder uses three different papers.

For the Classic Binder we use the FSC certified Ecological Fibers Rainbow series papers. These papers are acid free, carbon free, lignin free and archival. The facilities which makes them only discharges clean process water, recovers coating waste materials which are recycled into an ingredient in potting soil, uses recyclclable scrap paper to manufacture new raw materials and converts non-recyclable waste to energy through incineration.

The Wrapped Binder uses Neenah Eames paper in the graphic grey.  Neenah Eames papers are Green Seal certified, meaning they are at least 30% post consumer fiber and that mill processes, including packaging, are environmentally preferable. Green-e identifies products made with certified renewable energy, including but not limited to wind power, solar power, low impact hydropower, and biomass.

The interior of the Wrapped Binder is lined with acid-free book end paper from an FSC- Certified mill. This is the same end paper that the Library of Congress specifies to protect their bound volumes.  If you have old paperbacks or newspaper that has yellowed and decayed, you have seen what acidic paper can do.  An archival acid-free paper will protect your contents and also lasts much, much longer than other papers.

Our decision was to go with the acid-free paper over a recycled content paper at this time.  If we can find a paper that has both attributes and works well when we flex the spine, we will gladly switch. This is on the list of things we are working towards.

It is official! Naked Binder has launched it's new and improved line. While the basics have stayed the same - we have the same 100% recycled board, 100% recyclable binders, and the same eco friendly, strong, well designed and environmentally friendly binders, we have a few improvements.

More sizes

The Naked Binders and the Project Binders will now be available in ring sizes from 1" to 2.5" in both square and round spines. No more trying to pick and choose - we filled them in.

The Architect binder now also has a 1.5" ring.

More styles

Check out our new Classic BInder - an FSC certified and super cool binder wrapped in ecological fibers black paper with our full series of spine wraps and featuring a finger pull on the spine.

More Colors

We had a little color shift on the cloth spine wraps with sky blue going to a cobalt blue, yellow to Aztec Gold, red to Flare (a more true red), and we added a natural cotton/linen spine wrap. All these colors are available on both the project and classic lines.

The Architect Binder will also be available in a red spine wrap to go along with the bare and black wraps.

Folders

If you haven't seen them yet, Naked Folders are going to rock your world. 100% recycled and recyclable and 100% classy.

Labeling options

Naked Binder now offers labels for both our binders and folders.