Eleven of the worlds leading tire manufacturers formed the Tire Industry Project a number of years ago and are making great strides into developing sustainable materials for tire production. From dandelion milk to supplement natural rubber, to biomass based materials into every facet of tires, the push is really on to eliminate petroleum based materials. Some fascinating reading here https://www.wbcsd.org/Sector-Projects/Tire-Industry-Project 

All the major tire manufacturers who account for 65% of the worlds production have announced the objective to produce tires made from sustainable materials.  Recovered carbon black, micronized rubber powder, recycled oils and chemicals from end of life tires will also play a part in reducing the carbon footprint of tire production. Some great companies inhabit this space already and the market is still in it’s infancy. The rate of change of progress in the last couple of years has really been astounding and I look forward to the next 5 years as industry, innovation and consumer preferences all converge into greater acceptance.

This week Daimler announced that they have spent $20 billion euros recently to acquire battery materials to feed into their manufacturing efforts in this area. https://electrek.co/2018/12/11/daimler-billion-battery-cells-electric-vehicle/  

Although it seems to me that they have realized somewhat late compared to other auto manufacturers that the future does not lay with internal combustion engines, this of course is great news. I would expect them to become amongst the leading companies soon. The more innovative, sustainable, renewable, alternative materials coming into the battery material stream coupled with the engineering depth of Daimler will be a huge positive for the industry and environment.

Working and being in the sustainable way of life, we are always on the lookout for ways to reduce our consumption of plastic. One new and fantastic way we’ve recently discovered is Etee. Etee is a Canadian company that has developed a sustainable beeswax coated canvas than can take the place of plastic films and containers for food wraps. 

Our order arrived a couple of days ago and we set to finding out how it works. It comes in colourful,  convenient sheets of various sizes. Just crumple it up to activate it, wrap it around leftovers, or put your lunch inside. Twist it around fruit to keep it fresh, roll it around a sushi roll. It’s easy to clean, easy to use.

We think Etee works really well and is quite an amazing product. It’s interesting to see how it grips itself and how with a little imagination you can wrap up any shape and keep it fresh.

We highly recommend you try this for yourself. Here’s a link to their website https://www.shopetee.com/