Henry Ford

The Ford Focus is spearheading a comprehensive European Recycling Campaign, the car manufacturer has said.

The campaign has created over 300 separate car parts formed with recycling materials and diverts around 20,000 tonnes away from landfill each year.

Ford recycled materials include recycled plastics that make up 25% of heater and air conditioned housing, 50% of battery trays and recycled materials that make up 100% of fabric seat options.

Sources for this recycled material are everyday items as diverse as plastic bottles, CDs, computers and even denim jeans.

The noise insulation in all Ford vehicles is made from jeans and reclaimed car seat upholstery.

Ford is undergoing developments to create more alternative bio-based materials in order to decrease dependence on oil based products.

Ford researchers are currently developing new materials that include more natural ingredients such as soy flour, hemp and cellulose.


Source: http://www.insideireland.ie/index.cfm/section/news/ext/fordrecycle001/ca...

Ancient plant has many uses, from medicinal to industrial

By Jesse Rowland

Ever since I first learned what it was, I've been fascinated by marijuana. It's a miraculous plant that can and has been used for a multitude of purposes since at least 8,000 B.C.E.

I feel that marijuana is a vital part of the continuation of our country and the planet, and it should be fully legalized for the use of whatever people see fit, including recreational.

Cannabis can be adapted with any industry, be it agricultural, medical, construction, textile or cosmetic. In Jamestown, Va., in 1619, a law "ordered" all farmers to grow marijuana for the colony. Similar laws were also passed in Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1631 and 1632. In Virginia, during times of shortage between 1763 and 1767, you could actually be jailed for not growing it.

Henry Ford, who designed a vehicle made out of hemp fibers and powered by hemp seed oil, once said, "Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?"

And it makes sense. Why, as the most powerful country on the planet, would we not utilize the most versatile plant known to man?

From drugs to oil

By Brandon Romines, Helium

Tycoons fear hemp because it could out compete products in many industries. Marijuana, the psychoactive form of hemp, is truly a medicine that has been mislabeled a drug. Not one death can be attributed to marijuana, a claim not even aspirin can make.

Industrial hemp, contains almost no tetrahydrocannibinol(THC). Hemp can be used to produce fuel, fabric, paper and even furniture. The cannabis plant is one of the most versatile plants in the world.

Though marijuana is less harmful and the effects more mild than alcohol, it is an illegal drug. Simply by smoking this plant, many chronically ill patients feel relief many prescriptions can't provide, and with none of the drawbacks.

Marijuana is not physically addictive, it has never killed anyone, and anyone who really needed it could grow it easily enough themselves. Corporations are scared of the cannabis plant because of all of it's qualities. They would make no profit if everyone could grow their own medicine!

By Paul Louis, Natural News, Staff Writer

PSA, the French manufacturer for Peugeot and Citroen, has recently initiated its Green Materials Plan. This plan intends to increase car parts made from natural materials 600 percent by 2015. They are making a few parts now that are based on flax and hemp.

PSA's Green Materials Plan focuses on three areas: Biopolymers to replace plastics derived from oil; Natural fibers from flax and hemp mixed with other materials, such as wood chips; And recycled materials from shredded plastic bottles mixed with glass fibers.

The plastic interior door panels made by PSA are already 50 percent flax fibers pressed with wood chips. Other parts, including mirror and windshield wiper mountings, use hemp instead of glass fiber in their material mix.

Oil based plastics in cars make up to 20 percent of a car's weight on average. Of that 20 percent, only six percent is currently green or cellulose based. PSA's goal is to increase that six percent to 30 percent of the plastic used.

Hemp is legal in France, so further advances with hemp for car parts may unfold. Laurent Bechin, PSA's natural-fibers specialist, pointed out that the hemp used does not produce marijuana. "It would need about two tons of this material to produce one joint", he quipped.

By Samantha Rose Hunt, TG Daily

Chicago (IL) - With the entire world looking for green alternatives, Toyota is in talks regarding an ultra lightweight, incredibly efficient plug-in hybrid with a body made of seaweed. The vehicle could potentially be seen in showrooms in 15 years, but it’s definitely not coming any time soon.

The concept builds on the 1/X plug-in hybrid concept that weighs in at 926 pounds. With bioplastics gaining popularity, instead of the vehicle having a carbon fiber body, it would instead be composed of plastic made from seaweed. Toyota believes this is a practice that will begin to catch on with other manufacturers.

Bioplastics are currently being utilized for many things, cellphone cases and gift cards being among those items. According to USA Today, in five years it is expected that demand will increase to 50 billion pounds annually, which would account for 10 percent of the world's plastic market. Bioplastic production requires the use of 30 percent less energy than the production of petroleum-based plastics.

Even though you want be able to see the algae car, Toyota will be showing off three of its awesome hybrids- the next generation Prius, a new Camry concept, and the 1/X which is named for its significantly reduced carbon footprint- at the Melbourne Motor Show.

By Becky Rynor, Canwest News Service

It was Henry Ford, the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and a prolific inventor, who did some of the earliest work in developing biocomposites -- products that combine organic fibres from agriculture and forestry waste with petroleum-based materials such as plastic.

"He was at the forefront," says Ed Trueman, with JER Envirotech of Delta, B.C.

"If you go back to the early days of Henry Ford, in the late teens and early 1920s, he did an awful lot of development work with soy-based products -- soy-based plastics, soy-based polymers that actually ended up in auto body panels. He was brought up on a farm and he was very concerned about the environment."

Ford was stymied in getting biocomposites widely developed and accepted, Trueman says, by the technological limitations of the time and the ready availability of cheap petroleum.

But recent advances in technology, combined with industry's desire to reduce costs and be environmentally conscious, is moving the field forward,says christian Belanger with the National Research Council.

Belanger says this has a growing number of industries looking at biocomposites for everything from food packaging to car and airplane components.