Crayola And Coca Cola Join the Green Wagon!

It appears as though Corporations are increasingly becoming aware of the need to pitch in to try reverse the effects of Global warming. Puma and Frito-Lay started it with their green packaging. Now, Crayola and beverage giant Coca Cola, have joined in with some big initiatives.

Crayola, the crayon giant needs a large amount of energy to manufacture its 3 billion crayons every year. While the company has managed to reduce its natural gas usage by 19% and electricity by 11%, over the last decade, it felt like it needed to do more.

So, on August 5th the company switched on a 15-acre solar panel farm situated behind its headquarters in Easton, Pennsylvania. Fitted with 26,000 solar panels, it is expected to generate 1.9 megawatts of electricity or enough to manufacture one billion crayons or a third of the company's annual production.

A similar amount of energy generated with fossil fuels would result in 1,900 tons of greenhouse gases annually. This reduction of green house emissions is the equivalent of planting 400 acres of pine forest or removing 325 cars from the road. And, the company is not done yet - They plan to double the size of the solar farm by next year. Now that's the shade of green we love!

Coca Cola's efforts to turn green were focused more on the issues that are specific to their product - The reuse of their plastic bottles that are clogging up our landfills.

Teaming up with Pennsylvania based eco-friendly furniture manufacture Emeco, the company has introduced a series of colorful chairs dubbed 111 Navy Chairs - As the name suggests, in addition to other materials like glass fiber, each chair also contains plastic from 111 recycled coca cola bottles.

Available in six earth-inspired colors, that include the iconic Coca Cola red, persimmon and green, the chairs retail for about $230 USD each. The companies estimate that if they manufacture the chairs for a year, they will utilize 300 million PET bottles and are hoping to inspire people to not only recycle, but also, come up with innovative ways to turn the bottles into something as stunning!

Sources: crayola.com, solarpanelpowers.net, mothernaturenetwork.com