Tag: small business

Small Businesses Highlight “Green Gazelles”

  • Piles of GreenCel are dumped outside KTM Industries in Lansing, Mich. It looks like garbage, but the biodegradable material will dissolve and wash away with the next rain. KTM is one of a number of new environmentally-conscious small businesses called "Green Gazelles." (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

Most environmental issues pit environmentalists against business interests. But now, people on both sides say working together might be the only way to help the nation’s economy, and preserve natural resources. So they’re teaming up to promote a group of fast-growing, environmentally-friendly small businesses called “Green Gazelles.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Most environmental issues pit environmentalists against business interests. But now,
people on both sides say working together might be the only way to help the nation’s
economy, and preserve natural resources. So they’re teaming up to promote a group of fast-
growing, environmentally-friendly small businesses called “Green Gazelles.” The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


People who love video games are scrambling to get their hands on the latest gadget in the
gaming world. It’s a new hard drive for Sony’s PlayStation2. The drive comes loaded with
a new version of the game Final Fantasy. And it comes packaged in a new kind of
environmentally-friendly foam, called GreenCel.


(sound of manufacturing facility)


“It’s gonna be a little loud out here.”


“What’s the smell?”


“It’s cornstarch, that’s exactly what you’re smelling.
We’re taking cornstarch and we’re doing something that nobody else in the world does.
We’re melting it, and then we’re foaming it into huge sheets.”


A company called KTM Industries makes “GreenCel.” It’s an organic packing material –
made from cornstarch, vegetable oil and water. Companies like Sony are using it instead of
products made with petroleum, like Styrofoam. Those products don’t break down naturally.


KTM also makes an arts and crafts product for kids called “Magic Nuudles.” The Nuudles
are made out of cornstarch, too. They look like those candy circus peanuts, but they’re in all
different colors. Kids can glue Nuudles to paper to make pictures. Or they can build things
with them.


Both GreenCel and Magic Nuudles dissolve in water.


Tim Colonnese is KTM’s president. He says business is so good right now
because people are getting smarter about how they spend their money.


“You’ve got a better educated population out there that recognizes that we can’t
continue to do business as usual. Our landfills are getting fuller, our air is getting
dirtier, our water is getting dirtier. And we’ve got to take those steps right now, as
our population increases and business increases, to start cleaning up our act.”


KTM is one of a new group of small businesses throughout the country, called “green
gazelles.” Green — meaning they make environmentally-friendly products using newer,
cleaner methods. And “Gazelles” — because they’re fast-moving companies able to quickly
apply new technology.


Colonnese started his company seven years ago. He says it was awhile before
KTM’s products became profitable. But now, Colonnese says his company and other green
gazelles could be the future of the American economy.


“So as big business takes its job elsewhere, where are those new jobs going to be
created? And it’s going to be created with small business, with innovators that come up
with new products and new processes that are completely different from what the big boys
are doing. And hopefully, if a few of us are successful, we will become the next large
company.”


And the numbers show that’s already happening. Mark Clevey is with the Small Business
Association of Michigan. He says green gazelles are creating new jobs in the
US. But Clevey says they’re doing so without a lot of financial help.


“These companies, although they’re fast-growing companies, one of the reasons they
grow fast is because their competitive advantage is based on some technological
advantage and, in order to get that technological advantage, they have to invest
several million dollars, at a minimum, in research and development. Banks don’t fund
that, venture capitalists don’t fund that, universities don’t fund it, nobody funds that
kind of technology.”


Except, Clevey says, the government to some extent. He says the US Department of Energy
offers grants to small businesses for research.


Clevey says most state governments offer tax credits and incentives for basic small
business development. But he argues it would be better in the long run if states would start
investing more in research and technology – even if it’s risky.


That’s something people in Rust Belt states are already talking about.


Steve Chester is director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.


“I think there are some things that we can do environmentally, for instance, we do
have a lot of grants and loans that we provide. And to the extent that we might be
able to prioritize green technologies, I think that’s something we should try to do.”


Supporters of green gazelles are hoping to persuade Congress that helping green companies
is the best way to help the environment. During upcoming Congressional hearings, they’ll
ask lawmakers for more financial support and tax incentives for green gazelles.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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Raw Milk Advocates Petition Small Farmers

For decades, a small number of people have believed milk is more nutritious if it’s not pasteurized. Modern science doesn’t support that claim. And the idea of milk going right from the cow to the breakfast bowl is unthinkable for most doctors and food safety experts. But advocates are finding a new audience for their message: Small farmers trying to compete against large dairy companies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

For decades a small number of people have believed milk is more nutritious if it’s
not pasteurized. Modern science doesn’t support that claim. And the idea of milk
going right from the cow to the breakfast bowl is unthinkable for most doctors and
food safety experts. But advocates are finding a new audience for their message:
Small farmers trying to compete against large dairy companies. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:


A thick white blanket of fresh snow covers Chris Halpin’s small farm in northern
Michigan. All his goats are in the barn this morning munching on hay.


“These girls in here are all in here with a billy goat and they’re all milking
right now and they’re waiting to get bred. That’s the billy there.”


Halpin hasn’t sold much milk, even though he’s been raising goats for a number of
years. He says small farmers must cut out the middleman to make a living and
he’s exploring options to sell milk products without going through a big dairy
company.


Pasteurization equipment is too expensive for his small farm. So, for the last two
years he’s sold un-pasteurized milk to a small number of people.


“The demand for raw milk is huge. Pasteurized milk is a dead product. It’s
dead. It’s heated up to temperatures that kills not only any the bacteria that
could be in the milk but it kills all the enzymes in the milk and so there’s nothing
in there that could promote the body to digest the milk.”


It’s not legal to sell the raw milk in Michigan. A few other Midwest states and
Canada also ban such sales. Health officials say that raw milk can carry food-
borne illnesses. But Halpin says his animals are clean and healthy and he has no
concerns about the safety of the milk.


“That’s not my concern at all. We have five children and my wife makes yogurt
and cheese and we drink raw milk and I have no concerns at all and I don’t have
no concerns for my own family. If I guy has concerns it seems like it’d be for his
own family.”


Food regulators say the dangers of raw milk are well documented. In 2001, for
example, an outbreak of a bacterial infection in Wisconsin sickened 19 people.
The state says 17 of them reported drinking raw milk.


And raw milk advocates have not been able to convince regulators that raw milk
has any nutritional benefit over pasteurized milk, as is often claimed.


The legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Agriculture, Brad Deacon,
says opponents of the pasteurization requirement weren’t persuasive when his state
updated its dairy laws in 2001.


“There haven’t been any credible studies that we’ve been able to find. Our minds
are not closed on the matter. But we’ve been yet to be given any credible studies
that pasteurized milk has fewer nutrients than unpasteurized milk.”


Raw milk advocates point to older studies, mostly done in the first half of the
twentieth century. Those studies did suggest health benefits from drinking raw
milk.


And they have anecdotal stories of people overcoming health problems by
switching to a diet that includes raw dairy.


They say the scientific community’s view is entrenched and influenced by the
interests of big agribusiness and big dairies.


But with modern science against them, raw milk activists are taking their message
directly to farmers.


And they’re finding receptive and occasionally large audiences.


The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation — the national group leading the
campaign for raw milk — was recently the keynote speaker at a small farm
conference in the Midwest that attracted 600 people.


Sally Fallon told the farmers they’re up against corporations that want squeeze the
little guy out.


“For this to happen, she says the big companies must make sure all food goes
through the corporations on its way from the farm to the table.”


“The farmer who adds value by farming organically by making cheese or butter
or by simply selling directly to the consumer, he is the enemy to this system and a
whole battery of laws, health laws, licensing laws, even environmental laws, is
used against us. We need to get rid of some of these laws.”


Fallon says raw dairy products are good for the consumer and the bottom line of
the farm.


For instance, she says raw butter made from cows free roaming on fertile pasture
is “the number one health food in America.”


The farmer making this butter should get at least five dollars a pound for this
product. In Washington D.C., we’re getting ten dollars a pound for the beautiful
Amish butter. Now that kind of income will pay for lots of improvements on the
farm.”


But the plight of small farmers doesn’t change the facts, says Dr. Stephen Barrett,
a retired psychiatrist and journalist who operates the website quackwatch.org.
Barrett says small businesses are having trouble everywhere.


“One have to ask rather cynically, if a company isn’t viable in the marketplace,
they either better do something or they’re going to perish, and if doing something
means putting the public at risk, that’s not good.”


Good or not, activists will continue to push for what they see as a fundamental
right to drink and sell milk without interference from the government.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

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Sections of Lakes Closed for Security

Great Lakes boaters will find some areas of the lakes closed to them this boating season. The terrorist attacks last September prompted federal agencies to make parts of the lakes off-limits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham explains:

Transcript

Great Lakes boaters will find some areas of the lakes closed to them this
boating season. The terrorist attacks last September prompted federal
agencies to make parts of the lakes off-limits. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers are establishing security
zones where pleasure boaters and commercial fishing boats will be
restricted. For example, a temporary security area around nuclear power
plants was established on Lake Michigan. Now those will become permanent.
Lake St. Clair will have a security zone on the waters around Selfridge Air
National Guard Base near Detroit. And near Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, a
15-mile-wide danger zone, about six miles offshore, is being reestablished as
a live fire exercise area for the Wisconsin Air National Guard. The Army
Corps of Engineers indicates it would have no significant effect on small
businesses, but Wisconsin state officials are furious because the Army Corps
of Engineers has been vague about what it will actually mean for commercial
anglers and pleasure boaters who use the area.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Food Co-Ops Losing Grip on Health Food Market

There was a time when people who ate organic and natural foods
were considered the hippie-fringe. But healthy eating is becoming more
mainstream, and the market for natural and organic foods is growing.
That’s causing some shifts in the food industry. Small mom and pop
stores are no longer the only places to find health foods.
Conventional
supermarkets have organic produce sections and large natural food stores
are opening nationwide. This has many small stores wondering how they
are going to survive. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant
reports:

Regulations Hurt Small Town Economies

  • Service stations that went out of business rather than pay for upgrades of underground storage tanks have left some small towns without anyplace in town to buy gasoline. That's affected some small towns' economy.

Across the nation some small towns are hurting because of
environmental regulations that have led to economic problems. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

REGULATIONS HURT SMALL TOWN ECONOMIES (Shorter Version)

  • Service stations that went out of business rather than pay for upgrades of underground storage tanks have left some small towns without anyplace in town to buy gasoline. That's affected some small towns' economy.

Some rural communities are struggling because environmental
regulations hurt their economy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports: