HOPS Press, LLC
-Working for a Better World-
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"In order to create a truly sustainable economy we must mimic the ecosystem so that the waste of every household and business becomes resource inputs to other enterprises, and the only waste produced is diffuse, low-grade heat from renewable resources like solar."
--Thomas J. Elpel
Direct Pointing to Real Wealth
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If you have read my books, then you know that making the world a better place is the one thing that motivates me to get up and go to work each day. I write and teach about plants and primitive skills to bring people closer to nature. We built our own home for maximum resource efficiency, and wrote about next generation home building in my book Living Homes. I research and write on economics and ecology to help steer the world towards sustainable development. My whole reason for writing books or being in business is to help make a greener world. The way I see it, business and money are powerful tools with the potential to make positive change in the world. All this leads to the question: What is our environmental record in business?
Going Green at HOPS Press, LLC
Books: When we first started HOPS Press, LLC, we didn't worry too much about the recycled content in our books, simply because we were learning the ropes of the publishing business and had all we could handle at once. But each time we returned to the printer we asked for more earth-friendly production. Direct Pointing to Real Wealth includes about 30% post-consumer recycled content. We bumped that up to 100% post-consumer recycled paper for Living Homes, Botany in a Day,
Participating in Nature, and Roadmap to Reality. On every project we ask for the highest recycled content we can get. Our books are printed with soy-based inks. We have also donated tens of thousands of dollars to several nonprofit organizations, such as the Jefferson River Canoe Trail. We are exploring the transition to ebooks for future editions of at least some of these titles.
Videos: Plastic DVD cases consume extra resources and break easily. Our DVD's are packaged with minimalist cardboard covers to further conserve resources.
Shipping: Most wholesale orders are shipped in secondhand boxes and cushioned with secondhand peanuts. We even built our own hotwire tool to recycle scrap styrofoam block packing material into packing peanuts!
Most of our retail orders are shipped in Priority envelopes and boxes provided by the United States Postal Service, typically made from 100% recycled paper, including 80 -100% post-consumer fiber, and printed with soy inks. Other retail orders are shipped in Jiffy Padded Mailers manufactured from 77% recycled paper, including 62% post-consumer fiber. Be sure to recycle your own papers to help close the loop on waste!
Recycling: At work and at home, we compost almost anything that is biodegradable and recycle everything else that we possibly can, including: cardboard, paper, magazines and catalogs, junk mail, plastic bottles, glass, tin cans, aluminium cans and scrap aluminum, scrap iron, copper and brass. We save just about every bent nail and broken screw for recycling, and often pull other recyclables out of community dumpster.
Go to Books & Videos by Thomas J. Elpel.
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