Wednesday, July 7, 2010

NASCAR Goes Green—So Do We

Weaver Media logo transformed into recycling icon

A couple weeks ago, we shared this article from bohemian.com from our Facebook account. The article describes some of the methods that NASCAR is using to go green. They covered sheep mowing the lawns; aluminum, plastic and tire recycling efforts; as well as oil re-refinement.

But, coming from a signage background, we couldn't help but notice there was something missing. PVC, aka polyvinyl chloride. PVC is the polymer that makes vinyl banners possible. However, it rarely recycled because regrinding and recompounding the resin is very costly versus using unrecycled resin. This leads to large amounts of vinyl being discarded into landfills across the country each year. This concerns us greatly because vinyl grandstand, trackside and backstretch banners make up a good deal of our work for our partner tracks.

However over the last couple of years, new earth-friendly materials have become available. One is a material we believe has great opportunities in the motorsports arena. It's constructed of woven polyethylene plastic and is 100% recyclable (which we're more than happy to help coordinate). But that's just scratching the surface.

A few fast facts on how this material stacks up against standard 13oz vinyl.

One 20' x 60' trackside banner...
• Uses 1,656,548 less BTU units to produce (or about 486 Kw hours)
• Saves 13 gallons of gasoline (that would get the average sedan 294 miles)
• Eliminates 1,308 square feet of landfill needs (equal to about 986 20oz bottles)

And that's just for one banner.

Plus, this earth-friendly material is about 80% lighter than standard 13oz vinyl banners. That decrease in weight may translate to reduced shipping costs and easier installations. Best of all, these products are about the same price as standard front lit vinyl.

Outdoor companies have been testing, and using this material for a couple of years and we're excited to be able to offer them to the NASCAR arena.

If you're looking to go green with your racing efforts. Give us a call at the office. We'd be happy to discuss these exciting new options with you.