Why Nature Bags the Greenest Bags Around!

There is no manufacturing. In the Nature Bag crafting process everything is done in the homes.  No fossil fuel is used until our project transports the finished bags from the acquisition centers to our global headquarters in Luang Prabang (no more than 250 KM (150 miles). Indeed, most rural Khmu have nothing that consumes power, and if they do, the requirement is for electricity which, in northern Laos, comes entirely from water & solar sources.

Each bag weighs less than 70 grams (2.5 oz), and transport from Luang Prabang to the end user virtually always is by public transport (within Laos, the bundles of Nature Bags are tied to the tops of buses).  Most of the containers we use to ship to buyers are extremely lightweight (and biodegradable or recycled).  Most promotional/instructional inserts are on thin small-sized paper, although the ink likely has petroleum components. When you consider that most of our shipments to end users involve more than one bag, I'd estimate the average gross shipping weight per bag is not much more than 75 grams.

Of our warehousing sites, only one, in Iowa USA, requires energy and that is only in the form of small amounts of electricity for infrequent use of energy-efficient lighting, occasional dehumidification and rare pumping of water from a drainage sump (that warehouse is in a basement that occasionally is subject to ground water penetration after very heavy & extended periods of rainfall).  In Iowa, about 20% of our electricity comes from our nearly 1500 giant wind generators, thus even the small amount of electricity we use here is surprisingly "green."

All of us involved in the Nature Bag Mission frugally use energy-efficient transportation, turn off our energy-efficient lights, keep our heating/cooling consumption moderate & use all available energy-saving technology on our computers & communications devices.  Very little paper & ink is used when something must be in a non-electronic form.  We fly economy class & use public transportation rather than private vehicles whenever we can.  Of course there are a few taxi rides needed for going to/from airports when there is too much luggage (or too many Nature Bags) for a person or two to carry on a bus or tram (or, as is often the case, it is during hours when public transit is not available.

Other than the Khmu bag users, it is likely that Bill Newbrough, the Nature Bag Sponsor, is the only person who has used a Nature Bag so intensively that it no longer had value as a carrying/storing device.  Nevertheless, we recommend burying bags that are no longer useful.  As the buried bag transitions to nutrients in the soil, isn't it likely that most of the carbon in the JungleVine^TM fiber is captured by the soil & thus stored?