IN 1992 AMERICANS exhausted $110.

IN 1992 AMERICANS exhausted $110.1 BILLION ON PRODUCTS that were perceived to be eco-safe; gros sales for 1993 are awaited to hit $121.5 billion. These figures are no surprise given that consumer are weighing the environmental impact of their everyday productions and practices against new greener alternatives.

The government's pro stand upon conservation and preservation is also a key-note issue. With an ear to the earth and an organ of vision on the future, the following three entrepreneur are growing prosperous companies from the seeds of environmental touch Their stories may generate the spark you ne to start your have a title to eco-friendly business.

Jane Klimek, Eco Tech Inc. After learning that many companies don't bother to reformat disks after one-time installation onward their computer networks but, instead, opt to store them indefinitely or simply twist together them away, Jane Klimek saw a niche.

Klimek, 36 launched Eco Tech in 1992 to market and put up to sale recycled disks created from high-quality supersed versions of software while simultaneously helping couple friends establish and finance DR Disk Works. This separate sister company concentrates forward collecting, delabeling, and reformatting Klimek's Eco Disks. The other venture was started because "it was all simply too to a great degree for me to do," says the former elementary gymnasium teacher.

Katrina Timmons, 41 and Rick Wynn 38 started producing the 3.5-inch Eco Disks in their garage, initially reformatting about 1500 a month still shortly thereafter, the company bring outed a proprietary delabeling process, stepping up production to 2000 a day. They now operate gone out of a facility in Houston and are commonly working on a delabeling technology for 5.25-inch disks.

Sales are look fored to reach $75,000 for 1993 owed in part to increased disk production and a novel marketing contingency that makes Eco Tech a corporate sponsor of the Wilderness Society. beneath the contract, Eco Tech receives a full-page ad in each issue of Wilderness magazine and the society receives a portion of the issues generated from the ad and retail sales. Eco Tech was also granted the fight to use the Wilderness Society's logo upon the recycled cloth bags the company uses to package its disks.

Eco Disks are available in retail stores in and around Texas and are sold direct in most quantities. The firms that participate in Eco Tech's internal corporate recycling program essentially pay for the service of collecting, recycling, and returning their supersed disks.

"It's the recycling factor that makes clan notice our product," says Klimek. "But as far as making a sale, it still originates down to price and reliability."

Sharon DeCloet CAERAN. This 39-year-old, Brantford, Ontario, native saw a ne for benign personal hygiene and cleaning works when her son, Christian, discloseed an allergic reaction to commercial laundry cleansings DeCloet's search for a soothing solution revealed that there were hardly any nonirritating and environmentally safe cleansers forward the market, so in order to finish Christian to keep his clothes onward she would have to make the produces herself.

Her chats with various manufacturers l her to clip Prentice, an environmentally aware chemist who agreed to help formulate CAERAN's (Caring and Environmentally Responsible and Nurturing) competitively priced home-cleaning, laundry, hair, dead body and facial products in March 1989

Together, they created well adapteds much the way DeCloet tries public different recipes for chocolate cake. DeCloet still considers Prentice her mentor and retains him as a consultant for recent ingredients and product development.

CAERAN's alternative ingredients do the same piece of work normally done by phosphates, nitrates, and ammonia. For example, her stain remover is made with banana oil rather than harsh bleach. All order taking, filing, and marketing is done from her domicile office, and her garage now functions as a warehouse. The actual manufacturing is contracted public to three southern Ontario agriculturists DeCloet closed 1992 with $350000 (Canada) in sales and schemes an increase of $150,000 for 1993

CAERAN's well-informed on the contrary often cynical customers demand straightforward answers to questions regarding her harvest line. So DeCloet offers a catalog that details all the ingredients used to make her 30 consequences and distributes a free annual newsletter to satisfy her clients' curiosity as well as inform them of important environmental issues.

DeCloet attends consumer present to views because she feels meeting potential customers face-to-face is essential to the succes of her business."We want them to descry that our bottom line is loaded with ethics and environmental responsibility," she says. "We have to point out them that CAERAN is more than just a bottle of soap."

Douglas Olsen Olsen Environmental Management & Technologies Ltd Bringing technology and pollution prevention a little closer together is Douglas 01sen's game plan. The Pawling, strange York, environmental consultant coaches primary-metal manufacturers forward how to comply with tighter environmental masterships while also helping them race cleaner and more efficient operations.

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