Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/946815
f you live in North America and regularly buy fresh produce at a grocery store, you've probably seen organic produce displayed for sale. In the United States, the USDA Department of Agriculture oversees the certification program to show that certified agents are protecting natural resources, conserving biodiversity, and using only approved substances. Seeing the "certified organic" label on food purchases gives consumers confidence that those products achieved those goals. How can one be certain that other widely used products, like detergents, oils, carpets, fertilizers, building materials, and shipping materials are produced in the same spirit? In the United States, the answer to that question is the USDA BioPreferred® Program. This program was created in the 2002 Farm Bill legislation and was expanded in the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills. The program is intended to increase the use of renewable agricultural, marine and forestry materials, to reduce dependence on petroleum-based products. Products identified by the BioPreferred Program are known as "biobased" products. The United States government recognizes the many benefits of biobased products. They tend to perform as well as or better than their petroleum-based counterparts and are competitively priced. According to An Economic Impact Analysis of the U.S. Biobased Products Industry, biobased products displace about 300 million gallons of petroleum each year in the United States. This is equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the road! According to Kate Lewis, the program analyst in charge of the USDA BioPreferred Program, as of 2016 the biobased economy contributes $393 billion to the U.S. economy each year and supports 4.2 million jobs (source). In other words, for every 1 biobased products job, 1.76 additional jobs are supported in the United States. To date, nearly 3,000 products have been certified under this program. For the wood packaging sector, a milestone came November, 2016, when about 430 companies, making pallets designed with the Pallet Design System™ (PDS) software of the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA), began using the USDA certified biobased label. The USDA label confirms the strong environmental attributes of wood pallets and presents tremendous opportunities for its manufacturers. This NWPCA group certification by the USDA was the first of its kind for the BioPreferred Program, recognizing PDS and its exceptional engineering that goes into the pallets for reducing waste and improving performance. Participating in the BioPreferred Program is voluntary but use of the label is limited to biobased products certified by the USDA; wooden pallet manufacturers must be an active licensee of PDS. U.S. Federal law directs that the Federal government must show purchasing preference for biobased products in order to increase the government's investments in renewable resources. To date, there are 97 categories of products that have mandatory federal purchasing requirements. To search USDA's online BioPreferred Catalog, visit http://bit.ly/2xnxPEQ (all PDS active license holders are automatically listed in the USDA catalog). Both NWPCA and PDS were mentioned in a January 2018 "Agri-Pulse" article (http://bit.ly/2n1iWzO) on the USDA BioPreferred Program. Learn more about PDS and the USDA BioPreferred Program at Palletcentral.com/BioPreferred. PC 38 PalletCentral • January-February 2018 palletcentral.com I BLOG Wood Pallets are USDA Certified Biobased Products Blog by Annie Montey