Attendees of NA 2008 in Cleveland last month may not have been overwhelmed with new ideas for making their facilities environmentally friendly, but this year's show did include more “green”-themed exhibits than ever before.

Perusing the show aisles revealed numerous technologies for reducing packaging material and saving energy in distribution and manufacturing facilities.

Several exhibitors promoted technologies that reduce the need for protective packaging, which not only keeps packing material from clogging landfills but also saves on fuel needed to ship packages.

B+ Equipment and Savoye Pack are two European companies who've recently brought automated packaging technology to the U.S. market. Their machines sense the amount of product in a corrugated carton and then cut and fold the carton to fit the contents exactly—eliminating the need for void fill material.

Aetna Group and Smart Karton take a different approach to avoiding void fill. Their technologies use stretch wrap or shrink wrap to hold products in place, preventing them from shifting around inside their shipping containers.

As they have in years past, Orbis, Buckhorn and other returnable container suppliers promoted their lightweight, reusable pallets and shipping containers at the show, and at least two new companies joined the ranks this year: first-time exhibitor Airdex International introduced its ultra-lightweight polystyrene pallets, which, according to sales manager Michael Weber, are an excellent choice for shipping products by air. In addition, envirOpak introduced its Slip-Tray Pallets—reusable slip sheets made from lightweight recycled and recyclable plastic.

Lift Trucks

NA08 exhibitors offered several possibilities to attendees seeking environmentally friendly alternatives for powering their lift trucks.

Perhaps the most impressive was Komatsu's  hybrid lift truck. The truck, says senior marketing manager Keith Allmandinger, just became commercially available in Japan and will be coming to the U.S. market soon.

While hybrid cars are part gasoline and part electric, says Allmandinger, Komatsu's hybrid lift truck is all electric—part maintenance-free sealed battery and part capacitor. The capacitor, he explains, captures regenerated current that would otherwise be lost as heat and uses it to power the truck.

According to Komatsu literature, running the hybrid lift truck instead of a standard electric truck results in 20% lower carbon dioxide emissions. When compared with a gasoline-powered lift truck, the CO2 emissions drop 74%.

Another technology designed to boost the performance of a battery-powered lift truck is the OorjaPac from first-time exhibitor Oorja Protonics. The OorjaPac is an onboard battery charger that gets its power from a methanol-based fuel cell. According to the company, just 5 gallons of methanol can power a lift truck or other materials handling vehicle for 24 hours.

Attendees simply looking for a better battery may have discovered Discover-Energy, a provider of “clean and green” energy storage products. The company's non-hazardous, maintenance-free, non-gassing batteries are made from recycled materials and run 2.5 times longer than competing batteries, says spokesman Ken Lazorchak.

Several other exhibitors offered ideas for increasing the energy efficiency of a facility—a relatively easy way to save the planet and save cash at the same time.

Dock equipment supplier Rite-Hite introduced its PitMaster under-leveler seal, which it calls “the industry's first and only seal to complete the job of the dock seal or shelter by simply and effectively sealing the fourth side of the dock opening.” Rite-Hite claims energy savings from the seal can add up to $900 per year per dock position in some climates.

Another way to save heating and cooling energy in large facilities is to install large fans to mix the air. Several fan suppliers exhibited at NA08, including first-time exhibitor AirMotion Sciences. The company's fans literally offer a twist on other fan technologies: users can vary the pitch of the fan blades to adjust air movement.

To complement the action of its big fans, exhibitor Envira-North offers wind-driven turbine ventilators that replace stale inside air with fresh outside air without using any electricity.

Another excellent way to reduce energy consumption in distribution centers and manufacturing plants, says Don Hummel of Orion Energy Systems (www.oriones.com), is to retrofit the facility's lighting system. Orion offers several energy-efficient lighting options, including fluorescent lamps in high-performance fixtures, programmable lighting controls and “light pipes” that harvest more light than traditional skylights.

According to the company's brochure, a lighting retrofit from Orion saved a Cabela's distribution center in Wisconsin nearly $200,000 a year and effectively reduced its carbon dioxide output by nearly 4,000 tons.