August 3, 2012

Reclaiming the green path

BOULDER — The giant box of tennis balls is the first thing you notice. It sits on a palette in the center of the crowded, cramped warehouse that serves as BolderPath Inc.’s design studio and reclamation center.

There are hundreds of balls, most with little sign of wear. They easily would supply an amateur player for years’ worth of weekends.

Still, they don’t meet the exacting standards of top players, so the tennis association has shipped them off. They will meet the fate of countless other tennis balls, becoming dog toys.

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These dog toys are quite a bit different, however, BolderPath president Robert Bogatin explained as he showed off a sample. The tennis balls will be sewn together with used and discarded climbing ropes marketed to people who want cool toys that help the environment by keeping more waste out of landfills.

BolderPath, which is nearly three years old, designs and makes toys, leashes and collars for Shifting Gears Pet Products. The number of toys is planned to be in the “tens of thousands,” Bogatin said.

Buying items with reused materials and not mass-produced plastic ones will help pet owners reduce their “carbon pawprint,” Bogatin said.

The pet products are just one of the items designed and manufactured by BolderPath. Its specialty is diverting items destined for landfills or recycling centers into fashionable and well-built promotional items for corporate clients and private-label goods for third-party retailers.

The process of creatively repurposing old stuff into consumer products has been called “up-cycling.” In some quarters, especially among eco-friendly do-it-yourselfers, the process has developed cachet.

“It’s not about the trendy, Dumpster dive, ‘Here’s a piece of trash you can turn into something else’ philosophy,” Bogatin said.

Bogatin’s goal is to make useful products that last and to do so in an environmentally sustainable way. Accordingly, the company’s “cut and sew” facility in the Colorado Tech Center in Louisville is LEED Gold certified.

The only such facility of which Bogatin is aware, it is an example of the company trying to be the most eco-conscious soft-goods manufacturer in the world.

“It can’t be just a trendy, feels-good, looks-good thing,” Bogatin said.

But Bogatin recognizes he will need to make BolderPath economically sustainable if it is to realize his highest goal of helping to develop a model that can scale to impact the entire consumer-products industry.

“It’s about the model,” Bogatin said. “It’s a paradigm shift for manufacturing.”

BolderPath is starting small. The company has four employees based in its design and processing facility in Boulder, and the number in its Louisville shop varies depending on the company’s slate of contracts. Its 2012 revenue goal is around $1 million.

The company is working to develop products that meet existing needs while also bringing sustainability to new categories of consumer goods.

“We’re constantly innovating to meet the needs of existing markets, but also creating entirely new markets,” Bogatin said.

One example is taking the old banners, signs and other promotional materials companies generate when they host conferences and making them into something useful.

An example is the tote bags BolderPath designed and made for Microsoft’s large annual conference for software developers. The bags were made from plastic signage from Microsoft’s past conferences. Reusing them in an innovative way broadcasts the company’s environmental sustainability in a way that’s reinforced whenever a recipient uses the bag, Bogatin said.

BolderPath also made the tablet computer cases Microsoft gave to developers, along with new Samsung Galaxy tablet computers, as it introduced its Windows 8 operating system. That was a big deal for Microsoft as it launches its effort to take on the Apple iPad, and Bogatin remains excited his company was a part of it.

In addition to corporate clients, BolderPath works with organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association and communities to develop products that reuse their leftovers. A banner made by Boulder County to celebrate its 150th anniversary is one of the items Bogatin’s employees are cutting up to repurpose.

But while BolderPath makes nice products, it also is focused on ensuring its methods are transparent and its footprint really is green. Bogatin spent years developing a proprietary software tracking system to monitor that.

The system tracks the amount of energy used to make a product, fuel used to ship it and collect materials, solid waste generated and many other variables. It also has to be flexible enough so it can incorporate items BolderPath receives to reuse that are not often measured for their carbon footprint.

The reports it generates help BolderPath improve its project, maintain its mission and be transparent with clients.

“If you have no way to measure and track data,” Bogatin said, “you have no way to set goals, to get accurate feedback and measure where you’re going.”

BOULDER — The giant box of tennis balls is the first thing you notice. It sits on a palette in the center of the crowded, cramped warehouse that serves as BolderPath Inc.’s design studio and reclamation center.

There are hundreds of balls, most with little sign of wear. They easily would supply an amateur player for years’ worth of weekends.

Still, they don’t meet the exacting standards of top players, so the tennis association has shipped them off. They will meet the fate of countless other tennis balls, becoming dog toys.

These dog toys are quite a bit different, however, BolderPath president Robert…

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