I am a fan of the show Shark Tank. It is really cool when an entrepreneur with a dream is successful in getting funding, Many of the people making pitches have worked for years on making their passion come true. One man’s passion was …peat moss—more accurately, a much more environmentally friendly version of it. The founder of the company (PittMoss) had been working off and on for years to develop a product that has similar properties to peat moss, but made with a lot less environmental impact. This presenter was successful, and he received a $600,000 investment. This has now allowed the company (PittMoss) to build out some more manufacturing capacity.
In my years of gardening, I have occasionally used peat moss. I have generally only used it to reduce the pH of a particular section of garden. I actually need to use more compost than peat moss. Since I indeed use some peat moss, I found the Shark Tank presentation very interesting, The presenter noted that the harvesting of peat moss is very damaging to the environment, and that his process used recycled paper to make an essentially equivalent product.
The PittMoss method of using recycled paper more or less locally sounds a lot better than draining peat bogs in Canada. I like the idea of closing the loop by repurposing a recycled product over extracting more natural resources such as peat bogs and moss, especially from far away. PittMoss has apparently tested their product in some nurseries and greenhouses around Pittsburgh and seen good results for several years. They are now looking to expand distribution, making more sales and using more recycled paper, ultimately resulting in fewer Canadian bogs being drained. I hope they succeed.
SustainableWritings 
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