After jockeying politely through the mayhem and landing on top of a chatty HuffPo reporter for a closer look at this attractive display (and equally stunning sales representative), it quickly became clear that Perf Go Green, Inc. had more than just a siren song to attract attendees.  With a product array ranging from a cradle-to-cradle battery recycling initiative, 100% biodegradable plastic bags, and all purpose green cleaning supplies, this is a company that seeks to change out common household items for quality products with a purpose.

Michael Caridi is COO of Perf and his business endeavors span various industries including residential construction and development, interior/exterior and ground-up commercial construction for Fortune 500 corporations. In addition, Michael is also engaged in a diverse mix of independent business ventures including residential and commercial property-ownership, management and banking, ship salvaging and dismantling, hotel ownership and development, consulting and management, corporate janitorial services, magazine publishing, and alcohol/non-alcoholic import and export.

PGG: Michael Caridi from Perf Go Green.  What we have is biodegradable plastic products, we have eco-friendly batteries with free recycling, and we out perform the majors in pharmaceutical-grade cleaning products.  We’ve launched last year and today we’re in over 70,000 retail locations between CVS, Walgreens, a lot of the hardware chains, soon to a lot of the supermarkets on the east coast here.

GA: How biodegradable are the bags?

PGG: They break down within two years once exposed to the elements to water, CO2, and biomass so they will completely break down.

GA: Are they compostable as well?

PGG: They’re really not compostable.  We wanted to develop a product that goes into 98% of the landfills instead of 2% of the landfills.

GA: Can you tell me a little bit about your cleaning products and their chemical base?

PGG: Sure.  They’re pharmaceutical-grade, nano techonlogy, completely organic-based products that really, really work extremely well.

GA: How about the batteries.  Are they rechargeable?

PGG: They’re not rechargeable.  They’re 0% lead, 0% mercury, 0% cadmium made from recycled materials and what we do, like I said, is provide free recycling.  Once you buy a number of them you go to IRecycle.com, we’ll send you a free shipper, put all your Perf Go Green batteries in and we’ll take them back and recycle them, keep them out of the landfills.

Photos courtesy of Perf Go Green, Inc. and rich_awn.

As if carried in on a magic chocolate carpet woven of the pure essence of cacao, the Theo Chocolate booth entranced its passerby with a panoply of delicious samples backed up by a feel-good, fair trade story to help elevate the smooth, sweet chocolaty bliss.

JW: Hi, I’m Joe Winny with Theo Chocolate.  We’re the first and only organic, fair trade chocolate maker in the United States. We make our chocolate bean-to-bar and it’s scientifically proven that we make the best chocolate ever made.

GA: That was way less than a minute.  What are some of the varieties that you’ve got?

JW: We have fig, fennel, and almond in a 70% dark chocolate, a vanilla milk chocolate 91% from Costa Rica.  We do a wide range of products from fresh ganache all the way to dark, single-origin chocolates.

Photo by rich_awn.

Ever since a copy of the New York Greenopia Guide landed on my desk, I’ve been kicking myself for not thinking of doing it first.

This is really the definitive guide to green living,  it’s elegantly arranged, pocket-sized, and the green binding complements all those ugly mauve Zagat Guides so nicely stored on my shelf… that is, when it’s not getting creased, doggy-eared, ripped up, marked, borrowed, and lost misplaced by anyone that can get their hands on it.

Elegant as her guides, Gay Browne, Founder and CEO kindly took one minute of her nutzy schedule to talk to us about her great work and inspiration.

GB: Thanks Rich.  I’m happy to talk to you and delighted we had the chance to meet at Go Green Expo in New York!  Greenopia is a guide to green living which gives you the definitive eat, shop, live, places to do in your city.  We have three city guides: LA, San Francisco, and New York with over 1,500 listings per city and then throughout the US we have another 50 additional cities with about 100-150 listings in those individual cities.  We are in the expansion process and we are looking for businesses and consumers to sign up to be part of the Greenopia family.

GA: You’re from LA, right? You’re from the West coast so when did this dawn on you that you needed to do the “Green Zagat?”

GB: I spent 15 years in publishing, actually book publishing and I retired and started a family and built a green home.  When I was building my green home, I realized the most important thing I could do as a conscious consumer living on this planet is to develop a go-to resource for businesses and services so that when people need something eco-friendly, they have one place to go that will help them find a way to do it.  So that’s how I started, just based on my passion and my background.

Keep glued to your iPhones for a forthcoming mobile map application so you won’t get stuck without the guide on your next trip.

Top photo by southlandtopolgy and middle photo by rich_awn.