The logistics of green

The word "green" as it referes to an enviromental movement may start becoming a cliche in the civilian industrial world. Yet the speed the military moves the idea of environmental awareness is just in it's infancy. That hasn't stopped various efforts at chaning the way the goverment does business, and in the military these changes could add up to something profound given it's years of operations in sustainment without giving on thought to how the environment is affected beyond trying not to run afoul of the Pollution Prevention Act, Clean Water and Clean Air acts. Now, with the various services trying to lessen their impact on what they call their Logistics Footprint and dependency on a diminishing resource such as petroleum products we are now finally seeing replacement alternatives to commodity shipments that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) have stocked for years. Take this small annoucement that I ran across recently from Bio-Clean International.

Bio-Clean International, Inc. (Pink Sheets:BCLE) announced today that its
affiliated entity, American Bio-Clean Corporation (ABC), has fulfilled a
shipment of weapons cleaning solution for the Defense Logistics Agency.
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) supplies the nation’s military
services and several civilian agencies with the critical resources they need
to accomplish their worldwide missions. DLA provides wide-ranging logistical
support for peacetime and wartime operations, as well as emergency
preparedness and humanitarian missions. Information on the Defense Logistics
Agency can be found on its web site at www.dla.mil. Tammy Dunn, COO of
Bio-Clean International, stated, “We are pleased that Bio-Clean
International, Inc., through its subsidiaries and affiliated entities, is
able to continue to respond to the critical needs of the U.S. Armed
Services. The Company continues to meet in a most expeditious manner the
critical supply requirements for our customized parts and weapons cleaning
systems and fluids for military demands in combat zones around the world.”

Now this may not sound like much of an annoucement, but given the amount of such cleaner stocked by DLA and used by the services this adds up to a huge amount of petroleum products on the order of thousands of gallons. This is just a small drop in a huge bucket available to defense services to make an impact on the "green" economy. After all, this is one of our new President's central tenents to his revitalization act. Next steps in greening the services will be a "pack in, bio-degrade forward" strategy where energy is made from locally available resources and all waste is treated with no need to ship out. Eliminating shipment convoy threats and reducing logistics footprint, which for defense is where it all lies.