At rib city with Chris from Sho-Pak industries #ribs and #beer
NewsRoom Our friend Melissa w @SC_Great_Lakes discussing pr…
by: Joshua Rubin
February 2nd, 2013
Our friend Melissa w @SC_Great_Lakes discussing protecting and preserving our #greatlakes #RBRF coming soon! http://t.co/PCYenPiy
NewsRoom Shiver on the River! #greatlakes (@ Belle Isle Cas…
by: Joshua Rubin
February 2nd, 2013
Shiver on the River! #greatlakes (@ Belle Isle Casino) 4sq.com/XxR1mr
NewsRoom Heading to Shiver on the River in Belle Isle #rive…
by: Joshua Rubin
February 2nd, 2013
Heading to Shiver on the River in Belle Isle #riverfront #detroit #belleisle
NewsRoom We now carry Garden towers – email sales@maxiconta…
by: Joshua Rubin
January 30th, 2013
We now carry Garden towers – email sales@maxicontainer.com for details GardenTowerProject.org #garden #sustainability #vermicompost
NewsRoom Drive safe and have a good weekend #Detroit
by: Joshua Rubin
January 25th, 2013
Drive safe and have a good weekend #Detroit
NewsRoom Haven’t read this month’s newsletter, it’s not too…
by: Joshua Rubin
January 25th, 2013
Haven’t read this month’s newsletter, it’s not too late to check it out here: maxicontainer.com/mailings/jan-1… #green #news #Packaging
NewsRoom Check out our January newsletter! http://t.co/KJuB…
by: Joshua Rubin
January 18th, 2013
Check out our January newsletter!
e2.ma/webview/8rcvc/… fb.me/2cxvU0C69
NewsRoom Do You Hate Your Friends? Wine Events, Upcycled Do…
by: Joshua Rubin
January 18th, 2013
Do You Hate Your Friends? Wine Events, Upcycled Dog House, Our Special of the Month and More News from Maxi Container! e2.ma/cshare/inbound…
Beach Erosion – When It’s Man vs. Nature – Nature Naturally Wins!
by: Richard Rubin
January 15th, 2013
I just spent another week in one of our favorite places, Sarasota, Florida. The weather was great and everyone had a wonderful time. My wife Gail and I lived there from 1978 until 1983, and have been visiting there every year since then. There have been many changes, new developments, buildings, hotels, shopping centers, etc. We have lost many of the old family stores and restaurants to have them replaced by newer fancier ones.
However, by far the greatest change that I see from year to year are the beaches themselves. This year it was even more pronounced due to the effects of Tropical Storm Debbie that swept through the area June 26, 2012. Ten to 30 feet of sand were eroded from beaches in Sarasota County.
Erosion of beaches is nothing new. There has been several attempts to replenish the beach and there is an official presentation on the City of Sarasota’s website about the Lido Beach Restoration.
As much as I love the beach, the fallacy behind any beach restoration or replenishment is that we can “fix” a naturally occurring process, the ever changing relationship between water, wind and sand. According to the Center for Ocean Solutions, coastal erosion is a natural process along the world’s coastlines that occurs through the actions of currents and waves and results in the loss of sediment in some places and accretion in others. Erosion is considered to to be sporadic and episodic. There can be large scale erosion in only a few hours with a severe storm (episodic) and different areas can erode at different rates even during the same event (sporadic).
Here are examples of erosion in the Florida Panhandle at Navarre Beach due to two hurricanes. The upper photo was taken on July 17, 2001, the middle photo was taken on September 17, 2004, one day after the landfall of Hurricane Ivan, and the lower photo was taken on July 12, 2005, two days after the landfall of Hurricane Dennis. This is a clear example of the episodic nature of beach erosion. (Click image to enlarge)
Scientific American stated in its EarthTalk column that coastal erosion in any form is usually a one-way trip. Man-made techniques such as beach nourishment—whereby sand is dredged from off-shore sources and deposited along otherwise vanishing beaches—may slow the process, but nothing short of global cooling or some other major geomorphic change will stop it altogether. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that between 80 and 90 percent of the sandy beaches along America’s coastlines have been eroding for decades. In many of these cases, individual beaches may be losing only a few inches per year, but in some cases the problem is much worse.
According to Stephen Leatherman (“Dr. Beach”) of the National Healthy Beaches Campaign, building a bulkhead or seawall along one or a few coastal properties may protect homes from damaging storm waves for a few years, but could end up doing more harm than good. “Bulkheads and seawalls may accelerate beach erosion by reflecting wave energy off the facing wall, impacting adjacent property owners as well,” writes Leatherman, adding that such structures along retreating shorelines eventually cause diminished beach width and even loss.
Other larger scale techniques like beach nourishment may have better track records, at least in terms of slowing or delaying beach erosion, but are expensive enough as to warrant massive taxpayer expenditures. Beach nourishment is the process of adding new sand to the beach profile in order to restore it to some former width. This is usually accomplished by dredge and fill operations with sand pumped onto the beach from an offshore source, such as sand bars or shoals. Beach nourishment is only feasible at the community level as large sectors (e.g., miles of the shore) must be nourished to be economical viable. In the early 1980s, Miami Beach was restored at the cost of $65 million along this 10-mile strand of shore.
There have been over 8 beach nourishment projects on Lido Beach at a cost of over $12 Million Dollars. However, the beach continues to erode. Here are pictures I took last week showing significant recent erosion on Lido Beach.
With the expected rise in sea levels and the increase in both the frequency and severity of storms being attributed to global climate change, one can expect that coastal erosion will continue to increase. The U.S. government’s Environmental Protection Agency states that if sea levels increase by one foot, would erode most of Florida Beaches 100 to 200 feet. They also believe that sea levels could rise as much as 3 feet over the next 100 years. The cost to replenish the lost sand would be $8 Billion.
While it is understandable that areas with expensive homes and condominium projects and whose economic base is dependent on tourism will continue to spend large sums on beach replenishment projects. While this may be futile in the long run, short term it still allows for a wonderful beach experience as these photos from last week will show.
Also, if you didn’t click the “sand” link earlier in the article, take a second to check out this cool slideshow. It gets up close with what our beaches are made out of, Sand of course!
Click here to view the slideshow.
NewsRoom Thanx to all of our new followers! @PrayForMore @E…
by: Joshua Rubin
January 8th, 2013
Thanx to all of our new followers! @PrayForMore @EcoJive @IntenseMTL @LucySchott @ChasingCarmenTV @ShawnUpchurch @ShawnUpchurch @siddyrich1
Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud – There’s a New Type of Business Now!
by: Richard Rubin
December 28th, 2012
The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. — Isaac Asimov – “My Own View” in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1978)
There has been much discussion lately of the need to reinvent your business model. Everyone from the Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur Magazine and American Express consistently post articles dealing with corporate reinvention. They tout successful examples such as Apple, PayPal and Burberry. Unsuccessful companies that used to dominate their respective industries litter today’s landscape and bankruptcy courts, including such household names as Hostess, Polaroid and Borders.
Here at Maxi Container we have taken a long slow look at corporate reinvention and have made over our company significantly in the last 10 years. In doing so we have focused on our core competencies, looked for new markets, addressed bottlenecks in our management and operation, strengthened our fiscal controls, upgraded our truck and trailer fleet and adopted a wide range of new technologies to allow us to work smarter, faster and mobile with an emphasis on enhancing the customer experience and adding value to our products and services.
Some of the changes are internal and there is no need for discussion. Two of the biggest, our entry into new markets with our mirainbarrel and miwinebarrel subsidiaries, will be discussed in future posts. Our new e-commerce platform, which will debut in the future is another major reinvention.
However, one of the most interesting, challenging and rewarding changes has been cloud computing. This is a much overused term and can be defined in many ways. Here we use a combination of private and public cloud storage, networking, desktop virtualization, and software as a service to tie all of our various desk top computers, smart phones, tablets and laptops into a coherent whole. Furthermore, all of our data is encrypted for privacy, protected from viruses and continually backed up. The service is scalable so as we add personnel or locations it is easy to tie them into the existing cloud and network infrastructure. Much of the credit for our adoption of this technology goes to my son, Joshua Rubin, Creative Director at Maxi Container, Inc.
As a result, any Maxi Container sales person or operations person has complete access to any and all information necessary to do their jobs at all times from anywhere. We use our private cloud and various apps such as, shared Outlook Calendars, Evernote, Dropbox, Adobe EchoSign and Kibits (a new collaborative app for android and iPhone) to create a truly collaborative workplace that increases our efficiency and creates additional value for the customer.
Quotes for unique products can be electronically signed and archived and are available 24/7, not just during office hours. Sales personnel have complete access to customer pricing and purchase history whether in the office, their vehicle, or on-site at a customer’s location. Purchase Orders can be processed in a variety of ways including email or Electronic Data Interchange. Payments can be made on mobile devices, PayPal or Credit Card . Several customers are using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to place orders and receive invoices and ACH transactions for payments. Checks are scanned in so they are credited to the customer’s account and deposited in the bank the same day as received. Our goal is to eventually equip drivers and warehouse personnel with mobile devises that move this efficiency and customer value throughout our supply chain.
This move has not been without bumps and bruises along the way. There were the inevitable glitches, issues with data capacity and learning curves. We are still experimenting with how best to use our new tools and collaborative environment. However, every day brings more and more examples to light of how we can enhance the customer experience through collaborative work and cloud computing. You may never see it, but it will affect every aspect of our business as we move forward with our reinvented business model.
(Note: my apologies to the Rolling Stones for the use of their lyric from their 1965 hit, “Hey You Get Off of My Cloud” in the headline of this post. I just couldn’t resist, especially as it speaks to the encryption and privacy necessary for cloud computing to work. I am sure that this was the furthest thing from Keith Richards mind when he wrote the song.)
NewsRoom Sorry anyone who tried to contact us this afternoo…
by: Joshua Rubin
December 21st, 2012
Sorry anyone who tried to contact us this afternoon we were enjoying our annual holiday party! #packaging #industry http://t.co/0h83PuZX
NewsRoom Happy Holiday’s #chocolate #almonds are a Maxi tra…
by: Joshua Rubin
December 20th, 2012
Happy Holiday’s #chocolate #almonds are a Maxi tradition! http://t.co/Oo5XXKDb
NewsRoom Last chance 2 save before 2013 spend over 10K or S…
by: Joshua Rubin
December 20th, 2012
Last chance 2 save before 2013 spend over 10K or Sign up to #Recycle w us!
Gift cards for your holiday fun 🙂 e2.ma/cshare/inbound…
NewsRoom Happy Tuesday and welcome to all our new followers…
by: Joshua Rubin
December 18th, 2012
Happy Tuesday and welcome to all our new followers! Thanx @linda777555777 @ArcohSuccess @PhoeboBuffay