Green Daily

Oh, and the groves? Tropicana doesn't own them. They hold long-term contracts with the harvesters, but they don't take that land away.

When it comes to transporting the juice, they're serious about keeping their carbon footprint low. For decades now, they've relied on rail cars which are shown to be three times more efficient than trucks.

Tropicana also wants to make it easier to recycle. As of right now, even though the juice cartons are recyclable only 23 percent of households have access to curbside carton recycling. The technology exists, but not all facilities utilize that technology. The Tropicana website has a link to let you know whether curbside carton recycling exists in your area.

It's not just cartons that get recycled -- the entire orange is used, too. The remains of each orange are dried and turned into one of two forms of cattle feed -- bulk feed and pellets -- which is then sold to cattle ranchers in Europe. Due to the competition in the U.S., it makes more sense for them to ship to Europe where the demand is higher. Not so green, but I guess at least they're not letting the orange rinds go to waste.

Another extremely cool initiative by the Tropicana is Rescue the Rainforest with CoolEarth. Each carton or 12 oz. bottle has a code you can enter to save 100 square feet of rainforest. It couldn't be much easier or more interesting -- once you enter your code, you actually see the area your purchase benefited.

Tropicana spent time in the region they're working to save, as you can see by the tall girl in the middle of the picture. Photo: Tropicana.

This isn't just a big company throwing money at a problem. CoolEarth's goal is to make it more economically viable for locals to remain in the rainforest, rather than sell and leave. Through education and working with the locals, they're achieving that goal. And Tropicana sent a representative down to Peru's Ashaninka Corridor (the area this project is working to save) to meet with the tribes, which, according to the representatives I talked to, gave the whole company a strong feeling of pride and involvement.

You might be asking, "Why Peru? Why not the Everglades, or a U.S. forest?" The answer they gave was simple -- you get more bang for your buck in Peru. A small contribution can save a lot of rainforest, and they want to do the most they can.

So, did I get hoodwinked? I don't think so. We asked tough questions, and received well-phrased but honest answers. And, I'm happy to find out anything more you want to know. Leave a comment, and I'll pass your question along to the folks at Tropicana!