If seeing Tori Spelling pushing her stolenhusbandspawn in an Orbit stroller system had you worried about the coming Apocalypse, relax. Through their series of product design, recycling, and corporate-level initiatives, Orbit is also busy--even busier, really--saving the earth from environmental collapse.
The company uses carbon offsets, clean energy sources, low-hazard manufacturing partnerships, and corporate recycling to keep its own environmental impact down. True, in the Bay Area, you could throw a hemp Hackysack from your bike and hit a green practices company these days.
But Orbit's also introducing a Green Edition of their Bassinet Cradle, which will be made with eco-friendly materials [hemp? bamboo? latex? who knows! stay tuned!], and a portion of those sales will be donated to The Nature Conservancy.
Finally, they're launching a major product recycling program for after your kid outgrows his System. Turns out Orbit products are "designed for best-in-industry disassembly," which is important info. Be sure to pass it along to your winning eBay bidder in 2010; if the Orbit aftermarket shapes up anything like the gently used Bugaboo market, you should be able to recycle at least 50% of the green you shelled out in the first place.
Orbit Green [orbitbaby.com via dt reader--and orbit publicist--carolyn]
Buy the Orbit Baby Infant System for $899 at Magic Beans/Amazon [amazon]
Or check out the Bassinet Cradle, which fits on the stroller or the rocker base [orbitbaby]
I saw the Orbit system this weekend at Buy Buy Baby in New York City and was pretty appalled at the frangibility of the fabrics. The toddler seat I saw is lined in a soft fabric that looks as if it will pill like crazy; it's a paticularly ugly taupe color and looks really dirty. Ditto for the pull-down shade that comes out of the hood of the bassinet, which was probably meant to be a silvery-white color. (This set had a chocolate brown exterior.)
The small transparent 'window' in the canopy was ripped out of the fabric it was supposed to be attached to, and the velcro (or hook-and-loop fastener) that was meant to hold the flap open or shut had torn up the fabric all around the 'window'. (They probably attached the 'hard velcro' to the flap instead of the canopy -- that would be the usual cause of this.)
Sure, the chassis is slick -- but the handles are set badly for me and were uncomfortable to push (I'm 5'2" and smallish). I absolutely love the easy-on, easy-off feature, but I'd never buy anything that started off looking so yucky and fell apart so quickly. At these prices, the fabric components really shouldn't disintegrate before it's time to recycle them.
Hi Marty, thanks for the heads up. The sunshade fabric issue you mention on Buy Buy Baby's sample floor unit is a one-off issue and we are taking care of it. As a valued partner, they were one of the first stores to receive our Toddler Stroller Seat, and later units do not have this problem.
As for your concern about the durability of our fabrics, I can assure you that I have never had any fabric problems whatsoever (pilling, or otherwise) with the Orbit products I am using, and I have been using them for longer than anyone. The micro-fiber upholstery pad in our Toddler Stroller Seat is durable enough to be machine washed repeatedly.
The sunshade extension you refer to is the only one of its kind on the market, and its special silver coating blocks nearly 100% of UV rays.
While that I'm sorry you don't prefer our fabric color choices, I do have to stand up for the functional quality of our fabrics.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about the Orbit Green initiative that Greg posted about above.
Thanks to everyone for your support.
Joseph Hei, Orbit Baby founder and CEO
[thanks for weighing in, Joseph -ed.]
WARNING - I just recieved my orbit 'green' edition bassinet, and DON'T BE FOOLED - this is NOT an ORGANIC product.
The mattress pad that comes with it is made of an incredibly stinky polyether foam. One whiff of the mattress, and I had a headache. Orbit is marketing this as 'organic' and 'natural' and 'green' - but they just coated a nasty synthetic foam mattress pad with organic cotton.
In my opinion this was actually extremely false advertising, and I am very upset. Orbit is taking people for suckers and charging $450 extra for the 'green' version, and all they did was add an organic cotton sheet.
Why not have a natural latex foam, organic cotton, organic wool filled mattress pad??
So parents who are trying to find organic natural products - DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THIS ONE. I am going to send this back immediately, and I will probably return the entire stroller system because I am so turned off by their company now.
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