A new club on Fifth

Andrus McDonald got his start at Rick's

by Tony McReynolds

posted 11/4/2008

Daniel Stephens closed his clothing store Ethnic Creations last December after a ten-year run. Now he’s back with BGreen, which was scheduled to open in mid-October in Colonial Plaza on South Industrial. Its niche: environmentally safe products, from picnic and school supplies and cleaning products to insulation, flooring, and paint. “Paint is eighty percent of our business,” says Stephens, primarily a brand called AFM Safecoat that contains no volatile organic compounds, ammonia, or formaldehyde.

Go Green also carries environmentally friendly floor sealers, stains, carpet shampoos, and carpet sealers. Stephens has a special antipathy for carpets. “It’s all about off-gassing,” he says—that so-called new carpet smell is caused by a chemical called butadiene, a known carcinogen.

Stephens also touts paper-product substitutes made from sugar cane pulp—which is produced in much the same way as wood pulp and looks like wood pulp too. Plates and some other sugar-cane-pulp products cost about twice as much as the paper versions, Stephens says, but “the napkins, toilet paper, and paper towels are very competitive.”

BGreen, 1952 South Industrial (Colonial Plaza), 761–7227. Mon.–Sat.

10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun. noon–5 p.m.

[This article has been updated since its publication in the November 2008 Ann Arbor Observer. The name of the business has been corrected.]   

[Originally published in November, 2008.]