EARTHWATCH : Eco Everything : Two local firms have planted their unusual wares at the nation’s biggest environmental fair this weekend.

Eco Expo, the nation’s largest consumer showcase for environmentally friendly products and services, debuts tomorrow at the convention center in Los Angeles and then moves to Denver, New York and Atlanta.

In addition to 300 companies and environmental groups featured, there will be special displays such as: alternate-fuel and high-mileage vehicles, some being marketed this year; drought-immune and pesticide-free landscapes; a full-sized energy-efficient home ready for delivery; an environmental children’s play and day-care area run by the Children’s Museum; and a solar-powered airplane.

An example of the intriguing diversity of activities at Eco Expo can be deduced from the discount ticket policy. You can get a $3 reduction from the regular $10 admission by doing any of the following at the site:

* showing up with a stack of old L.A. Times to be recycled.

* bringing in used clothing for reuse by Goodwill.

* bringing aluminum cans and plastic soft drink bottles for recycling by the California Department of Conservation.

* turning in a coupon (one of the 1 million being provided free at Lucky stores throughout the county).

Also, a coupon good for one free $10 ticket (with the purchase of three tickets) will be given to the driver of any auto arriving at the convention center with four or more people in the car.

Naturally I decided to check out what Ventura County’s contribution was going to be. I discovered a pair of nationally recognized firms right here at home.

“Earth Day was our birthday,” said a beaming Derrick D’Costa, founder of Simi Valley-based Bryder International. The company made its first wholesale shipment of string tote bags in July, and since then has sold 400,000.

“We positioned our product in the marketplace as a fashion statement,” D’Costa said, “and we are now the No. 1 wholesaler in the nation. We are even exporting to Europe.”

Sure enough, the company’s catalogue illustrations look like scenes from this newspaper’s department-store ads. The bags are not only fashion-oriented but eco-oriented as well. When you use a string bag for a year, it seems, you have the cutting of one less tree on your conscience. Also, the flax and cotton string in these bags is grown organically--in Asia and Latin America.

D’Costa’s brother Brian, who is president of the company, said they expect to reach the million-bag mark by next Earth Day. Local boys doing well by doing good.

Meanwhile, around the city of Ventura, another pair of entrepreneurial brothers are scouting warehouse space, spurred by exponential sales growth of their eco-product: tea tree oil. Last year, when I wrote about this substance, I fretted a bit because it was a commodity whose demand was outstripping supply. Two ounces cost $7 or more. But behind the scenes, intrepid Australians were at work to boost supplies and prevent price hikes.

Enter Thursday Plantation. From their American selling beachhead in Carpinteria, Aussies Chris and Michael Dean are scouting a Ventura location to house the larger inventory required since their manufacturing and wholesaling firm captured 50% of the skyrocketing tea tree oil market in this country.

They grow and brew it on their 100-million-tree plantation Down Under. Last year the world produced only 10 tons of “juice” as Chris Dean called it. Meanwhile, “in Australia it has become the everyday topical medicine,” he said.

Foreign sales followed. “Investors and planters who had put in a few dollars over a decade put in millions in a year for harvesting and processing,” Chris Dean said. This non-petroleum natural oil substance is touted as a fungicide, bactericide and the active ingredient in many health-oriented soaps and shampoos. The Aussie government keeps it under the same sort of controls used for medicine manufacture.

Chris Dean, who is chief executive officer and commutes from Australia, pointed out that the production of tea tree oil has an unusual eco-effect: It fosters reforestation because it is made from leaves. The trees, a cousin of the eucalyptus, re-leaf every time they are harvested.

Thursday Plantation outgrew its Santa Barbara warehouse and has chosen Ventura for its new site. In addition to an exhibit at Eco Expo, Thursday Plantation products can be found at local health and beauty retailers. When you buy tea tree oil, be sure that it is Australian, because the controls I mentioned set the highest standard of purity in the industry.

Our county’s contributors to Eco Expo are good examples of what the show’s founder, Marc Merson, said he was looking for: “a tangible, verifiable environmental advantage over similar products and services in general use.”

* FYI

Eco Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center opens to the public tomorrow and runs 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. through Sunday, when it will close at 7 p.m. Admission is $10 (see column for discounts available).