Brazilian designer Carlos Motta was an avid surfer who noticed that there were gorgeous pieces of wood washing up on the beaches he frequented.
This realization started him down a path to build furniture with a reduced environmental impact by only building it out of reclaimed wood. What a great idea, and the pieces are gorgeous (if a bit expensive).
Sometimes I run across products that don't serve a tremendous green purpose, but I have to mention because they have that "cool" factor.
So it is with the Firewinder.
The Firewinder could just be called a light that operates via wind power, but it's so much more than that. It's almost a piece of art that allows people to visualize the force of the wind, a visual reminder of the energy inherent in nature.
Realistically, it doesn't look as if the light is strong enough to provide any meaningful luminescence during the nighttime hours, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it's awesome. Learn more at Firewinder.com.
From the 2008 Greener Gadgets Competition comes a really cool idea for a cell phone called the 'Bamboo'. This cell phone recharges with a 'whirling' mechanism, not unlike the New Years' Eve noisemakers you fondly remember annoying your friends with.
The kinetic energy in the motion is captured and charges the battery, leaving you with a cell phone that will never go dead on you. Okay, well it might go dead on you, but then you can whirl it back to life and call whoever you were talking to right back. Love it.
I love my Kill-A-Watt. It's so fun to plug into everything in my home and monitor my electricity. But it has some limits: my recessed lighting can't be put to the test, nor can most of my large appliances whose plugs are unreachable.
Enter "The Energy Detective", otherwise known as TED. Simply plug this gadget into any free plug in your home, and it is smart enough to tell you exactly how much wattage everything in your home is drawing currently. You can play with it. Go turn off a light, run the dryer, turn down the temperature on your fridge, and get a feeling for what's using juice.
For a few extra bucks, they'll even sell you software to track your energy usage over time so you can find patterns in your power.
But with even the basic model topping out at $140, it's a bit too steep for most homes. Still, it's a great hallmark of energy monitoring technology still to come in homes.
Moving can be an enormous hassle. You spend days packing, organizing, lifting, hauling, agonizing over broken objects, and at the end are left with a sore back and a mountain of waste. The tower of cardboard, bubble wrap, and packing tape lying around after a move is enough to break the spirit of any devoted greenie.
Well, an Austin-based company thinks they can help. No, they haven't invented teleportation machines to whisk your household items swiftly from one location to another. But EcoBox has figured out how to green your moving boxes.
EcoBox.com collects used moving boxes. In fact, if you live in the Austin area, they will pay you 20% of the original cost for them, and they will come pick them up at your home. Want a bunch of used boxes for your move? Ecobox.com will ship them out to you quickly.
The company also sells shipping supplies including used shipping boxes, biodegradable bubble wrap, and biodegradable packing peanuts. They even have a moving kit that contains everything you need for your move.
I was a little disappointed to find that they also sell regular packing peanuts and other plastic-based products, but since they heavily promote the eco-friendlier alternatives, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Might be worth a try, especially if you live in Texas.
Here in chilly Washington, I don't know many people with pools, so I'm not an absolute authority on this topic. From what I understand, pools can be a joy, but can also be an enormous drain on the environment. The energy required to maintain and heat a pool is enormous. Chemical processing of the water can cause hazardous chemicals like chlorine to leak out and pollute local ecosystems.
Luckily, companies are sprouting up to address the need for a greener pool. Ecosmartepool.com is one of them. Not only have they invented an eco-friendlier alternative for cleaning your pool, but they also donate 5% of their profits to environmental charities. You even get to choose which one!
At the core of their offering is a way to keep your pool chemical free through use of a pool ionizer. This technique adds copper ions to the pool's water, which are lethal to bacteria and algae, but safe for humans (according to the EPA). From their website:
"Copper ionization was developed in 1967 for the Apollo Space Program to insure safe drinking water and to control scale in cooling systems during space missions. The ECOsmarte System incorporates this same technology. The copper ions created by the ECOsmarte System are safe and essential for humans, plants and animals, but are lethal to bacteria, algae and some viruses. By adding these ions to your pool or spa water, the ECOsmarte System basically kills bacteria, algae and certain viruses and prevents them from growing in the water.
Copper ions are only added to the water for a few hours each week in swimming pools and only a few minutes each week or month in spas. The residual sanitizer in the water, produced by the ionization process, is recognized by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Because both copper ionization and oxidation is natural, there will never be any chemical backwash. Making it safe for the environment to drain and backwash your pool."
This technique also saves a a significant amount of energy over traditional filtration systems.
They also claim that their techniques are superior over the benefits of salt water pools because the water quality is better, the water is less corrosive, and the energy needs are significantly lower.
I'm not sure cost-wise how their systems compare to traditional filtration systems, but if you are thinking about putting in a pool, they seem worth checking out.
Over half of the water that a household uses everyday gets flushed down the toilet. A company called Watersaver Technologies has figured out one straightforward way to recycle water throughout the house.
All you need is your existing sink, your existing toilet, and their kit. Essentially, you install a tank under your sink that collects the water that you send down the drain. The tank cleanses the water (so yes, Spot can still drink out of the toilet reasonably safely), and then sends the water to your toilet to supplement new water from the tap.
Tests in households show that the kit can save about 7 gallons/person/day, adding up to 5000 gallons per year in a household like mine.
I love innovations like this where you look at the design and just think "Duh! That makes perfect sense! Why aren't all homes designed like that?"
It looks like the kit is available for $289, which is a little steep for the money it saves you. That's an 8 year payback for a 2 person household. But, it's an excellent idea that hopefully will come more into the mainstream as green housing design and development enter more into the mainstream.
For most of us, transportation is the biggest way in which we contribute to carbon emissions. But because carbon is invisible, it makes it difficult for us to witness the impact of our actions and improve our daily behaviors.
Enter the Carbon Hero, which promises to make your transportation footprint visible.
The device itself is a key chain which is equipped with Bluetooth technology that lets it present an interface on your mobile phone.
Via GPS, the keychain is able to deduce when you are traveling, how far you have traveled, and what method of transport you have used. It can handle airplanes, trains, the tube, buses, bikes, and different types of cars. I'm not certain to what degree this is automated vs. manual input, but the website promises it is automatic and easy, while simultaneously keeping your data private.
Then it plots the results of your travel via your cell phone and compares you to the national averages, helping you to get a more visible read on the impact of your habits.
One can see how this data might ultimately become available on the web to track the transportation impacts of cities, areas, and countries and encourage them to compete against each other.
It's an interesting concept, but only available in the UK presently. If you've trialled one, be sure to let us know.
You can learn more about the device at http://www.carbonhero.net.
These days, I'm constantly on the look-out for businesses that claim to be "green". Many of them are just hopping on the trend. They add a solar panel to a single one of their stores, and suddenly they are a green company.
But many companies are taking it seriously: incorporating sustainability into their corporate value statements. I like to know about these companies so I can support their businesses. Here are a couple of interesting, nationwide brands I've found out about recently:
Chipotle Mexican Grill
I was pretty shocked when I found out that Chipotle was a green company. After all, they were owned by McDonald's, who is not exactly well-renowned for being environmentally friendly.
But Chipotle has severed all ties with McDonald's and is committed to their mission statement of "food with integrity". Included in that mission are sustainable building practices. Some of the things they do:
In my opinion, the burritos are only average, but their mission certainly makes me feel better about purchasing from their establishment.
New Belgium Brewery (makers of Fat Tire)
Sustainability is one of the three core values of New Belgium. Some of the things they do to minimize their footprint:
They give environmental tours of their brewery in Ft Collins, Colorado if you ever make it out that direction.
While we're trying to reduce plastic bags in our household, sometimes they are an inevitability. Going to the airport, for example, requires us to break out a few ziplocks. Not just for the security check, but to make sure our shampoo doesn't explode in flight and get all over our clothes (it's happened a few times).
We still use zipped bags extensively for storing food in our fridge and freezer as well. We're trying to train ourselves to use our tupperware more, but the convenience of the bags is often too tempting.
Every time I throw one of the bags out, I wish I didn't have to, but I haven't been able to find an alternative. Washing them is easy, but drying them is extremely difficult.
When wet, the inside plastic sticks together, and makes it hard to find anywhere to lay them to dry out the inside. I've tried turning them inside out, but doing so with any amount of frequency seems to tear the plastic, rendering them useless.
Enter a brilliant product idea: The Plastic Bag Dryer. Just looking at it, you can imagine this will do the job. And it's kind of cool and funky looking on your counter top as well. You can purchase one at Greenfeet.com for 16.95.
Or, if you have thirty seconds, you can just make one yourself.
Here's what you'll need:
1. Good sized mug or glass
2. Leftover chopsticks from asian take-out runs
3. Scotch tape or rubber bands
4. Dish towel
Instructions:
1. Lay the dish towel on your counter.
2. Tape or rubber band two chopsticks together, end-to-end, for height
3. Put the chopsticks into your mug. Another alternative is to use pens, but only when capped, otherwise they might rip the bag. You can also try using a rubber spatula, put in spatula-side down, but will probably only be able to fit one or two.
4. Wash out your ziplock bag in the sink.
5. Hang it on your chopsticks upside down, and watch it drip-dry over the course of the next day.
The finished product:
Though certainly not as attractive as the store-bought version, it gets the job done. It's also easy to take apart, store, and put back together when you need it.
And thus completes today's awesomely silly project. :)
