Greenest Gadgets Part Three

This green gadget was submitted to the Greener Gadgets Design Competition of 2009 by RKS Design Team of America.

Along with using conventional drying machines, washing machines waste an inordinate amount of energy. What if you could wash your clothes with better results, use no energy and also get a work out at the same time? This is where the Laundry POD green gadget comes in.

Likened to a salad spinner by the RKS Design Team, the Laundry POD is a small scale laundry device that allows you to do your own laundry. In an economy that is dangerously close to depression, you can save a good amount of money with a laundry system like the Laundry POD.

If you combine this Laundry POD with air drying your clothes, you will literally be saving loads of energy and resources.

Thanks for reading THE GREEN BLOG, we hope you enjoyed yourself. Make sure to check out some of the other Greener Gadgets covered here in THE GREEN BLOG.

Fastronaut – Children’s Toys & BLight – Solar Powered Venetian Blinds [www.sundancechannel.com]

DIY Electric Light Vehicle – Green Event Organizer Bicycle Train [www.sundancechannel.com]

E-Tree Book – Interactive Digital Plant Book [www.sundancechannel.com]

CompostAll – Make Your Own Fertilizer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Eco-Neighbuzz – Community Intercom System [www.sundancechannel.com]

Indoor Drying Rack [www.sundancechannel.com]

Laundry POD – Clothes Washer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Greenest Gadgets Part Three

 This green gadget was submitted to the Greener Gadgets Design Competition of 2009 by Korhan Buyukdemirci of Finland.

This green gadget breaks the mold of most of other types of inventions. The Eco-Neighbuzz is a new take on an apartment intercom system. It is designed to expand interactions between each member of a larger community. In many cases, large apartment buildings can have hundreds of people living in them, or a road in the suburb can have 100 homes on it. In both of these circumstances, there is little to no communication between the people in the apartment building or the homes on the suburbian road.

The Eco-Neighbuzz’s design aims to connect these people together if they so wish. Basically it is like an intercom system that is linked up throughout an entire community. This means you can plan carpools, loan each other tools, trade tips on saving water, or just get to know your neighbors a little better.

While this gadget certainly would be bothersome to a lot of people, who place a high premium on their total privacy, the gadget could certainly be ignored much in the same way as a person chooses to ignore their phone when it rings.

Thanks for reading THE GREEN BLOG, we hope you enjoyed yourself. Make sure to check out some of the other Greener Gadgets covered here in THE GREEN BLOG.

This intriguing gadget builds community.

Fastronaut – Children’s Toys & BLight – Solar Powered Venetian Blinds [www.sundancechannel.com]

DIY Electric Light Vehicle – Green Event Organizer Bicycle Train [www.sundancechannel.com]

E-Tree Book – Interactive Digital Plant Book [www.sundancechannel.com]

CompostAll – Make Your Own Fertilizer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Eco-Neighbuzz – Community Intercom System [www.sundancechannel.com]

Indoor Drying Rack [www.sundancechannel.com]

Laundry POD – Clothes Washer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Greenest Gadgets Part One

This green gadget was submitted to the Greener Gadgets Design Competition of 2009 by Young Jae Yoon and Seol Hee Lee of Korea.

Green gadgets can do many things, they can transport us from place to place without causing pollution, they can help us grow more nutritious plants by turning food scraps into rich fertilizer, and they can do many other things besides. Perhaps one of the greatest function offered by green gadgets is to educate. That is exactly what the E-Tree Book does for your child.

The E-Tree Book is an interactive digital device that allows your child to learn about the world of plants. There are four pages of the E-Tree Book. Each page leads children on the steps to creating their own plant, beautifully illustrated on the LCD screen of the gadget. There is a page for sun, water, wind and soil, covering each aspect of the natural world that is involved in the nurturing of plants.

The very cool feature on the E-Tree Book is a solar panel that allows the gadget to power itself. In fact, this solar panel must be nurtured with sun, water and earth just like a plant would need, and the reward for doing so is seeing beautiful pictures. This makes the gadget a bit of an environmental puzzle for children. Learning about the importance of plants at an early age is a gift, and that function alone makes this gadget intriguing.

Thanks for reading THE GREEN BLOG, we hope you enjoyed yourself. Make sure to check out some of the other Greener Gadgets covered here in THE GREEN BLOG.

Fastronaut – Children’s Toys & BLight – Solar Powered Venetian Blinds [www.sundancechannel.com]

DIY Electric Light Vehicle – Green Event Organizer Bicycle Train [www.sundancechannel.com]

E-Tree Book – Interactive Digital Plant Book [www.sundancechannel.com]

CompostAll – Make Your Own Fertilizer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Eco-Neighbuzz – Community Intercom System [www.sundancechannel.com]

Indoor Drying Rack [www.sundancechannel.com]

Laundry POD – Clothes Washer [www.sundancechannel.com]

Now that Friday is here and the weekend is nigh, it’s time for many of us to kick back, relax a little, and catch up on chores around the house. Should laundry be at the top (or bottom) of your list, here are TreeHugger’s tips for cleaning your clothing while keeping it green.

When it comes to clothing, 75% of the energy consumed during a garment’s life cycle is used in the laundering process, so making your laundry greener and more efficient really can make a difference. It all starts with the washing machine, and the best thing to do is look for the Energy Star label [www.treehugger.com], which indicates that they make efficient use of both electricity and water during the washing process. When it comes to detergent, liquids and powders [www.treehugger.com] can be good (especially when used with cold water [www.treehugger.com]), but some TreeHuggers think these laundry balls [www.treehugger.com] are better. And if you need to get things a little whiter, bleach gets a thumb down; we recommend the cleaning power of lemon [www.treehugger.com] instead.

Once your clothes are clean, they have to get dry, but we don’t recommend a conventional dryer — they suck an awful lot of energy. Line drying is TreeHugger’s favorite [www.treehugger.com] because it’s electricity-free, but not always the most practical thing for us all. If you don’t have the real estate for a line (or don’t want to leave your clothes out in the rain and snow in the winter), use a laundromat, like the world’s largest that’s powered by solar power [www.treehugger.com] or a portable spin dryer [www.treehugger.com] is the next best way to go; revolving at 3200 rpm to help dry your clothes in just two or three minutes; it won’t do the same job as a conventional tumble dryer (clothes come out a little damp) but would work great in tandem with a clothes line or drying rack.

Want to get a little crazy? Check out Sanyo’s Aqua [www.treehugger.com], that washes without water by converting air to ozone, or Samsung’s SilverCare [www.treehugger.com] washing machine that uses silver ions to wash your clothes. For a really futuristic take, check out the Airwash [www.treehugger.com], a waterless washing machine that removes stains from garments within a few minutes, without the use of detergents; though just a concept, we think it’s worth crossing our fingers that it’ll get produced. It might just make laundry worth waiting for.