sundance

Green tech finds: the power-free kitchen appliances edition

Refrigerate and cook food without electricity? We’ve got finds this week that get you pretty close, along with mushrooms that eat plastic, and plans to reuse dirty diapers (really!).

The DIY, electricity-free refrigerator: Ever heard of a zeer pot? This very old concept for keeping food chilled only requires two clay flower pots, and some sand and water to build yourself. (via @dothegreenthing)

And then cook that food without power: Well, not exactly, but with a lot less power. The Wonderbag keeps food cooking after the heat’s turned off, and was originally designed for very poor people who couldn’t afford much fuel. (via Inhabitat)

Green tech finds: from solar power to the Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday is coming up, and while I don’t pay enough attention to say whether it’ll be a good game, it will definitely be a green(er) game. That, plus cooler roofs for more efficient solar power, and a very quick look at over a century of global warming: your green tech finds for the week.

Buy renewable energy for your Volt: While the arguments about the energy sources for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are generally really overblown and oversimplified, many EV drivers do want the cleanest power they can get for their vehicles. So, GM is developing a system for its OnStar platform that would notify Volt drivers when there’s renewable energy available on the grid so they could plug in at the right time. (via Earth 911)

What does global warming look like? If you’re thinking big picture in response to that question, the folks at NASA have released a video that shows 131 years of global temperature fluctuations in 26 seconds. (via Climate Central and @NRDC)

Green tech finds: big ideas in small packages

A “camper van” built over an electric bicycle may not attract a lot of buyers, but a 480 square foot off-grid cabin (with plenty of amenities and style) just might. Those and more in this week’s green tech finds.

Green tech finds: Architects to the rescue!

Can good design save the world? Well, maybe the Great Lakes, anyway. That, plus community-based solar, clothing recycling, and more: your green tech finds for the week.

The DIY bike seat: Ever wanted a second seat on your bicycle, without investing in a tandem? Or just carrying space without a trailer? Israeli designer Yael Livneh has you covered with his concept made from a used plastic milk crate. He’s entered the concept in Designboom’s Seoul Cycle Design competition. (via Unconsumption and @dothegreenthing)

Occupy the sun: We generally think of solar power as something that individual home and building owners do, but Francesca Rheannon at CSRWire takes a look at community-based efforts to adopt solar technology.

Green tech finds: Wildlife goes virtual, Farmville gets real

Assembly lines rolling out the Focus Electric: Think Nissan’s the only game in town for a true electric vehicle? Not anymore: Ford’s started production of its 2012 Focus Electric in Michigan. (via @edbegleyjr)

Ranger Rick comes to the iPhone: Your kids bug you to play games on your smartphone? The National Wildlife Federation has created a way to make sure they’re learning something. The new Ranger Rick mobile apps provide games for kids as young as 2 (yes, 2!) to sharpen their knowledge about wild animals.

Green tech finds: Recycled guitars and impromptu speakers

Cool concept cars and planes, speakers that turn ordinary objects into amplifiers, and the potential environmental cost of washing your jacket: this week’s green tech finds.

Honda’s very cool, very light electric concept vehicle: Unfortunately, “concept” often means we’ll never see one on the road. Still, Honda’s EV-STER (which rolled out last week at the Tokyo Auto Show, and is pictured above) shows the company combining electric power with light weight (through lots of body elements made from carbon) and sweet styling; maybe they’ll keep thinking this way as they work towards new production vehicles. (via Earth Techling)

Green tech finds, 10/20/11

Underground skyscrapers, smart windows and more problems with natural gas drilling: Your green tech finds for the week.

Charge your car with your phone: Well, not exactly, but a new app developed by IBM and Swiss utility EKZ allows for better management of when your electric vehicle is charged and what sources of energy are used to charge it. Find out more in the video above. (via @greeneconpost)

The grain silo hotel: While not as green as it could be (because the structures used were built for the project), Silo Stay, a nine-unit New Zealand hotel built from grain silos…

Green tech finds, 10/6/11

A plug-in outdoor table, and how your labtop might contribute to rainforest destruction: this week’s green tech finds.

Wisconsin as a microgrid hub: There’s more than ugly political battles going on in the Badger State. A university-industry consortium announced an initiative to establish “microgrids” at UW campuses in Milwaukee and Madison over the next two years. (via @RepowerAmerica)

Method’s “Ocean Plastic:” green or greenwash?

The idea of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a massive island of plastic garbage swirling around in the ocean – has captured the imagination of both die-hard greenies and concerned citizens alike. Our visions aren’t quite in line with reality (it’s more of a “soup” than an island), but we’ve generally got it right on the massive part: it may be twice the size of the continental United States. So when the home cleaning products brand Method announced the launch of “a bottle made out of plastic collected from the North Pacific Gyre” (aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch), those of us in the green media jumped at the notion of a company making an effort to clean up this mess. As it turns out, we probably should’ve looked just a bit closer before we leaped (he wrote sheepishly).

Green tech finds, 9/22/11

Roads that charge your electric car, biofuel from orange peels, and sucking CO2 out of the air – your green tech finds for the week.

Look out, Volt! The plug-in Prius is here: Car hackers have been converting the Toyota Prius into a plug-in hybrid (like the Chevy Volt) for years. The Japanese automaker has finally gotten in on the trend and released a plug-in version of its popular hybrid for the 2012 model year. That’s it above. (via Greenwala)

Charge your electric car while driving it: The concept of “electrified roadways” that could charge electric vehicles while they’re moving has been around for decades, and Japanese researchers may have now come up with a viable model. “Electrified metal plates are buried under roads, which ‘up-convert’ energy via a radio frequency to a steel belt inside a car’s tires, as well as to a plate sitting above the tire.” (via smartplanet and @greenamericatv)

Green tech finds – 8/18/11

Old school shipping, CO2 as a source of fuel and yet another new solar technology for charging your phone: this week’s green tech finds.

Another recycling robot: While not as directly practical as the ZenRobotics Recycler we mentioned in an earlier post, Florida Robotics‘ Dr. R.E. Cycler is designed for educational purposes – essentially, to show kids what happens to the aluminum cans that go into those blue bins. Take a quick look at it above. (via Fast Company and @TaigaCompany)

Upcycling a billboard into a bag: Relan

Vinyl, aka PVC, is everywhere… and, as we’ve noted before (and as the film BLUE VINYL argued), it’s pretty nasty stuff. The best thing we could do is to stop making and using it, and substitute more environmentally benign materials. Second best… make use of all that vinyl that often goes to landfills.

Recycling tornado debris: finding opportunity in disaster

As tornadoes have left wreckage across numerous parts of the US in recent months, a number of people are looking at all the debris left behind… and seeing opportunity. In Birmingham, Alabama, for instance, Southeast Renewables has set up station at the North Georgia landfill to sort our recyclable materials… a process that will make the company money, and save some for the city on disposal fees: the company claims it can recycle up to 80% of the tornado wreckage. In North Carolina’s Triangle area, individuals are the ones taking the initiative: local television station NBC-17 reported on a couple collecting scrap metal debris and taking it to a recycler… and making about $300 a day.

Green tech finds (5/26/11)

Diaper-eating mushrooms, recycled oil booms, and global warming’s effects on your wi-fi signal… this week’s green tech finds.

• Solar and wind power for apartment dwellers: Jonathan Globerson’s Greenerator concept allows apartment dwellers to harvest both wind and solar power from their balconies. (via Inhabitat)
  
  
• GM recycling oil booms into Volt parts: Lots of oil booms left over from last year’s BP oil spill. Instead of letting them get tossed into landfills, GM is collecting these materials and recycling them into air-deflecting baffles for the Chevy Volt. (via Earth 911)

Boxsal – the compostable picnic

Last week Gilt Groupe had a sale on the fashionably recyclable picnic boxes made by Boxsal. Or wait, was it Gilt Home or Gilt Taste? Oh, who can keep track anymore. Unlike most Gilt deals, the sale didn’t actually save buyers any money – the picnic boxes still go for $25 on their own website, but at the price who’s complaining? No, the “sale” was really more of a promotion and, well, it worked.

Boxsal, which calls its products “part Oscar de la Renta, part Oscar Meyer,” claims to be “bringing the picnic back into fashion,” and with recyclable cardboard picnic boxes available in three different designs (see images below), it just might.

How sex toys get recycled

Last week our friends at the UK sex toy retailer LoveHoney.co.uk launched a short, fascinating video about how sex toys (and other stuff like toasters) get recycled. It’s part of their Rabbit Amnesty program: you send them your battered and bruised sex toys and they give you Lovehoney loyalty points (“Oh points”) that you can [...]

Green tech finds (5/19/11)

Off-grid in the Big Apple, and geothermal energy capture that doesn’t cause earthquakes… your green tech finds for the week.

• The recycling robot: Finnish start-up ZenRobotics claims its ZenRobotics Recycler, a robot designed to sort recyclables from other waste, has correctly identified half the materials presented to it in tests. See the “trailer” for the robot above. (via Good News from Finland)
  
  
• Can electric vehicles work in car sharing programs: Electric Vehicle Update discusses the potential issues, and solutions, for incorporating EVs (with their long charging time) into “on-demand” car sharing services. (via Cleantechies)
  
  

Amazing upcycle: old furniture into planters

Milan Design Week may be over and done with, but so many incredible ideas made their debut on the vast showroom floor that the event still has us buzzing. Take this deceptively simple idea from Italian designers Peter Bottazzi and Denish Bonapace that turns used up and useless old furniture into artfully rendered homes for plants. Called Da Morto A Orto, or from redundant to abundant, Bottazzi and Bonapace took various pieces of furniture and combined them into hybrids – a rolling desk chair with a wooden dresser drawer and an aluminum lamp or a plush armchair with metal pots sprouting out its back. The combinations are endless and these pictures are the ultimate inspiration for DIY-ers.

Student music video trains peers on recycling

Ever get frustrated when you see someone throwing away a recyclable item… right next to a recycling bin? Or throw a recyclable item in the wrong container? High school junior CJ Joseph certainly has, and has played the role of “recycling police” (or “recycling nazi” if you prefer) at Queens’ The Renaissance Charter School: “If I see somebody I’m like, ‘You’re throwing that out in the wrong bin. Follow the signs people! I know you’ve heard it: Papers go in the blue (bins), and bottles in the green.”

But as many of us have learned, badgering only gets you so far… so CJ decided to apply her other passion, music, to her recycling fervor, and wrote the song “R to the E to the Cycle.” If you read the lyrics, you’ll see they’re not much different from her “recycling police” instructions… but definitely more catchy!

Green tech finds (5/5/11)

Blimps, chicken feathers, and viruses… your green tech finds for the week.

• The 10,000 year heat pump: Heat pumps aren’t sexy; they are, however, an incredibly efficient technology means of heating and cooling buildings. Researchers in Norway are experimenting with a new, more simple design framework that they think will create a heat pump with a “dramatically longer life.” (via @adamwerbach)
  
  
• Tracking e-waste: Where do your old electronics end up? The basement? The trash? Or in a developing country for “recycling?” The UN’s StEP project wants to find out, and the US EPA has provided them with $2.5 million to track US electronic waste. (via @TerracomChicago)
  
  

Billboards to beach sandals: Paper Feet

Billboards don’t just “litter” our roadways… they create an awful lot of waste: according to Jimmy Tomczak, founder of Paper Feet, “Every year in the U.S. alone, so much billboard vinyl is thrown away that, if laid out, it would more than cover the state of Massachusetts.” For Tomczak, that mass of printed vinyl going to landfills turned out to be the perfect material for a product he envisioned while an undergrad at the University of Michigan: minimalist “barefoot” sandals that protected his feet while still providing the feel of going shoeless.

Earth Week green tech finds (4/21/11)

A new green smart phone, water from diesel, and the dirtiness of your data… your Earth Week green tech finds.

• Recyclemania at Dell: The Austin, TX-based computer and electronics maker announced it recycled more than 150 million pounds of e-waste in 2010. (via GreenTech Pastures)
  
  
• Google, Department of Energy mapping EV charging stations: The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory is working with Google to map electric vehicle charging stations, along with other alternative vehicle fuels. (via Earth Techling)
  
  

Green tech finds (3/31/11)

LSA In Action from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.

Plastic made from meat wastes, and “self-charging” cell phones… these and more in this week’s green tech finds.

• Floating solar panels: “Offshore renewables” has generally meant wind or wave power, but an Australian company has developed a prototype for floating solar panels… and Indian company Tata Power is going to give the concept a go. Check out the Liquid Solar Array in action above. (via Calfinder’s Residential Solar blog)
  
  
• Plastic bottle schools: Plastic bottles get recycled into all sorts of consumer products… but the Bottle Schools Project is turning them into literal building blocks for schools in the developing world. (via Springwise and @COSEnergy)
  
  

Green tech finds (3/10/11)

Lots of apps this week… for Freecycling, sharing your juice with electric vehicles drivers, and teaching the kids about rainforest ecosystems.

• Organize your Freecycling: Like to search for used treasures on service like Freecycle and Freegle? The Trash Nothing online app allows you to organize your activities at various recycling groups.
  
  
• i-Tree 4.0 is out: OK, this won’t garner the attention of the iPad 2, but the latest update of the US Forest Service’s i-Tree online tool for urban and community forest analysis features new applications for tree placement planning for individual land parcels, and “modeling the watershed-scale effects that vegetation has on local hydrology and water quality.”
  
  

Green tech finds (3/3/11)

An electric unicycle, iPad recycling, and creating your own bike lane on the go… this week’s green tech finds.

• California farmers leading the way on renewables: According to the USDA’s new On-Farm Renewable Energy Production Survey, “California farms and ranches now make up more than 20 percent of all operations in the nation with solar, wind and methane digester use.” (via Calfinder’s Residential Solar blog)
  
  
• Harvesting energy from slow tides: That’s the concept behind Minesto UK’s Deep Green technology, a “kite-like device [which] is tethered to the seabed and is steered by a rudder, which allows it to adjust the speed at which water enters the turbine.” The UK’s Carbon Fund has awarded Minesto £350,000 to test the device.