Archive for February, 2010
Green Gazette (Issue 39) Eco-mice, horses and a great way to green your music
Posted by: | CommentsHello again, like many others I have the occasional weakness for ‘gadgets’ although I’m more tempted to just say ‘that’s pretty cool’ as opposed to purchasing one it doesn’t change the fact that I admire the innovation. On the other hand we have gadget consumers, those of us who live to purchase new tools and ideas that change the way we do things and hopefully make life that tiny bit more efficient. Today I thought I’d look at some fairly simple but certainly innovative gadgets that have a legitimate green benefit - each of which has yet to be released on the market. Off we go!
Wireless mouse - you can’t beat a wireless mouse once you’ve made the transition from the more common garden variety of mouse with a cord. It does make me wonder though is it still a ‘mouse’ when it no longer has a tail? At that point isn’t it more like a chipmunk or a marmot. However, if you love your wireless mouse but tire of replacing the batteries every 3 months or so there is now a green option. Meet Corky - he/she is made entirely of recycled cork and doesn’t need batteries. The kinetic energy caused by normal use when scrolling and clicking provides the energy source of our keyboard accomplice. No more batteries and plastics needed - what a great idea.
Discarded car tires/tyres - a blight of rubber wastage and something you rarely see any innovation attached to. This sounds like a bet an 
inventor took and won as he created the Automan 500 - which is an ottoman speaker (subwoofer) made from a standard automobile tire. In addition to being very eco friendly in design it apparently does the task assigned to it very well:
Designers Carolyn Butts and Hans Honegger say that the circular/cylindrical shape allows the subwoofer to have a better sound quality, and its unique construction helps it to emit all the bass notes.
The non audio components include a car tire, bicycle tire and wheat straw fiber board. This ranks as one of the more unlikely gadgets I’ve seen and when did you last see a round speaker?
Finally how about something a little different for the children which will serve a dual purpose by being eco-friendly while helping educate the kids about green issues and clean energy. You can accomplish both at once if you meetIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Green Gazette (Issue 38) Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Posted by: | CommentsHello again, regular readers might be familiar with the Green Gazette and perhaps thought your author had retired or exhausted his supply of eco-tales of innovation and improvement. The truth is I was otherwise engaged but now I’m back - if that all feel a little bit Leno vs Conan please don’t cast me in the role of Jay. I do however have a few stories to share if you can stay a while.
It has been a horrible few months for Toyota, it seems that you can’t watch the news without learning more about safety and design issues that are impacting the giant (world’s largest) auto manufacturer. Correctly using the word irony is not always my biggest talent but it seems that the top brass at Toyota are now admitting that the root cause for many of the errors was success, that they grew too rapidly for their infrastructure to properly assess design faults and correct issues as they arose. 2010 will be a telling year for the company as they need accomplish three 
things really rapidly - explain how these things got through the cracks, make appropriate repairs to all vehicles on the road and improve their internal processes so that it doesn’t happen again. I think that they need to hit home runs on all three to remain on the top of the world auto buyers shopping list. In light of that it’s remarkable that the Prius has just won Consumer Reports award for best eco-friendly car. The Prius is a testament to the innovation at the company and the results were compiled after the current dark clouds settled over Toyota. Here’s hoping they resolve these critical issues and continue to lead the industry in making eco-friendly vehicles that benefit us all.
Would you believe that the combined amount of waste created by airlines in the US is in excess of 880 millions pounds of waste per year? More importantly they could (emphasis mine) be recycling some 75% of that total. The sad reality is that only about 20% of the waste created by our airlines is actually being recycled, that is not even a decent effort in my opinion. Perhaps we need to know more to hold airlines more accountable and a report that has just been published empowers you with exactly that information. The entire report is very alarming but I wanted to bring your attention to the following:
While airlines acknowledge the importance of recycling waste, no airline recycles all the major recyclables: aluminum cans, glass, plastic, and paper. No airline has a comprehensive program for minimizing or composting food waste or waste from snack packages, provides good public information about their recycling program, or reports out on progress in relation to any stated goals.
The good news I guess is that a lot can be done, I would highly recommend taking some time to look at the overall report it might just make you change your preferred airlines. The waste is borderline insulting to anyone who is committed to recycling I’ll just share some numbers if I may. Annually the airlines simply throw away:
- 9,000 tons of plastic
- Sufficient aluminum cans to build 58 Boeing 747 jets
- Sufficient newspaper and magazines to cover a football field 230 meters deep
Shouldn’t the airlines be interested in trying to offset some of the 600 million tons of carbon dioxide per year pumped into the atmosphere by commercial jets alone? The full report is available here, and if you want to take part in the ongoing survey the link is right here.
We have planes and automobiles in the post so I wanted to share something recent about trains. Not much out there to be honest, but as part of the Green stimulus in the US the plans for expanding/beginning high speed rail links look to be on track to a certain extent. I hope sooner rather than later as the thought of avoiding airports for journeys of up to 500 miles would have huge appeal to many in my opinion. If a train went from Phoenix to Los Angeles in 2.5 hours versus the 1 hour flight and all the hassles that go with flying were on offer I know I’d prefer the train. Not to mention that it is a radically greener way to transport people or freight.
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An Eco-friendly Collectible from Broadway play RENT
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RENT Key chain made from 100% post consumer recycled tires
Any fan of popular culture, Broadway or rock music probably remembers the 1996 smash hit Broadway play RENT. The play that won countless awards including four Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, became a global phenomenon, ran for 12 years on Broadway and was made into a major motion picture. For those that do not know Rent is Based loosely on Puccini’s La Bohème, Rent tells the story of a group of friends living in New York’s East Village struggling with life, love, drugs and AIDS. This was a play that spoke to people in a way that mainstream theater never really did, and brought new people to into the tradition of the American theater. During a recent tour aptly title RENT: The Broadway Tour, it came to my attention that the play made an eco-friendly move into this new decade.
RENT has always been on the cutting edge of theater and its souvenir merchandise is now no different. As is the case for many frequent theater goers, I have often noticed that an eco-friendly product is hard to find, playbills, and souvenir books are hardly earth conscious. The clothing they sell is not made of organic cotton fabric, and the rest of the merchandise tends to follow suit. RENT however, seems to making a difference, something a fan of the musical theater would appreciate as in keeping with its philosophy of “no day but today”.
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Eva Longoria Parker Manages an Earth Friendly Business and a Green Home
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ABC’s Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about eco-minded celebrities, but she is authentic in both her personal and business life. In an interview with Jennifer Schwab from the Huffington Post Longoria Parker discussed her earth friendly business and explained why green issues mean so much to her:
“Growing up on a ranch with lots of land and animals, I came to appreciate the beauty of nature and the simplicity of life. It is because of this that I have an intense love for the earth and Mother Nature. My father instilled in me the idea of conservation at an early age and it has stuck with me since. He would take us camping for days at a time and teach us how to eat and survive off the land. He taught us how to find water, what berries to eat off trees, how to plant our own vegetables. I remember my dad always walking around the house turning off lights constantly and always yelling at us if we left the water on while brushing our teeth. To this day, I cannot be in a house where there are lights on in a room that is not being used. And I often yell at Tony for leaving the water on while brushing his teeth. I have managed to carry my conservation ideas into my own life. I don’t use bottled water in the house; we recycle, and use reusable bags at grocery stores. So when the time came to build out Beso and the Nightclub Eve in Vegas, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to do this right for mother earth”.
Eva Longoria Parker's Beso and Kiss Kiss Lounge
How exactly did the talented actress and restaurateur manage to make the second Beso an earth friendly business? As anyone who watches entrainment news magazine show like Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, Extra and E! News etc… knows, Beso is an uber trendy and successful L.A. hotspot. “The City Center edition was created as a green version to meet LEED certification, with upgrades such as: a special $350,000 stove hood and scrubber to filter volatile organic kitchen compounds; Swarovski crystals which were reclaimed from the Oscars broadcast for use as chandeliers; reclaimed woods throughout; recycled wallpapers; recycled and compostable to-go boxes; recycled paper menus; a green cleaning crew; lots of natural light to save power during the day; locally sourced building materials to save on shipping and reduce the transportation carbon footprint” according to the Huffington Post article.
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