Hello again and welcome back to the blog. I’ve been primarily posting about other topics recently but I wanted to get back to the green gazette, it allows me and therefore you to read about a wider variety of news stories about eco-inventions, innovations and ideas.

I noted that an older story was attracting some interest and that we wrote it a few months before the idea became a reality. You may be interested to know that the Plastiki expedition is finally on the high seas. Plastiki is the name of a project based on eco-research about the oceans that will be taking place on a vessel constructed from approximately 12,500 plastic 2 liter bottles. The idea has been 4 years in the planning so we were excited to learn that the ship is now three days into their voyage. To demonstrate how green this experiment is, you can keep current on the progress of the mission via their blog – the laptops are powered via exercise bikes on board. You can learn all about the mission via their

main site, especially interesting is their command center which allows you to track the progress of the boat. So far they’ve traveled 179 nautical miles in 3 days to the Southwest.

I’ve always seen Las Vegas as ground zero when it comes to energy wastage and the last place I’d expect to find eco-concerns being on the radar. Staying high above the strip and gazing out at the neon makes you wonder if electricity grows on trees such is the visual excess of the gambling mecca. As a result this story came as quite a welcome surprise, as I learned that a group that owns The Venetian, The Sands Expo Centre and The Palazzo have started an eco initiative called Eco 360. Impressively the Palazzo earned full LEED certification in 2008, the program would result in sufficient energy saving to power 6,500 homes if the targets laid out are reached.

I’ve never climbed to 9,000 feet when visiting Switzerland (I was quite happy down in the valleys) but if I ever did I now know where it would be

very tempting to stay. The new eco-friendly Monte Rosa Hut, at 2810 metres, is now open to guests who want to stay at the top of the Alps. The remarkable structure is being labeled ‘the mountain hut of the future’ but it sounds like far more than a hut to me. The building encompasses 5 floors with 18 guest rooms and up to 120 beds. It sounds essentially to be an eco-hostel with the requisite washrooms and showers that you would expect.  The unique building has been nicknamed ‘Bergkristall’ (mountain crystal) as the entire structure resembles a large glass crystal and better still the structure is more than 90 percent energy self-sufficient. The building, replaces an old hut located nearby and was designed to use solar technology for most of its energy and heat requirements. The Monte Rosa hut resides in the shadow of the Matterhorn, the most famed peak in the Swiss Alps.

More news from the Green Gazette soon.

Tags: eco awareness, eco expedition boat, energy conservation, las vegas, LEED, LEED certification, monte rosa hut, planet forward, Plastike Expedition, Plastiki, solar heating, solar power, the green gazette, The Palazzo, The Sands Expo Centre, The Venetian, ‘Bergkristall