Welcome back for another edition of weekly green news featuring some articles from the past week focusing on the green movement. This week: the world’s most energy efficient office courtesy of Sanyo; Harvard studies BPA levels with canned soup consumption; and prison inmates creating an eco-friendly product line in Eastern Europe. Click on the links to learn more.

Kasai Green Energy Park Photo Credit: Sanyo

Amanda Wills from Earth911 headed just outside Osaka, Japan to check out the World’s Most Efficient Office named ‘Kasai Green Energy Park’.  This Sanyo operation “serves as a massive testing facility for energy-saving technology.”  The Kasai Green Energy Park includes “1MW Mega Solar System, a 1.5MWh Lithium-ion Mega Battery System with the world’s largest level of capacity, energy management system that efficiently control each equipment, and a smart energy system which combines and coordinates all of the systems above using an SES controller. By using all of these systems to maximize energy efficiency, we are able to reduce approximately 2,480 tons of CO2 emissions every year without sacrificing convenience and comfort.”  Amanda took some great pictures of Kasai Green Energy Park during her visit.

Kasai Green Energy Park also features side solar panels on the outside of the Sanyo building, a solar parking lot, hybrid bike recharging stations (popular in Japan), electricity storage at night for use during the day, plus small tables with built-in solar panels that store energy which can be used to charge any electronic device while it’s on the table.  Heck it even knows when people come and go to help control air conditioning. The lobby also includes a wall of TV screens indicating the energy savings the facility is currently generating.  You can read more about the Kasai Green Energy Park here.

BPA levels soar after lunching on canned soup.  Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health conducted a study in a quest to determine how much canned food will increase the level of the compound bisphenol A (BPA) in a person’s urine.  The results were higher than expected.  Study participants ate a serving of canned soup every day for five days; they reported “BPA levels of 20.8 micrograms per liter of urine, whereas people who instead ate fresh soup had levels of 1.1 micrograms per liter, according to the study.”  Researchers noted a 1,221 percent jump in BPA levels over those who ate fresh soup.  “To see an increase in this magnitude was quite surprising,” said study leader Karin Michels, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In some offbeat green news, Eastern European prison inmates produce and design an eco-conscious fashion line.  That’s right, Heavy Eco provides edgier eco-friendly fashion options constructed by prison inmates.  Why not turn the process of rehabilitation in prison into an environmental positive?  Discarded PVC advertising billboards are recycled and upcycled to make messenger bags, wallets, iPad bags, Mac sleeves and tote bags.  Heavy Eco states “Durability and practicality of our bags is most important to us. As a basic bag material we use dead, discarded  billboards, made from PVC, that are designed to stand  up for any weather conditions, be it heavy rain, snow or  wind. We know that our bags last a lifetime, so we feel secure in giving all our bags a lifetime warranty.”  They also sell custom designed t-shirts and underwear made from 100% organic cotton from India. Co-financed by the European Social Fund, inmates are paid for their efforts in both the design and manufacturing of the eco-friendly product line.

And that’s a few tidbits from this past week in the green news.
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