Various soaps are made from natural ingredients such as vegetable oils and organic herbs and spices. But these cleansers are also manufactured without using any electricity....[More]
CLEAN RIDE
Various soaps are made from natural ingredients such as vegetable oils and organic herbs and spices. But these cleansers are also manufactured without using any electricity. The employees at Real Goods literally pedal on bicycles to power the machines that mix the ingredients in soap vats. A gift box of five, 3.5 ounce soap bars in scents such as lemongrass-ginger and rosemary costs $10.50. www.realgoods.com
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Courtesy of Real Goods
HANG ON TO IT
A wooden bag dryer like this one ($15.95) may look unusual but it might encourage more people to reuse plastic sandwich bags. Just wash ‘em and hang ‘em....[More]
HANG ON TO IT
A wooden bag dryer like this one ($15.95) may look unusual but it might encourage more people to reuse plastic sandwich bags. Just wash ‘em and hang ‘em. There really is no convenient replacement for such bags, but tossing out 20 million a day isn’t convenient for the environment. Reusable Bags also notes that the typical container can be washed 30 times, cutting consumers’ expenses. www.reusablebags.com
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Courtesy of Reusable Bags
MORE VACUUM, LESS WATER
Save some money while saving some water. Aerators attach to your faucet and decrease water flow by limiting pressure. Yet Utility Savors claims its model ($27) provides more pressure while still reducing water use by up to 80 percent....[More]
MORE VACUUM, LESS WATER
Save some money while saving some water. Aerators attach to your faucet and decrease water flow by limiting pressure. Yet Utility Savors claims its model ($27) provides more pressure while still reducing water use by up to 80 percent. The trick, it says, is a vacuum booster built into the nozzle. www.savewaterus.com
Good driving techniques can lower fuel consumption. The PLX Kiwi driving monitor is attached to the dashboard and wired to the on-board diagnostics port....[More]
THE DRIVE TO SAVE
Good driving techniques can lower fuel consumption. The PLX Kiwi driving monitor is attached to the dashboard and wired to the on-board diagnostics port. It shows the driver when gas is being wasted and what can be done to improve efficiency, and gives a score each time the car is driven. It might be cheaper to read up on driving techniques and spare the $299, but the Kiwi makes reducing carbon emissions almost fun. www.plxdevices.com
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Courtesy of PLX Devices
ECO-PUPPY
Maybe Fido wants to go green. Harry Barker’s sustainable chew toys ($9) are made from hemp and stuffed with hypoallergenic fiber. The leashes ($22) are manufactured with 100 percent recycled plastic....[More]
ECO-PUPPY
Maybe Fido wants to go green. Harry Barker’s sustainable chew toys ($9) are made from hemp and stuffed with hypoallergenic fiber. The leashes ($22) are manufactured with 100 percent recycled plastic. Good for the environment. Stylish, too. www.harrybarker.com
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Courtesy of Harry Barker
CREAM OF THE CROP
Paints containing low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) are becoming popular. But here’s a product that’s really all natural: Real Milk Paint ($46 a gallon), made from purified milk protein, lime, natural fillers and pigment....[More]
CREAM OF THE CROP
Paints containing low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) are becoming popular. But here’s a product that’s really all natural: Real Milk Paint ($46 a gallon), made from purified milk protein, lime, natural fillers and pigment. The fluid requires some extra effort to mix but goes on like standard paint. Heavy wear or lots of water exposure can cause slight color fading, so aim for surfaces that are free of traffic and splashes. www.realmilkpaint.com
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Courtesy of The Real Milk Paint Co.
CITY SCRAPS
Apartment owners can compost with this barrel, sized for a roof-top or small backyard. Spinning the composter ($199), done by hand, helps table scraps decompose faster....[More]
CITY SCRAPS
Apartment owners can compost with this barrel, sized for a roof-top or small backyard. Spinning the composter ($199), done by hand, helps table scraps decompose faster. Real Goods claims the seven-cubic-foot-container produces as much as 85 pounds of odorless compost a year if used at full capacity--which might be a little much for your windowsill herb garden. www.realgoods.com
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Courtesy of Real Goods
WALL TO WALL
Carpeting for a room or house consumes lots of material. Mohawk’s EverStrand carpet and backing are made from recycled plastic bottles; the company claims to use nearly three billion bottles a year....[More]
WALL TO WALL
Carpeting for a room or house consumes lots of material. Mohawk’s EverStrand carpet and backing are made from recycled plastic bottles; the company claims to use nearly three billion bottles a year. It doesn’t toss the caps and labels either; those are remade into the cylindrical cores that carpets are wrapped around. The carpets are tough, stain resistant and feel good beneath the feet, and cost slightly more than standard polyester options. www.mohawkflooring.com
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Courtesy of Mohawk
TOTE THE SUN
Reware Products’ backpacks and messenger bags sports solar panels that can power gadgets while you walk, in case a phone or laptop runs low on the go....[More]
TOTE THE SUN
Reware Products’ backpacks and messenger bags sports solar panels that can power gadgets while you walk, in case a phone or laptop runs low on the go. The price may be prohibitive ($250), but you won’t have to buy that recharger or carry it around. The bags are made from discarded bottles, and the flexible, water-proof solar panels will charge most gadgets in two to four hours. www.rewarestore.com
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Courtesy of Reware Products
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
From the moment that we switch our radiators on half of the heat given off by them is lost as it goes into the wall behind them. We can, however, get around this problem with an invention from a then schoolboy that got onto the Tommorows World program decades ago. He had learned from School that heat is given off by way of conduction, convection, and radiation, so when his Grandmother had problems meeting her heating bills the schoolboy reasoned that heat loss due to conduction and convection could be stopped by putting a lining of cardboard covered with silver cooking foil behind his Grandmothers radiators. Heat loss through the wall is now slashed by nearly 50%, and rooms heat up faster when the heating comes on. The Fire Brigade said at the time that the cardboard was not a fire hazard as behind the radiator is the least damaged part of a room in the event of a fire. And this saving cuts the CO2 emissions of your house. The UK has 107 main power stations that produce 30% of CO2 production, that is, one power station produces 0.28 % of our CO2 emissions. 26% of our energy is used in space heating so we can guess that the equivalent of 27.82 power stations are used for space heating. If we can cut our space heating needs by nearly half with this simple invention we can reduce the number of power stations that we need by 13.91, and thus cut the total UK CO2 emissions by 3.9%. And we do not need as many new power stations as we did. How about it?
Another great green idea is to get rid of paper(printing, handling, storing, retrieving and disposal) by figuring out ways of using eDocuments instead. If you have a home accounting system, you can email invoices and do electronic banking (called Banking Automation) to eliminate paper checks and bills. If you own a business, you can use one of the many well-developed Document Automation software packages to convert most of your business/office paperwork to electronic documents.
The one I'm most familiar with is iDocs by inFORM Decisions (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) for the office. It runs on all IBM midrange computers. A typical Document Automation solution will support scanning and creating eDocuments, emailing and faxing them to other parts of the organization or customers/suppliers, archiving and retrieving eDocs and the design of graphic forms for accepting data in prescribed formats.
Eventually, the world, including most businesses and families, will be paperless and we will all wonder how we ever put up with all those primitive paper documents!
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2 Comments
Add CommentFrom the moment that we switch our radiators on half of the heat given off by them is lost as it goes into the wall behind them. We can, however, get around this problem with an invention from a then schoolboy that got onto the Tommorows World program decades ago. He had learned from School that heat is given off by way of conduction, convection, and radiation, so when his Grandmother had problems meeting her heating bills the schoolboy reasoned that heat loss due to conduction and convection could be stopped by putting a lining of cardboard covered with silver cooking foil behind his Grandmothers radiators. Heat loss through the wall is now slashed by nearly 50%, and rooms heat up faster when the heating comes on. The Fire Brigade said at the time that the cardboard was not a fire hazard as behind the radiator is the least damaged part of a room in the event of a fire. And this saving cuts the CO2 emissions of your house.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe UK has 107 main power stations that produce 30% of CO2 production, that is, one power station produces 0.28 % of our CO2 emissions. 26% of our energy is used in space heating so we can guess that the equivalent of 27.82 power stations are used for space heating. If we can cut our space heating needs by nearly half with this simple invention we can reduce the number of power stations that we need by 13.91, and thus cut the total UK CO2 emissions by 3.9%. And we do not need as many new power stations as we did. How about it?
Another great green idea is to get rid of paper(printing, handling, storing, retrieving and disposal) by figuring out ways of using eDocuments instead. If you have a home accounting system, you can email invoices and do electronic banking (called Banking Automation) to eliminate paper checks and bills. If you own a business, you can use one of the many well-developed Document Automation software packages to convert most of your business/office paperwork to electronic documents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe one I'm most familiar with is iDocs by inFORM Decisions (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) for the office. It runs on all IBM midrange computers. A typical Document Automation solution will support scanning and creating eDocuments, emailing and faxing them to other parts of the organization or customers/suppliers, archiving and retrieving eDocs and the design of graphic forms for accepting data in prescribed formats.
Eventually, the world, including most businesses and families, will be paperless and we will all wonder how we ever put up with all those primitive paper documents!