GreenPrint Home Version from PrintGreener.com $35.00 with a 30 day free trial

PrintGreener.com offers software program that can help you significantly reduce your paper usage when printing. The software looks at your document and offers a variety of suggestions on how you might be able to avoid common paper wasting - like printing a page that only has a few lines of text on it. Or a means to easily remove graphics, logos and the like - which also helps to reduce ink use. Treehugger has a review here. Fineprint offers a similar program with many excellent features worth checking out but is a little more costly at 49.95.

However, with just a little more effort most all of these things can be done manually for free, here is a link that offers a comprehensive list of various simple methods people can use to cut down on paper use when you have to print.

You would think that since virtually everyone uses computers these days our paper use would be gradually lessening, sadly this doesn’t seem to be the case. The average office worker prints and copies through some 10,000 pages every year, the average person in the United States uses more than 650 pounds of paper annually. Millions of tons of junk mail every year is immediately thrown away seconds after being removed from our mailboxes. Both consumers and business waste phenomenal amounts of paper that could easily be prevented by taking simple measures such as using GreenPrint or similar measures. Perhaps even better is if more people would forgo printing unless absolutely necessary, then even more paper waste and environmental harm could be prevented.
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Venture Vehicles has in development what appears to be a fantastically green and cool new mode of transport. You can now pre-register for the VentureOne’s e50 and Q100 hybrids or the Venture EV (all electric)
The hybrids have a 300+ mile range and can get up to 100 miles per gallon with a top speed of over 100mph. It is a 3 wheeled vehicle that is fully enclosed with state of the art steel safety features and includes airbags and side impact beams, making it much safer than a motorcycle.

This mini-cooper sized vehicle seats two with sleek wrap around windows. The videos on their flytheroad.com website make this trike looks a blast to drive, the front “cab” driving area is able to lean up to 45 degrees on turns while leaving the engine area horizontal. The videos on the VentureOne website shows this very well.

The planned price tag of $23,000 for the EV model and 18K for the hybrid might be a bit steep for such a small “car” but your savings on gas and the good karma you’ll have by not adding to greenhouse gas pollution makes it a serious temptation. They plan to release this in late 2008.

Renaissance Lantern w/Flickering Light $29.99 from SmartHome.com

This solar powered LED light simulates the flickering of a candle for an entire night while charging itself during the day. It automatically turns itself on at night and off in the morning.
LED bulbs can last up to 30,000 hours. Add a romantic accent to your garden path along with a green touch.

Sick of singing your body electric? How about using that bod to pedal wash your clothes? Healthy for the planet and healthy for you, and especially for those (like me) who a prolonged use of this method might help them go down a couple of waist sizes. Sadly, the various offerings all seem to be in prototype - with the exception of some hand powered ones covered in this previous post.
The Cyclean seems to be the furtherest along in its development (shown in the video above) Here is a site, homelessdave.com that has some extensive plans and photos of his efforts is making a pedal-powered washing machine.

Here is another model, invented by Bart Orlando, that also shows promise.

Where are the Green Early Warning Systems?

I was a kid in the 50’s when air raid drills and “duck and cover” were the norm. There was something about air raid sirens that continues to invade my nightmares. This isn’t just a test of the early warning system, we need ear piercing air raid sirens to blast suburbia awake over the coming global warming disasters.

Victor Mobilae

There are a few artists and designers who put out their global warming early warning devices, like this one by Designer Rene van Corven from the Netherlands. Called the “Victor Mobilae” which is a mobile garden that moves 65 inches north each day, apparently representing the speed to which global warming might cause vegetation to adapt northwards as the climate shifts. No doubt this art piece is well intentioned but it seems a bit benign, almost celebrating the happy gardens the frozen north will soon be blessed with. Those chilly Eskimos will be soon able to add some peas and carrots with their walrus blubber.
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CAN-RAM Aluminum Can Crusher $17.50 from Conserv-a-Store

Yesterday I looked at the BigBelly trash compactor bin, here is another trash crushing device, the CAN-RAN, this time its priced for average people serious about their recycling and not just crushing beer cans in their hands to impress onlookers with how high their testosterone levels are.

You could use it to save space in your recycling bin by crushing used cans to a third of their normal size. If you are industrious you could bring the volumes of crushed cans to your handy aluminum scrap facility and they will reward in silver coin. Being green doesn’t stop you from being mean, so you could use it to piss off homeless people rooting through your bin for cans on recycle pick up days.

Seriously though, this could be handy for the family who uses way more aluminum cans than is good for them.

BigBelly Solar Trash Compactor from seahorsepower.com

Readers who regularly follow my posts here at Great Green Gadgets might wonder what’s up with no posts in the past several days. The reason is that my wife and I have been moving from our place in Boston to San Diego (where we will get to in a few weeks, right now we are starting a very slow journey across the country) Now that all the packing is done and the movers have taken away all our stuff we can turn our attention back to Great Green Gadgets.

Speaking of Boston - we lived in Jamaica Plain where a great green inventor,James Poss, also lives. He invented the BigBelly made by Seahorse Power Company which is a solar powered trash compactor bin that is becoming more popular in urban areas. Here is a good article from our Boston Globe on the BigBelly. and another more recent article from the BBC.

The BigBelly is becoming a welcome visitor to busy urban settings, popular beaches, and other areas that generate large volumes of trash from pedestrians that necessitate the garbage cans be emptied frequently so it doesn’t wind up looking like this picture.

The solar powered trash compactor might be emptied only once or twice a day, not the 15 or more visits by greenhouse gas emitting sanitation trucks seen in some downtown trash cans. Some as in this Treehugger post might object to the fact that all this trash is just being put in the landfill but realistically, that trash would have never made been recycled anyway in our current level of mass eco-consciousness. Perhaps someone could find a means to separate and then recycle the components of BigBelly’s compacted trash to make it even more eco-friendly. As a person commented on the Treehugger post, Perhaps a way could be found to convert the compacted garbage into fuel pellets for plasma arc gasification systems.

While its great to reduce trash and greenhouse gases with the BigBelly, bigger solutions to our cities’ trash woes will be needed, like ways to reduce the paper and plastic trash from convenience stores and fast-food restaurants as well as figuring out a way to educate and encourage people to take great pride and responsibility for our communities.