Phonophone II from CharlesandMarie.com $500.00

The Phonophone II is not only a wonderfully designed object but also a great device that can transform your iPod’s earplugs into a mini-amplified speaker - without having to plug it in, insert batteries or sit waiting for the sun. All you have to do is hook up your iPod earphones to the adapter, and natural science will do the rest. The horned shape of the ceramic phonophone will capture and emit the music throughout the room (as long as the room is pretty small and no other competing sounds anyway)

We applaud the desire to save electricity but in this case the amount of power it takes to run an amplifier and speaker is extremely low, so the real appeal is its novelty and coolness factor. For me, at $500 there are quite a few items higher up on my coolness generating gadget wish list. But for the person who has everything or for rich iPod fanatics this might be a great addition to their desk. Then you can start looking for a tiny ceramic Jack Russell dog to sit listening next to it.

SUNWHISPER/24 SOLAR POWERED MULCHING LAWNMOWER $695.00 from Freepowersys.com

Gasoline lawn mowers are slowly on their way out. Not only are they loud and obnoxious but are also a significant source of air pollution. According to one study, cutting grass for an hour with a gasoline powered lawn mower is about the same as that from a 100-mile automobile ride. The 50 or so million people mowing their lawns each weekend in the US with gas-powered mowers can contribute as much as five percent of the nation’s air pollution, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It would be great if everyone would come to their senses and get rid of their gas-powered mowers today in favor of a push mower, which is the ultimate in green mowers, which not only doesn’t pollute but also gets folks to exercise more.

Sadly, we may have a bit of a wait before that happens. However, many of the new electric mowers are not only significantly less polluting but are about the same pricing as a good gas-powered mower. Better still, check out the solar powered electric mower from Freepowersys, their sunwhisper model, which is in essence a cordless electric Black & Decker mower modified with a small solar array to turn sunlight into power. It is claimed to be easy to use and set up, is quiet, can use anytime of day, has a rear bagger for mulching lawn clippings and best of all uses solar power.

If you are inventive and good with tools you can convert one of these rechargeable electric or even a gas powered mowers to solar power on your own. Here is a good link that can explain how.
Here is another link that explains how someone converted their electric mower to solar - also here a link to a video by the same person that goes into great detail. Finally, we wrote an article last summer on green lawn mowing that is worth a peek.

If you spend all day spelunking in some deep cave and never see daylight this LED headlamp may not be your best choice as you need to recharge the solar cells for at least 2 hour in full sunlight to get 6 hours of full brightness. But for the rest of us it seems like a great source of light that doesn’t require batteries that you can use camping, hiking, or emergencies. It could even work for spelunking but considering how fragile most caves eco-systems are it is probably better from an environmental view to do some urban exploring instead.

For an extra $12.00 You can also get optional charging devices that will allow you to charge you cellphone or iPod.

Everlite Solar Headlamp from Gaiam $59.00

The new web browser Flock’s Eco-Edition offers interesting possibilities in Green Computing.

It is a free browser that focused on helping people connect, share and explore contemporary websites that have a community emphasis. The Flock Eco-Edition browser comes pre-loaded with carefully selected green content from a variety of sources such as Grist, Ecorazzi, Treehugger, PlanetGreen, National Geographic, Sprig, Environmental News Network and many more. They offer daily updated environmental news, interviews, video, and other rich media. If you find something that is particularly useful, interesting or disturbing you can share it with a built in Flock sidebar that connects your friends from Facebook, Flicker, You Tube and other such sites.

The Flock 2.0 Beta version is built on the Firefox 3.0 browser and takes advantage of the various performance and security enhancement improvements offered by Firefox 3.0

In the Eco-Edition - the Flock people state that “Flock believes in providing users who download the Flock Eco-Edition a means to give back by donating 10% of search proceeds to the environmental charity of choice, as deemed by the voting of the community of Flock’s Eco-Edition users at the end of this year. Flock makes money when people search through the browser. So the more you search via Flock Eco-Edition, the more we’re committing to give back.”

Maybe they are just painting one of their “editions” Green so as to persuade people into switching to their browser but the fact they are promoting Green causes and giving some of their money back to environmental causes can’t be a bad thing. Might be worth giving them an investigation.

Recycled 45 rpm Clock $30.00 at gigglefishgifts.com

Even if your Dad isn’t old enough to get nostalgic over sock hops or rhapsodic with Elvis singles he can appreciate the trend to give new life to old.
These clocks are available in a variety of rock and soul titles, made by Vinylux who have recycled about 200,000 records in a variety of forms including coasters, bowls, ornaments and more. This record clock is made with laser–cut out numbers, aluminum hands, acrylic stand, requires AA battery.

Kitchen Compost Crock $42.00 (white ceramic model) $75.00 (stainless steel model) at RealGoods.com

Maybe you compost in your yard, but what about your kitchen? An utterly depressing and amazing amount of useful nutrients are thrown out by most people everyday. Your banana peels, veggie peelings, etc could be put to far better uses than simply making more methane gas somewhere in some humongous landfill.

Consider the compost crock as one solution, the Kitchen Compost Crock looks great on your counter and is ideal for holding scraps of food that can eventually make compost for your garden plants. As food prices continue to grow through the roof, a home veggie garden is making more and more sense.

The crock’s interior is glazed so it won’t stain and the filtered lid leaves odors trapped inside. You will need to change the filters every few months, replacement filters are $10.00 for a set of 6. Some users complain of a loose handle on this ceramic model. For a bit more money you can spring for the stainless steel model. Speaking of money, The composting stainless steel crock we reviewed last year seems perhaps a better deal at only 39.00. Check out our previous Great Green Gadgets article here on kitchen composting.

If you house is like ours, we get a ton of junk mail everyday that goes straight to the recycle bin. (actually, its not quite a ton, the average person gets 41 pounds of junk mail a year) Most household waste consists of unsolicited mail and to no one’s surprise most junk mail is discarded unread and unopened. Over 100 million trees are ground up each year to make the paper for junk mail and a lot of junk mail, especially glossy catalogs, are difficult to recycle, as the inks have high concentrations of heavy metals.

Here is some information on free (or even get paid a dollar) ways for you personally to get rid of your junk mail. Some new websites like ProQuo.com and GreenDimes.com will do most of the grunt work for you so it is pretty easy. I signed up with the new site, ProQuo, that makes it easy to get rid of many of the prime culprits, like coupon ads, Credit Cards offers, insurance ads and the like. They also allow you to opt out of catalogs but you have to individually pick which ones you don’t want (and they have an offer to choose to get the catalog if you don’t already get it - which makes me wonder if this is where they hope to get their money from)

They also make it easy to get on the do not call registry (you go to another site) all and all the process was fairly quick and easy (they did require you to give them info like your address and social security number) this made me nervous at first but after investigating them a little, it seemed a legitimate request - you can do it without the social security number but they claim it isn’t as effective. It will take about 3 months to know for sure if this site delivers on its promise. They have some clever videos to promote their site (they must have gotten some serious startup cash to make all these professional promotional videos - but some of them are quite funny. (I liked the medieval junk mail the best)

Another site that looks very promising in stopping junk mail is Green Dimes, I haven’t tried it so I can’t comment too much, but they do offer to pay you a dollar and guarantee results.

If you don’t completely trust these sites with any of your personal information or think they are just out to make a buck off of you some how? I don’t blame you for thinking that way - So here are a couple of sites that give you some useful information on how you can do it all yourself. A wiki on getting rid of junk mail

And a very comprehensive series of articles on the problems of junk mail and how to get rid of it at
ecofuture.com

Are you tired of your kids leaving lights on in the house when you repeatedly tell them to turn them off when they leave a room? Are you tired of wasting electricity by turning the lights on and off according to the sunlight? Perhaps it’s time for the Aube Solar Timer Switch. This handy gadget is easy to install and runs on solar power, so it doesn’t expend any more energy than needed. You can set the timer to allow the lights to go on and off at a certain time of the night and turn off during the day. Because it is solar powered, it will allow the lights to go on and off when programmed in an eco friendly way. This could be a great way to save energy!

$39.99 at Smarthome

A blender to take camping or use next to the outdoor grill isn’t on my top ten list of things I wish for, however, some people might be thrilled that you can now mix up smoothies with an energy efficient and portable blender. This battery operated blender be recharged anywhere there is an outlet, blenders aren’t real energy hogs so you probably won’t save too much juice but being able to mix up your drinks off-grid is cause to celebrate. The Rechargeable Blender is lightweight but has a large pitcher for your outdoor gatherings (or during your next power outage)

$59.99 at Eco Geek Living

Looking for an earth friendly way to divide a room? Check out the rollable Bamboo Screen made from eco-friendly bamboo that contains no pesticides or harmful chemicals. Like any good homeowner, you are concerned about what you bring into your house and don’t want something filled with pesticides. This handy screen can partition off part of a room or even hide a computer, wires or something else that you want to keep out of everyone’s eyesight. The earth friendly Bamboo Screen is very sturdy and measures 8 feet in width and 6 feet in height so is perfect for just about every room in your house! Get some privacy in an eco-friendly way with the Bamboo Screen!

$269.00 at Real Goods