You don’t see these around every day! Very unusual but, yet, very festive! Solar powered grass will look great nestled in around your trees or along the walkway. Each set has three sprigs of grass which you can set to steady or blinking. Get thinking of all the places you can put these!
$19.99 at Amazon
These decorative bowls are made from real vinyl records. You can use them for dry snacks or decorative pieces. They can be purchased from Amazon.com
Not only are these clever little dryer balls designed to soften fabrics without the use of chemical-laden softeners, they also reduce drying time by up to 25%. They’ll even make ironing easier and reduce lint production.
A pack of 3 sets of boxes of 2 balls costs $48.00 Amazon
$19.95 at nexusgadgets
What a cool idea, a solar led light and water bottle all in one. On your next hiking trip take this along to use as a water bottle through the day to drink from and to store up power with its built-in solar panel which will power a LED lantern for nighttime use. It has not only has your standard white LED light mode but also a blinking red light “help” mode.
Great short video from Greenpeace on the destruction of Ocean life from Bottom Trawling factory ships and overfishing in general. If you want to eat only fish that are caught in a sustainable manner, check out
The World Wildlife Federation’s website on sustainable fishing.
Yesterday the NYTimes had a great article on how American’s preference for using soft toilet tissue is terrible for the environment. The soft, fluffy toilet paper like Charmin can only be made from tree fiber and not recycled paper. Toilet paper made from recycled paper works fine and is used in many European countries. The NYT article quotes Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resource Defense Council, saying “No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper”
Each year we use billions of rolls of toilet paper in the U.S. which means at least 15 million trees cut down,including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests. This also involves billions of gallons of water to produce the paper and hundreds of thousands of tons of chlorine for bleaching purposes. I’ve read that it takes approximately 13 gallons of water to make one roll of toilet paper.
Here is an eco-friendly shopper’s guide for home tissue products by the The Natural Resources Defense Council. On this chart it shows 365 (Whole Foods) brand currently you best green option with it’s 100% recycled paper with greater than 80% post-consumer content.
We should put pressure on tissue manufacturers to stop using virgin wood for toilet paper but in the mean time we can start by learning to adjust using more eco-friendly toilet tissue that is more important to be easier on the environment than our bums.
Have you gone Local yet? Is not having a garden or any local farmer’s market near you open for the winter is stopping you. One solution is to preserve food that you pick from your garden or from the farmer’s market in the summer to enjoy year round. It will be worth the hassle to not only enjoy healthy eating year round but also knowing that you are doing everything possible to help the environment by reducing your purchase of produce shipped in from thousands of miles away.
Freezing, freeze drying and canning may be the first method you think of and may offer a greater range of options but typically are more time consuming, energy intensive and expensive. Food drying is perhaps the easiest and affordable preservation method and if you make your own solar-powered food dryer it can be even cheaper. For some people electric dryers aren’t as satisfying as drying food with free solar energy, especially ones you make yourself.
This link to a Mother Earth News article that explains you can make your own Solar Food Dryer.
THE SOLAR FOOD DRYER by Eben Fodor $14.95
For more complete instructions and information on making a solar food dryer, you can purchase the book from Mother Earth News.
If you don’t have the time or energy for big do it yourself projects and using electricity off the grid isn’t a problem then you might consider checking out food dehydrators such as the excalibur at canning pantry.com they offer an affordable smaller unit, the excalibur dehydrator 2400 for $109.95
and the excalibur dehydrator 2900 for 209.95, better for families with 9 trays and a total of 15 square feet of drying area.
Canning Pantry also offer a comprehensive book about food drying, recipes and more that might be useful. Preserve It Naturally – 3rd Edition $24.95
The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre has a massive spiral of floating plastic crap floating over an area estimated from the size of Texas to bigger than the continental United States. Most of this plastic is from run-off from rivers and streams from around the world, much of it gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces that eventually become as small as plankton. Already in vast areas of the ocean these plankton-sized particles outnumber the real particles by greater than 7 : 1.
This plastic can also act as a chemical sponge soaking up and concentrating all kinds of nasty chemicals which then enter the food chain with devastating impact to all kinds of marine life, birds and perhaps eventually returning back to us in new deadly forms. This is an complex and urgent issue we should all learn as much as possible about and put pressure on politicians to reduce and eliminate plastic pollution as much as possible and to launch campaigns to start to clean up the oceans.
Here is a great video, The Sythetic Sea and below are some great links for information on this issue.
Synthetic Sea
World biggest garbage dump – plastic in the Ocean
Trashed great article and site by Mindfully.org on plastic in the ocean.
Plastic Soup Flash presentation on the Alguita oceanographic research voyage into the great pacific garbage patch.
The Trash Vortex Greenpeace article on this issue.
Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch wikipedia
Sea of Trash – NYT article 6/22/08
Indigo LED Lantern from Freeplay Energy
$50.00 at econsciousmarket.com and Grist
The Indigo LED Lantern uses several ultra-bright LEDs for general illumination along with a single uni-directional LED for use as a reading light or flashlight. It can be powered by a wind-up self charging feature that will charge the rechargeable battery with about 60 seconds of winding and provide enough power to light up the LED at the lowest setting for 2 hours. A full charge will give you enough power to use the brightest “ultra-bright” setting for 2 hours and the other lower settings for up to 35 to 70 hours.
It also features a dimmer switch to control the brightness and will also allow you to extend the time between charges. The LEDs are rated to last 100,000 hours. Great for outdoor nighttime activities and to keep around in case of emergencies.
GoblinAero – Human Power / Power Assist Model at Goblin Motors from $4995 standard human powered to the $6445 motor assisted with all the bells and whistles.
Goblin Motors
GoblinAero is a human-powered or motor assisted velomobile from Goblin Motors that will be available February 2009. This could be an awesome solution to the once again rising gas prices – and you know it will only go higher – maybe much higher. (which might not be so bad when you thing about it) The motor assisted option Goblin has either a Honda 35cc or 50cc engine which can give you up to 150 miles a gallon. Great for errands such as trips to the supermarket – the rear truck can hold 5 bags of groceries. Maybe even your daily commute to work. Can get up to 30 mph on a flat surface and is able to drive up steep hills with no problem – tested on the 9000ft Mt. Lemmon in Tucson, Az. It has 8″ disc brakes and as this vehicle is such a head-turner most people will likely take notice and give you lots of room which should enhance safety. If we could only melt down some hummers and recycle them into these!
