Turn this recycling clutter into top of the line stylish recycle center

Mode™ Premium Home Recycling Center $299.95 from williams-sonoma.com
Perfect for the affluent neat-nick who needs to reduce clutter at any cost by home recycling in orderly and luxuriant style.

This Mode home recycle center has a built-in compactor to crush cans and plastic bottles to help save energy on reducing the frequency of walking to your outdoor recycle container or pickup. No electricity – just the power of the foot pedal – so you will need to expend some energy. The extra time you will spend neatly arranging your newspapers, magazines and junk mail to fit into the small area for paper will allow you opportunity to slow down from a busy, hectic day and perhaps reflect on why did you every buy this thing!

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

Here is another great You Tube video about electronic waste dumping.

When we think about green gadgets we need to consider where they will eventually end up. As this Greenpeace video shows, many of our computers, monitors and other electronics which contain many highly toxic components may be dumped in electronics waste yards in places like Ghana where extreme poverty and lax or non-existent environmental laws encourage e-waste dumping.This related article from Greenpeace explains further.

Make your own seltzer water and soda $89.00
Penguin Model from SodaClub

I’ve been a soda and sparkling water water addict for ages and despite always recycling I still feel guilt over using so much plastic or aluminum from my little vice. Now that I found from the EcoChick Blog out about how to indulge your fizzy jones without all the demon PET I feel even more guilty. One solution that seems promising is to join Sodastream, a Israeli company that makes home carbonation systems, 25 different flavored soda types, carbonating bottles and CO2 gas.

You just pour cold tap water into the device, press a button a few times to force the CO2 into the water (adjust for your taste in fizzyness) and you have a liter of seltzer water.

They offer various models, functionality and pricing of their fountain jet systems that are powered by proprietary carbonators filled with beverage-grade CO2 cartridges. When your cartridge is empty you arrange online to get a new replacement and send the empty to be refilled. The cheapest refill carbonator kit they offer is $25.00 (for 2 cartridges) – enough for 120 liters. Their pricing of other option on refill options are rather confusing on their website – be sure to check what your ultimate cost will be with the model you get and whether you want exchange cartridges or spare. You will also need to plan out when you’ll need a new refill as they don’t send it automatically.

The biggest advantage is in dramatically reducing the plastic in your life. Other perks are not having to lug heavy cases of soda and the reduced transportation costs of shipping ( do we really need to ship our sparkling water from France or Fiji?)

If you are a big soda drinker you could save some real money after awhile as their reusable 1-liter PET bottle goes for $0.20 per liter and flavored sodas for around $0.57 per liter. If you follow their instructions you can also save more money by flavoring your own water with juice or other flavoring of your own making. The flavorings cost $8.00 for a 100 ml bottle which makes about 40 liters of flavored seltzer.

If you want the classier designed Penguin model it will run you 249.99 for the model with all the perks and $199.99 for the “starter kit” version, it uses more elegent glass carafes rather than the PET liter bottles used with the less expensive Fountain Jet models. With the Penguin model you also get more soda mix.

If you are looking to save more money the Fountain Jet White Home Soda Maker seems a reasonable price at 159.99 which includes 3, 60-liter Carbonators makes about 180 liters of seltzer, 4 Carbonating Bottles, and you choose 8 Flavoring bottles (SodaMix) enough to make 96 Liters. Other models are also available.