Author: Green Dude

Terracycle reuses / recycles sall sorts of stuff such as juice boxes and turns them into bags and totes.

They take e-wast and turn it into useful products … keeping waste out of the landfill.

"Made from 100% e-waste (such as crushed computers and fax machines) that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. These ingenious little pots help you garden sustainably! "

Via:  Terracycle.net  LINK

Small changes can save energy and can really add up.  Some changes are not hard to do at all … just put your mind to it.

" … simple changes in your life … can reduce the amount of C02 released into the atmosphere and help stop global warming. Be part of the solution"

"Run your dishwasher only with a full load. Save 100 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year."

Via:  stopglobalwarming.org   LINK

Enviance makes a carbon reporting system for the " … Apparently close to 61 percent of companies still don’t have any sort of carbon emissions tracking system in place."

" … Enviance Greenhouse Gas FastTrack program is specifically focused on businesses that need to comply with … requirements put in place by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency … call for companies to submit their first batch of information for fiscal year 2010 by March 31, 2011. …"

Via:  ZDNet  LINK

Movie theaters are embracing the the green movement including LEED.

" … theaters are making an effort to help viewers go green … including Georgia-based Carmike Cinemas … built a LEED-certified theater in Chattanooga, Tenn., which opened in November … "

" … Environmentally conscious theater construction and design are growing trends … Some theaters are installing solar panels … and using recycled building materials for new theaters and existing facilities that are under renovation."

Via: FORBES March 11, 2010

Coke is huge – and uses huge quantities lots of raw materials including water. Listen to Coke’s VP of the Environment talk about Coke’s activities for minimizing water use. " … using new water filtering and recovery technologies to bring the company’s water use down.”

Via: SmartPlanet LINK

Darden Restaurants – owner of Red Lobster and other restaurant brands – is embracing the USGBC LEED Standards.

" … launching a sustainable restaurant design initiative … will require that all new restaurants be built to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards … need to be built following the LEED Rating Systems code when feasible."

" … launching with eight restaurants that have been built, or are in the process of being built, to achieve LEED certification."

Via: FORBES LINK

Chicago’s ConEd is conducting an experiment to determine how consumers manage their energy use when they have metrics on use, cost and use patterns.  Home will be outfitted with solar panels and some homes will be allowed to sell back to the grid and others will not.

" … will install smart electric meters and price the homes’ electric use by the hour. Half of the homes will be able to gain credits by sending stored solar power back to the grid. The other half won’t be able to store their energy."

" … whether consumers have the ability, with this technology, to become little utilities. They will be able to buy and sell electricity at a real-time hourly price, which is very close to the wholesale price, from their homes."

Via:  SmartPlanet LINK

Porsche’s take on hybrid technology is a 918 Spyder that uses " … a plug-in hybrid system comprised of two electric motors coupled to a 3.4-liter V-8 racing engine … a parallel hybrid, the car can run on pure electricity, just gas, or a combination of the two."

It looks great … !

Via:  ZDNet  LINK

DASANI® Water (part of the Coca-Cola Company) is rolling our plant bottles in the western US.  These bottles have UP TO 30% plant-sourced plastic and are just as recyclable – 100% – as their normal #1 PET bottles.

" … Today, the plant-based material is made from sugar cane juice and/or molasses, which is a by-product of producing sugar."

" … in Denmark, 65 percent of PlantBottle packaging will come from a combination of recycled and plant-based material … "

" … Ultimately, our goal is to develop recyclable plastic bottles made from plant-based waste — thereby turning waste into a resource."

Via:  DASANI® LINK

Small day changes in our day to day activities can add up and make a real difference.  Here are some tips from greenandmore.com via: EPA USDOE and EnergyStar.gov that can help save energy, water and other resources:

"Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room. (www.epa.gov)"

" … microwave to cook small meals. It uses less power than an oven. (www.epa.gov)"

"Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can. (www.epa.gov)"

See LINK for the complete list. 

Via:  greenandmore LINK

More tips …

" … every (road) trip adds to air pollution. (www.italladdsup.gov)"

" … new lighting technologies can reduce lighting energy use in homes by 50%-75%. (www.eere.energy.gov)"

" … inspect your [clothes] dryer vent to ensure it is not blocked. (www.eere.energy.gov)"

Via:  greenandmore LINK

Dixon Golf’s "GREEN" golf balls are truly green – made with recycled materials and themselves recyclable.

" …first high-performance eco-friendly golf balls … all balls manufactured by Dixon Golf are "green" to the core … 100% recyclable and made from reprocessable materials … packaging is made from 100% recycled material."

Via: LINK

"PlanetSolar … topped by a large array of photovoltaic solar panels … will be both silent and clean. The goal is to navigate around the world at an average speed of 8 knots …"

" .. will be home to two sailors during the round-the-world attempt, and can accommodate up to fifty people during the promotional trips planned …"

Via:  PlanetSolar  LINK

GE has created a new water heater – a next generation – that saves energy by novel use of technology.  Advanced (for a water heater at least) technology from other areas like sophisticated controls, hybrid modes and heat pumps can result in a very energy efficient water heater.

" …  GE rethought every aspect of this appliance from the ground up. … can reduce water heater operating cost up to 62% and save $320 per year … "

" eHeat™ Mode (most energy efficient mode) … [using a heat pump] removes heat from the surrounding air, heats the water … Time required to heat water is longer in this mode, but should be adequate for normal demand households. … Hybrid Mode (default mode) Combines … eHeat with the recovery speed and power of standard electric. …  High Demand Mode … higher than average water usage … Standard Electric Mode … faster than all other modes but it is the LEAST energy-efficient mode."

A control panel at eye level allows for easy access  and control.  Leave it alone or use it as needed to customize your hot water needs . " … enables the vacation mode " …. system will drop the temperature set point to 50°F to save energy … preventing the water from freezing … automatically heats the water to the previous set temperature the day before you are expected to return. ..."

The GeoSpring electric heat pump water heater is the first residential electric water heater with an electronic back-lit LCD display. The panel features a user-friendly control system located at eye-level to eliminate the need to bend down to the floor to adjust temperature settings. Changing the mode and temperature is as easy as following the on-screen menu. This easy-to-use electronic control panel offers both simplicity and flexibility, giving consumers as much or as little control as they like.

Via:  GE LINK

Chemists at UCLA have created a "gene" that might capture CO2 and help control CO2 emissions.

"UCLA chemists report creating a synthetic "gene" that could capture … carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans."

" … taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner … no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science."

" … could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere."

" … invented a class of materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), sometimes described as crystal sponges … openings on the nanoscale … which … can store gases that are usually difficult to store and transport. …"

Via:  UCLA  LINK

The "Low Carbon World" website … www.LowCarbonEconomy.com – was officially launched today … [25-Feb-2010] …in Bali, Indonesia at the United Nations Environment Programme’s annual Governing Council. … joint project between Low Carbon Economy.com and the United Nation’s Climate Neutral Network … aims to facilitate the move to global low carbon economies, …"

" … will assist knowledge transfer and simplify access to information and tools that can be difficult to trace … will list every country’s carbon policies, commitments, historical performance, future projections and opportunities, …"

"Annual global greenhouse gas emissions should not exceed 40 to 48.3 Gigatonnes (Gt) of equivalent C02 in 2020, if a rise in global temperatures is to be curbed at 2 degrees C or less, whilst between 2020 and 2050, global emissions ideally need to fall by between 48 per cent and 72 per cent."

Via:  United Nations Environment Program LINK

The reasons to recycle are many and should be helpful to any business … lower  cost with less trash to dispose and pay for and "bragging rights" to promote are just two … Yet two very large "inductries" have not jumped on the recycling bandwagon …

" … a The New York Times article, Leaving the Trash Behind, explored the aviation industry’s massive contribution to global waste … millions of plastic bottles discarded at security checkpoints, but separate recycling containers in terminals or on board planes are not common. …no industry standard for recycling …"

"Recycling procedures vary by airline and airport. Environmental programs involve many entities … each of the nation’s 552 commercial "airports has its own way of handling waste."

" … Continental Airlines has been recycling oil, antifreeze and other aircraft maintenance products for two or three years. Recently it began onboard collection of bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard boxes. …"

" … Green America, an environmental group, started a campaign to get air travelers to report back on their website what airlines were recycling … to hold the industry accountable in enforcing their polities and to push them to do better."

" … medical centers are the second-largest waste producers in the United States, after the food industry. … In operating rooms, some items that are never even used are thrown away simply because they are taken out of their packaging and could have been contaminated."

Via: SmartPlanet LINK

BloomEnergy has announced a novel fuel cell and unlike typical fuel cells if does not require precious metal catalysts. Fuel cells are typcially "cleaner" than other power sources.

" ..  an innovative new fuel cell technology … derived from a common sand-like powder … technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,… practically anywhere,… from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels."

" … Energy Servers™ are among the most efficient energy generators on the planet; providing for significantly reduced electricity costs and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions … "

" … Originally called Ion America, Bloom Energy, was founded with the mission to make clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone on earth."

" … After two years of successful field trials in Tennessee, California, and Alaska, to validate the technology, the first commercial (100kW) products were shipped to Google in July 2008."

" … Bloom’s Energy Servers have helped our customers generate millions of kWhs of electricity and eliminate millions of pounds of CO₂ from the environment."

Via:  BloomEnergy LINK

David de Rothschild has built a boat from recycled plastic bottles and plans to sail it from San Francisco in the US to Sydney, Australia. 

 Yes he is from the famous Rothschild family. 

The boat and crew will travel in a green manner (composting toilets and vertical green garden fertilized by composted poop) Power for on board electronics comes from solar cells and wind turbines.  The boat uses glue made from cashew nuts.

Follow the journey and check out the web site for lots of geen info.

Via:  Plastiki  LINK

Along the lines of which is better for the environment – paper or plastic bags is the "which is better for the environment" paper or digital format for documents.  Bet you are leaning towards digital — I am.

" … main selling points … of eReaders is that they are greener than print. … common view held by consumers … is that going digital means going green and saving trees. Many are in for a rude awakening. … subjected to ‘cradle-to-cradle’ life cycle analysis, eReading is not nearly as green as many naively assume it is."

" … Computers, eReaders, and cell phones don’t grow on trees and their spiraling requirement for energy is unsustainable."

" … digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man…."

Via:  ZDNet  LINK

" … The number of affordable, energy-efficient modular homes continues to increase as Pennsylvania-based builder Excel Homes offers a new line aimed at first-time buyers … targeted to be sold for under $100,000, and depending on region, for as low as $60,000. …"

" … Excel Homes … has built 28,000 modular homes since its founding in 1984 …  built in sect

ions … in Liverpool, Pa., and Marlboro, N.Y., and transported … where they are assembled… come with the government’s Energy Star label for energy efficiency … prices do not include the cost of land…."

Via: USAToday LINK