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Protect Your Treasures With a Sari Jewelery Roll
Treat your baubles with a little TLC, a sure way to extend their longevity, by wrapping them in a soft jewelery roll hand-stitched from salvaged cotton saris and secured with a loop-and-button closure. A snap-down strap anchors rings, while three pouches (two zippered, one buttoned) can be filled with your other jewels. One of a kind, each $48 roll will vary in fabric print and color; you could probably check with the store to see what they have in stock, however, if you're allergic to surprises.A couple more designs below the fold. ::Sundance CatalogSee also:

One Rock 'N Roll Concept: the Rocking Wheel Chair
Though technically a rocking chair, we think "rocking & rolling chair" might be a more appropriate moniker for this spacey concept. For anyone who wasn't impressed with the "Think" reading lamp/chair combo, hold on to your hats...seriously; if the "Rocking Wheel Chair" concept by student designer Mathias Koehler doesn't bowl you over, we don't know what will. Though it looks like something that would be more at home in a cheesy, futuristic, over-the-top alien flick, we love the way the "rocking" functionality has been integrated with the overhead reading lamp (no

Make a Grocery Run with the Cart Bike
The Cart Bike doesn't turn corners very well, admits the second-prize winner of our TreeHugger/Popular Science/Instructables Go Green contestplus, we're not entirely clear how stable the setup would be with a week's worth of groceriesbut it's still a nifty concept if you happen to find a derelict shopping cart gone astray.Besides the bicycle and shopping cart (thank you, Captain Obvious), you'll need socket and hex-key sets, a dremel tool, a utility k...

Green Basics: Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs
Commonly referred to as CFLs, compact fluorescent lamps or compact fluorescent lightbulbs have escaped the stereotype of buzzing, flickery, washed-lights to become one of the poster children for consumers taking action in the modern green movement. The bulbs, which can replace incandescent, halogen and other electric lights around your house, use between 60% and 80% less energy than their incandescent counterparts, making them an increasingly popular way to cut energy use without having to make any radical changes, like replace your lighting fixtures or rewire your house, in many cases. In addition to using a fraction of the energy, CFLs have a much longer usable li...

How to Upcycle Gift Cards
We all get themgift cards, that issimply because it's the most-convenient present you can give someone you haven't melded minds with. So unless you've openly vocalized your disdain for what are essentially plastic disposables, chances are, you have a steadily accumulating collection of hard plastic gift cards that most people tend to chuck in the trash.One graphic designer decided to hack the cards she received into smaller mosaic-sized pieces she then pieced together by brushing on a layer of PVA glue. Stick a piece of cork behind the tiles and voila! instant coaster (And instant gift, if you're not afraid of being called chintzy.)

Eco-Tip: Narrow Your Word Document Margins
Tamara Krinsky has a remarkably simple idea to conserve paper: Set your word document's margin settings as narrow as possible before you send it to the printer. Krinsky was an aspiring (read: starving) actress/writer, who had to print sheaves of scripts and articles, when the brainwave hit her. Narrower margin settings mean you can squeeze in more text per page, which in turn reduces the number of sheets of paper you'll need. For a person of very limited means, Krinsky says, these savings matter. "When a single paycheck stands between making rent at the end of the month and getting an eviction notice," she writes on her Web site, "you ...

Eco-Tip: Widen Your Word Document Margins
Tamara Krinsky has a remarkably simple idea to conserve paper: Set your word document's margin settings as wide as possible before you send it to the printer. Krinsky was an aspiring (read: starving) actress/writer, who had to print sheaves of scripts and articles, when the brainwave hit her. Wider margin settings mean you can squeeze in more text per page, which in turn reduces the number of sheets of paper you'll need. For a person of very limited means, Krinsky says, these savings matter. "When a single paycheck stands between making rent at the end of the month and getting an eviction notice," she writes on her Web site, "you do wh...

Have a Lightbulb Moment in the "Think" Chair
From designers Huseyin Sami and Gary Galego comes one interpretation of what might happen if a chair and a reading lamp had a lovechild. Inspired by the clichd image borrowed from cartoons -- you know, when a character has just had a really good idea; a "lightbulb" moment, if you will -- the hybrid chair/lamp also takes it name, "Think," from this moment. Though we aren't wild about the beach showerhead aesthetics, it's a pretty slick idea in a sleek little package, and we always like the multi-functional mashup. Why have two when you just need one? ::Gary Galego via ...

Office Depot's Green Guide
Office Depot now has a dedicated Buy Green portal, but it's only accessible via the company's Home Page through a teensy-weensy link near the very bottom of the screen, which makes us wonder why it even bothered in the first place. Seriously, we've seen potty trainers who are prouder of the fact that they made it all the way to the bathroom without an accident.You can also peruse a Green Buyer's Guide that directs you to selections of Office Depot's eco-friendly wares by category, something t...

Solar Powered Blogging on a Bike Trip
Steve Paine is an Englishman in Germany who has undertaken a pleasant journey by bike, and is blogging the whole trip by solar-powered PC. He is travelling down to Southern Germany, along the Rhein, which should take around 7 days. ...

Audi Looking to the Future at TechDay
At an event called Audi TechDay, the German car maker outlined some plans they have for conserving fuel in future models. They include a satellite navigation system that takes economy into account, as well as time and distance, and a training system that teaches people to drive in a more fuel efficient manner by analyzing their driving style and, "giving tips accordingly"....

Foodfight! A Farm Bill Showdown
Fresh from the unfalteringly inventive Free Range Studiosthe same creative crew that brought us Store Wars and The Meatrixcomes The Farm Bill Food Battle, a funny-bone-tickling short featuring Apple and Snack Cake as they duke it out for supremacy over

Hova Design's FabricPots: Lightweight, Durable Flower Pots
In a great example of form following function, Hova Design's FabricPots eschew the more traditional clay in favor of recycled polyester and recyclable plastic for plant and flower pots, checking in at just 1/4 the weight of their earthenware brethren. The "the worlds first decorative containers made from waterproof and breathable fabric" helps the soil aerate and breathe, and the lightweight, collapsible design cuts back on shipping weight and volume as well. Much like something you might see on a Nau garment, the sleeves, which rely on the volume of soil for stability, allow air and water ...

Yoko Ono: I Will Never Ride a Hybrid
We always Yoko Ono was a tough, kooky old broadone who undoubtedly marched to the beat of her own drum (as genteelly as we can put it), but cool, nonetheless, not least because she was joined in connubial bliss with the Walrus himself.But now the Ono has gone on record snubbing hybrid cars. All of them, apparently, which we find hard to believe. "Can someone make Hybrid cars as comfortable as a Bentley, please?" she says. (The

Interview with The 11th Hour co-directer Nadia Conners
Nadia Conners (left on picture) co-directed The 11th Hour with her sister Leila Conners Petersen (right). I had the opportunity to first interview Leila a couple of weeks ago. Now with the growing success of the film, it only made sense to get the perspective about the making of the movie from Nadia. TH - What are your hopes for how people react to the film?Nadia - We are at a time where everyone living has to be part of this solution. It is a matter of how deep you want to go. I hope the film will outrage then inspire the existing movement to take it up a notch. Does t...

Tom Dixon to give away 1,000 CFL Lights
Designer Tom Dixon did a green number in Trafalgar Square at last year's London Design Festival; this year he is taking over the square with a large scale installation of 500 energy saving lights. From the press release:"In collaboration with the Energy Saving Trust and working with Glowb low energy light bulbs, the 500 lights will be skilfully displayed in a chandelier cluster hung from state of the art scaffolding.nspired by the shape of a light bulb, Tom has specifically designed Blow a white opaque light, that uses a low-energy compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). With plans afoot to b...

RIP Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon
The Passenger Pigeon was once the most common bird in America, perhaps five billion strong. During migration, flocks would be 300 miles long, a mile wide and take days to pass by. Then pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food for slaves and the poor. John James Audubon described a slaughter: "Few Pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of persons, with horses and wagons, guns and ammunition, had already established encampments on the borders. Two farmers from the vicinity of Russelsville, distant more than a hundred miles, had driven upwards of three hundred hogs to be fattened on the pigeons which were to be slaughtered. Here and there, the people emp...

Go Tell It on the Mountain
Talk about an end-of-term kiss off: You've already heard that the Bush administration is proposing a rule to allow its BFF, the coal industry, the wherewithal to pollute where they want, when they wantby blasting the tops of once-pristine mountains and letting the debris tumble into valleys and streams, uprooting families, and poisoning aquifers.Here's a video about the destruction wrecked by mountaintop removal co...

Umbra Store Lit by Compact Fluorescents
If anyone wants to see how wonderful compact fluorescents really can be if you are a designer with talent, visit the new Umbra store in Toronto, designed by John Shnier of Kohn Shnier Architects, the designers of the big Muskoka modern prefab. Working with Christopher Wright of design 3, they built this giant chandelier out of Flow table lamps, designed by David Quan. According to Azure, Wright sketched out a plan for one fixture made out of 12 Flow lamps, but it worked out so well that they made fivev to hang in a row. ...

A Picture is Worth ... What's For Supper?
Photo credit: David Liittschwager and Susan MiddletonCynthia Vanderlip, manager of the State of Hawaii's Kure Atoll Wildlife Sanctuary, cut open the body of a fledgling Laysan albatross (nicknamed "Shed Bird") to find more than half a pound of plastic in its stomach.Concentrated on the right are all the items retrieved from inside the bird: Plastic lighters, bottle caps, and other plastics that are carelessly tossed often wind up floating on the ocean surface, where they are occasionally consumed by foraging seabirds and other marine creatures.Larger images, if you can, y'know, stomach them, can be found below.

Using Reflective Dishes to Raise Solar Potential
Once primarily the key component for chipmakers, silicon has rapidly become a hot commodity in the burgeoning market for renewable energy with rising demand for solar panels prompting a drastic decline in its global supply. This had spurred a worldwide search for alternatives to the precious element as scientists and businessmen race to anticipate further growth in the solar market over the coming years. A team of researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University, led by David Faiman, believe they may just have found a viable alternative in

Conscious Designs: You + Design = Happiness
The guys at New Zealand's Conscious Design have been hard at work ever since winning Design Institute of New Zealand's BeST Award last year. Recognized for Tio, a lounge chair with the chameleon-like ability to change colors at the drop of a hat to match any interior, they've been moving forward with the idea that "design makes everything easier, faster, more efficient and more intuitive." As they continue to design, holding sustainability and functionality in equally high regard, products like this dining table have been the result...

Strange But True: Norway Announces First "Ecological Prison"
Prisons probably aren't the first buildings that spring to mind when you think about green design and architecture. Yet one small island in Norway is set to change that perception with the recent introduction of the "world's first ecological prison" a facility powered by solar energy that will put its inmates to work coordinating daily operations, such as recycling and food production, and learning their part to protect the environment. Norwegian authorities hope to thus instill a sense of responsibility in their inmates and to better prepare them for an eco-conscious life once they leave the prison. The facility, which is located on Bastoey Island (abou...

How Kids Can Make Money, Save the Planet
Photo credit: Digital SextantHawking candy bars and magazines for your basketball team is so old school. Meet Fundraising 2.0: Kids can get their mitts on some much-needed green, while learning to be more environmentally and socially conscious, whether it's by collecting used printer cartridges for recycling, or touting fair-trade stationery, natural body-care products, or green-biz coupon books. Kids living in Wisconsin can even help market

Put a Double Entendre in Your Garden
We have noted previously that in the UK rainwater barrels are called water butts, so we suppose it was inevitable that somebody was going to design this. Whatever gets you into rainwater harvesting. Designed by Gerardine & Wayne Hemingway, who should know better. ::Waterbutts.com via ::Shedblog...

Sympatex Ecocycle SL - Recycled Waterproofing
Sympatex, whilst not wearing the most inspiring of trademark names is a fabric that has for the last 20 or so years dogged the heels of the better known Gore-Tex. Both a fabrics which use a membrane laminate to produce materials, which are both waterproof and breathable. Thus ideal for outdoor sports garments. Gore-Tex is made from expanded Teflon, and coated with a thin layer of polyurethane to prevent contamination by oils, like sun cream, etc. Sympatex, on the other hand, is made from 100% polyester, of the same base molecules found in PET drink bottles. It is therefore the more recyclable of the two. This characteristic made it suitable for the holistic extender producer ...

Lafumas Eco Pack Wins More Awards
When we saw that Lafuma had won another award for their Eco 40 Rucksack we knew it was time to dig around the notes weve had gathering dust since this product was released. During 2007 it has scored two gongs. First, the French Etoile de l'Observeur du Design and just last month the Ispo Performance Award for Eco-responsibility. The awards jury concluded that Lafuma submitted the most convincing product with the Eco 40 Backpack in the Eco Responsibility category. Company philosophy, planning, manufacturing and recycling of the products are all in line with sustainability. To reduce any harm to the environment to a minimum, Lafuma uses natural materials in product processing, for ex...

Quote of the Day: Wiliam McDonough on the Triple Top Line
The conventional design criteria is a tripod: Can we profit from it? the company asks. Will the customer find it attractive? And will it work? Champions of "sustainable development" like to use a "triple bottom line" approach based on the tripod of Ecology, Equity, and Economy. ...But in practice we find that it often appears to center only on economic considerations, with social or ecologic benefits considered as an afterthought rather than given equal weight at the outset. Businesses calculate their conventional economic profitability and add what they perceive to be the social benefits, with perhaps, some reduction in enviro...

Bridgestone Firestone Turns Old Factory Into Eco-Oasis for Kids
What to do when youve made the business decision to close a plant in one city and move elsewhere? Well, many would look to sell the property outright, but Bridgestone Firestone has taken a different point of view, donating 60 acres of the land surrounding the recently shuttered Dayton Tire plant in Oklahoma City for the construction of a badly needed elementary school and nature reserve in that city. Granted, it was a bittersweet moment for many residents as 1,400 jobs left town in the process, but it looks to me like their children seem set to benefit from the best of a difficult situation.Lets face it, kids in urban areas often dont have access to gre...

Free Insecticide Treated Bednets Cut Childhood Malaria-Caused Deaths Up To 44%
No outdoor insecticide spraying is needed to make dramatic progress against childhood malaria. Indoor residual spraying (IRS) also is not needed to achieve the 44% protection rate mentioned in our headline (although IRS could be added to boost effectiveness). There is a caveat: the study we are referring to, by the Malaria Control Department of the Kenyan Ministry of Health, demonstrates that one of the most effective resources to protect against malaria, pesticide treated bed nets, have to be "free" or the highest level of effectiveness won't be reached. Reinforcing the long standing, rational position of environmentalists, the Kenyan work demonstrates that m...

Energy Harvesting Rolling Sneaker Recharges Your Routine
Artists Christian Croft and Kate Hartman hacked a Heely rolling sneaker to "transform it into a platform for generating electricity from human motion." That's the hacking, now the art: This work applies its energy towards a more playful application in hopes to promote discussion in the realm of sustainable energy development and alternative transportation design. Electricity harvested from rolling powers a microcomputer and lcd display embedded on the shoe to deliver random directions for a pedestrian to follow. Arrows and text show up on the screen display telling the wearer which direction she should travel next -- North, Northeast, Southwest, etc. Depending on the speed of rolling, ...

Used Skateboards Become a Fashion Statement
Remember those cool earrings we found at BTC Elements a few months back? Here's another great pair, this time made from old skateboards! Although we've seen accessories made from these rides before, these earrings truly are one-of-a-kind. Designer Lindsay Jo Holmes hated to see old and damaged boards go to waste so she now collects them from her local skate shop (she bakes them cookies in exchange) and shapes the wood into jewelry. One side of the ...

Bloom Energy: Getting Off the Electrical Grid
Business 2.0, in what may be it's last issue, lists "10 game-changing startups most likely to upend existing industries" including Bloom Energy, which moves the source of electricity from the central plant to your home, where a fuel cell converts almost any hydrocarbon fuel- ethanol, biodiesel, mathan or natural gas- into electricity. The solid-oxide fuel cells produce half the greenhouse gas of conventional burning, but the real savings comes from eliminating the transmission losses between the central plant and home. But it is not really getting off the grid, it still needs hydrocarbons and a delivery network for them; would renewables like sun and wind not be a better investment? Useless site a...

Healthy Office Plants
Houseplants at home and in the office do more than just look pretty. They help clean the air that we breathe as well as make us feel less alienated in the artificial environments that pass for offices now. Modern office buildings spew out hundreds of chemicals from the new carpets, paints, upholstery, computers and plastics. A study carried out by Chichester College confirms the advantages of having house plants around because they make our environment a healthier place in which to live and work. Researchers have found that one potted plant per 100 square feet of floor space can help clean the air. The students rated the most effective plants and the ubiquitous

National Wetlands Newsletter From ELI Examines Developments Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Washington, DC On August 29, 2005, Hurricanes Katrina wrought devastation of historic proportions on the Gulf Coast and its people. Shortly thereafter, Hurricane Rita struck the Texas-Louisiana border. In the two years since, much work has taken place. Last April, the state of Louisiana issued the Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Louisianas Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. And the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to issue its Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restorati...

Culture and Heritage for Sustainable Development: Bioregional Lavender
Our series of posts on the varied activities of the London-based Bioregional Development Group has so far seen us look at ground-breaking schemes to localize paper recycling, charcoal production and wood-chip manufacture from urban forestry waste. Each of these schemes has taken on a particular industry and radically rethought the supply ch...

This Month In Wired: Drilling Deep
These are the depths to which we will go for oil: 30,000 feet. Grist's Amanda Griscom Little describes the process: First drop that drill through two miles of water, then through 20,000 feet of rock and sediment to find that layer of oil. Finding it was tough enough; getting it out will cost billions. ::Wired1) Stable platformGiant engines at each corner of the drilling rig keep everything stable. When the ocean pulls one way, the thrusters push the other.2) The 6-mile DrillThe drill is made up of hundreds of interlocking 90-foot sections of ...

"Frog Disruptor In My Soap", Revisited
This post is about a marketing paradox. It's about a product ingredient advertised for its ability to protect our health, which it does well in professional health care settings, but which may, indirectly, have the potential to do the opposite in consumer product applications. Previously we mentioned the surprising number of personal care products that contain very small amounts of the anti-bacterial compound Triclosan. Although Triclosan has an important role in keeping hospitals and clinics sterile, wide spread use of the compound in non-essential, dilute formulations for personal care products ...

Stainless Steel Tower Floats On Water
In a century of operations, coal mining in the German town of Goitzsche took out 315 million tons of lignite; that leaves a lot of big holes in the ground. The remediation plan included flooding ten square miles of it to create recreational lakes. As a "symbol of the demise of the 20th century industrial world" and to "denote a transition toward respect for earth, water and air," (and as a tourist attraction) they built a pegelterm, or water level tower, 85 feet high, with a double helical staircase, one up and one down, spiralling around it. A giant stainless steel pin is anchored into the ground and the entire stainless steel tower floats, like an oversized sock moving on the pin and risi...

TH Blog Love - Our Favourite Greens Of The Week
Environmental Leader: Enterprise, GM, VeraSun, Kroger Step Up FlexFuel Marketing Efforts. "Enterprise Rent-A-Car has dubbed one of its Cincinnati rental locations as an official VE85/FlexFuel branch. On June 28, a similar VE85/FlexFuel branch was announced in Washington, D.C. VeraSun Energy Corporation and The Kroger Co. announced the opening of 20 VE85 fueling locations at Kroger convenience stores in Ohio and Kentucky."Green...

Greenpeace Gets It Right: More Wind Power In Erie A Good Idea
Lookout Cleveland, Ontario Canada can come compete directly with you for renewable electricity (if they want to). As before, we're talking about the wind farm potential of Lake Erie, one of the more shallow of the Great Lakes (pictured with depth intervals shown). We've lambasted Greenpeace a few times for sweating the little stuff on electronics. But when they get it right, like on this issue, credit is due. A glance at the bathymetric map of Lake Erie, as pictured, makes it perfectly clear that there's plenty of shallow areas where wind turbines could be set, assuming the wind profiles also are good. So why not Ontario?"Greenpeace dispatched the MY (Motor Yach...