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Carlo Giovani's 3D Paper Forest
We can't tell if the paper sculptures were made from recycled fibers, but you gotta admit, it's a brilliant and impressive tableau. And like William McDonough has pointed out so often, nature doesn't know waste, so why must we? ::Carlo Giovani...

Pomme Recycled Bag
Tonight's cool autumn breeze reminds us that apple-picking season is just around the bend. This hand-sewn tote, made in the South of France, is perfect for filling with the crisp red and yellow fruit. Made from linen and recycled denim, the bag is lined with blue-and-white non-organic (alas) cotton ticking and comes with one large interior pocket for stashing stray acorns and loose change.Heavy recycled canvas form the handles; you get your choice of three different handle colors. ::Three Potato Four...

Wal-Mart to Sell Only Concentrated Laundry Detergent Category by 2008
Photo credit: crawfishpieSo what was Wal-Mart's big ol' Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitment? Well kids, CEO H. Lee Scott's gang has pledged to sell only concentrated laundry detergent in all of its U.S. stores by early May 2008. More than that, the company is going to "be a catalyst for the transformation of the entire liquid laundry detergent category across the retail industry and save vast amounts of natural resources," according to a press release. (We have no idea what that means, but it sure sounds fancy.)"People ex...

Wangari Maathai "Unbowed" and Unbroken
You'll find nothing easier than growing a tree, Dr. Wangari Maathai told a rapt audience at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City last Tuesday. "Just dig a hole, plant the seed, the Lord provides the rain, and lo and behold!" Maathai was in town promoting her memoir, Unbowedwhich we've been told has climbed to the No. 27 spot on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of Oct. 7and, of course, to speak of her favorite subject:

A Picture is Worth...Implications of Global Warming
Stop global warming...or else. Hit the jump to see what happens when pigs and corn enters this equation. ::Eternally Cool via ::Notcot.org...

Splat: Flat-Packing Hideaway Dish Rack
Perfect for this mini-kitchen, this one, or any smallish cooking space, the Splat Dish Rack collapses flat for easy storage and to get out of the way when your dishes are dry; it also can be punched from a single, flat sheet of material. Flat pack may be so two weeks ago, but it's still awesomely space-saving and quite functional for the less-is-more-enthusiast. Hit the jump for pics of the rack in action.

TreeHugger Mom Says, It's In The Bin!
Ever wonder where TreeHugger writers get their inspiration and spunk? Meet a TreeHugger mom, Patsy from Newmarket, Ontario. Israel's writer Karin is back in the Canadian nest for a few weeks where she discovers her mother's latest environmental passion: the new green bin collection program. Patsy says, the bin is in! In an effort to reduce landfill (by up to 65%) York Region has developed a large-scale organic waste compost collection. Diapers, kitty litter, cooked meat products and even used microwave popcorn bags can go in the bin. The city comes and...

TH Forums Highlights: Kitty Litter, Green Limos + More
Shake off that case of the Monday's over at TreeHugger Forums...1) Forums user megsmind wants to get down and dirty with kitty litter: "I'm currently using corn-cob cat litter. It's ungodly expensive and doesn't seem to mask oder at all... is it any better/worse then traditional clay litter? Is there another...

U.S. Navy Barracks' Swastika Formation to be Camouflaged
The U.S. Navy has budgeted $600,000 to obscure the fact that one of its building complexes resembles the infamous Nazi symbol from the air.The amphibious base at Coronado, Calif., constructed in the late '60s, serves as barracks for Seabees. From ground level and inside nearby buildings, the controversial shape cannot be seen. Neither are there any civilian or military landing patterns to provide such a view to airline passengers. But Google Earth changed all that when satellite images how much the configuration of four L-shape buildings looked like a swastika.Additional walkways, "camouflage" landscaping, and rooftop photovoltaic cells are now being drafted to change how the building look...

I Can Do That, Too! Climate Cleverer Spoof
This weekend just past saw the playing of the Grand Final of the Australian Football League (AFL), akin to the US Super Bowl. Aside from watching one team win their first premiership in over 40 years, 2.57 million viewers (the biggest TV audience of the year) also saw GetUps spoof climate change advert. Fashioned after the Federal governments television ad for their Climate Clever initiative, this cheeky parody by an Aussie political activist...

Mexican Mega Developer to Build Ecological Houses
The housing market is shifting green even in Mexico and one of the country's largest developers has introduced a new scheme to build more ecological housing and cities. Geo, which builds more than 50,000 houses in Mexico a year, many of them small and low-cost for first-time buyers, says that features like more gardens and energy efficient technology will improve the quality of life of residents in its communities.Part of the plan is to offer green mortgages that would provide home buyers with financial incentives to build green."We now have houses with solar panels, passive solar water heaters and we plan to increase the number of developments with them," said Eduardo Muiz Urqui...

Graham & Brown Eco-wallpaper
Five new hip eco-friendly wallpaper patterns are the result of a design challenge given to 22 students at Central St. Martins University in London. Wallpaper/wall art company Graham & Brown asked the students to design fashion-conscious sustainable wallpaper to add to the company's line. The five designs chosen from the competition will now go into production. The final wallpaper uses materials sourced from sustainable forests in Finland and keeps packaging to a minimum by removing the need for any tape or plastic. The company even recycles heat given off by furnaces, reduces drainage to prevent local flooding problems, ...

International Treaty or Choose-Your-Own Climate-Change Plan?
Photo credit: mhaithacaDespite his truancy at the United Nations high-level event on climate change last week, President George W. Bush wants you to know that he is very, very serious about climate change. So serious, in fact, that the commander in chief held his own climate klatch of 16 major carbon-emitting nations in Washington last week to explore a new "process" for moving forward, one that would not commit countries to mandatory targets for capping carbon-dioxide emissions.But heads of state and public officials attending the United Nations high-level event ...

K-Bench: Expanding Furniture You Can Take Outside
Taking the honeycomb-accordion design strategy outside, K-Bench is a new take on the bee-hive-structured, extendable bench. Similar to FlexibleLove, the Newspaper Extendable Bench and Paper SoftSeating, this bench takes the utility created by such versatile benches a step further; made from polypropelene instead of paper, the accordion-like benches can be fo...

EnviroFit Receives Funding at the Clinton Global Initiative
In the video posted above, Plenty interviews Ron Bills of EnviroFit International, a Colorado-based non-profit and one of the beneficiaries of the Lemelson Foundation's $2 million largesse, as announced at this year's ...

New Proposal for Fishing Subsidies at WTO Doha Talks
Suggesting a compromise between development and sustainability, Brazil and Argentina proposed new international trade rules last Monday that would allow developing countries to subsidize their fishing industries, but only as long as fish stocks were conserved, according to trade diplomats.The joint proposal, raised during the Doha Development Agenda negotiations on a new global trade agreement at the World Trade Organization (WTO), rallied support from developing countries such as China and India, plus a "guarded welcome" from the United States and Australia, according to

Electrolux Design Lab 2007: And The Finalists Are...
As we noted a few months back, this year's Electrolux Design Lab competition is all about sustainable design. The competition, featured in 2006 and 2005 on TreeHugger, was searching for household products that go beyond efficient use of materials and resources; the objects should be designed to encourage the users themselves to adopt more sustainable behaviors. Now that's what sustainable design is all about!The top 8 ...

Cool Globes: Hot Public Art for a Cooler Planet
From left: "Sustainable Farming" by Kari Kaplan, "Green Schools" by Lawrence Hall Youth Services, and "Wind Power" by Karen AmiIf you happened to have been out and about Chicago between June and September, you might have noticed these massive sculpted globes, around five feet in diameter, lined up along the city's lakefront from the Field Museum to Navy Pier. Well it was probably hard not to, and that was the entire idea. "[The] globes are so bigas the problem of climate change is so bigthat you cant avoid it. You have to confront it," said Wendy Abrams during the energy and climate change working session on the first day of the

Studying Old Masters Understand Global Warming
David Adam in the Guardian writes of a study that blends art and science: A team at the National Observatory of Athens is using the works of old masters to work out the amount of natural pollution spewed into the skies by eruptions such as Mount Krakatoa in 1883. Reports from the time describe stunning sunsets for several years afterwards, as the retreating light was scattered by reflective particles thrown high into the atmosphere. By studying the colour of sunsets painted before and after such eruptions, the researchers say they can calculate the amount of material in the sky at the time.Christos Zerefos, who led the research, said: "We're taking advantage of the attitudes of famous painter...

Energy Star's Change a Light, Change the World Campaign Hits the Road This Week
TreeHugger has known for a while now how much difference changing your incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs can make (answer: a lot!). To help spread this message beyond those who read TreeHugger, the folks at Energy Star are reaching out to a whole new audience by taking CFLs on the road with their Change a Light, Change the World campaign.The 20-day, 10-city tour starts ...

Ethanol Cocktail Set from Chloe Coulson
We have had some sport with the ethanol boom, suggesting that it is better served cold in a martini glass rather than in our cars. The market evidently agrees; according to the Wall Street Journal, the prices are in the tank as well. Chloe Coulson of notanotherdesigner has some fun with it too, producing the ehtanol cocktail set from off-the-shelf parts. "Chemistry with its language of mixing and measuring lends itself to the art of cocktail making in the Ethanol cocktail set. Test tubes for shots, a conical flask for shaking, beakers for longer drinks, a jug for longer drinks ...

Robots, Dogs From Discarded Electronics
Parts salvaged from discarded televisions, VCRs, and other electronic paraphernalia are raised from the dead and transformed into desktop critters, jewelery, and ornaments."These are fun pieces that will hopefully generate awareness of the growing piles of E-Junk that are destined for our landfills," the designer notes on his Web site. Perfect for your eco-conscious geek boy or girl with a yen for post-apocalyptic folk art. ::Etsy...

Competition: What if New York City Were Hit by a Hurricane?
Good questions all; that is why the The New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is sponsoring a design competition to enhance the City's ability to provisionally house residents after a major coastal storm. This design competition will rely on a fictional but realistic New York City neighborhood devastated by a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane. How will residents resume their lives? How can they be provided safe, comfortable living space? How can this housing be quickly deployed and adapted to different site conditions? How can it be reused in subsequent emergencies, environmentally sustainable, and cost effective? ...

Ecology, Design. Synergy.
German architects Behnisch Architekten iare a leading proponent of Green architecture, defined by Robert Campbell of the Boston Globe as "architecture that doesn't fight nature but instead seeks to partner with it. Green architecture demands as little as possible in the way of natural resources while creating, ideally, rooms as pleasant to inhabit as a forest glade."They have mounted an exhibition in John Andrews' Gund Hall at Harvard, to "ddress the widespread and misleading quantitative interpretation of the term sustainability by highlighting the manifold aspects of sustainability that constitute impo...

Material ConneXion, MBDC and EPEA Announce Cradle-to-Cradle Partnership
Material ConneXion, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), and the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA) have banded together to help companies develop more-sustainable products and processes, while increasing their profitabilitysomething we'd imagine is a priority for most.Part of this new effort involves prov...

Cutting Out 'Mystery Machines' Could Save Power
Recently there has been a raft of green IT solutions, including home PCs, but particularly for larger, power-hungry data centres. While home PCs can be as inefficient as to waste 50% of power in making noise and heat, the sheer size of data centres makes them an obvious target for a bit of increased efficiency. It seems though, that the best way to save power may be to turn off 'mystery machines'....

It's World Architecture Day
So the call comes from Gatan Siew, President of the International Union of Architects: "Approximately 50% of all greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the construction and transportation sectors. The construction sector alone is responsible for 50% of annual energy consumption. Every actor in the building industry bears a part of the responsibility for this situation, but every actor also has the ability to make a difference in mitigating the effects of climate change. Architects are on the front line to engage this struggle.Architects must be exacting in terms of energy performance for all the materials that go into their works. They must also consider the carbon footprint mad...

Environmental Concerns Over Festival Figures In India
This October will bring one of the biggest festivals for Hindus particularly those living in the eastern parts of India and Bangladesh a ten-day celebration of the warrior goddess Durga. In places like Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) it becomes an all-out affair, with thousands of pandals or temporary temple structures set up all over the city to worship the deity, live music and people from all over converging onto the city to participate in the festivities, causing traffic mayhem. The highlight of the festival occurs when elaborately decorated figures of the goddess, carried by huge processions, are immersed ceremoniously in the river.However, wi...

Jim Kunstler on Oil Addiction
He of the website that can't be named questions Mitt Romney's statement that the nation is "is dependent on foreign oil." We've heard this a million times, of course, and we accept it without thinking. But if you venture forward mentally one baby step, you will quickly come to see that, no, this dependence on foreign oil is not itself the problem. The problem is that we have adopted a living arrangement so hopelessly centered around cars and incessant motoring and one of the consequences is an addiction to oil, which we happen to have a declining supply of in our own land....

Zombie Robot Chair Reassembles Itself
Flatpack is so two weeks ago; now we have robotic chairs that assemble themselves. This one, by Canadian artist Max Dean and robotics expert Raffaello DAndrea, also reconstructs itself after being smashed to pieces, which is particularly handy if you throw chairs around the house. According to Cornell University this was a hit on the internets a year ago but we missed it, and apologise to those who are seeing it again.

Home Energy Usage
The type of home you live in is one of the most important decisions you can make as a consumer. A homes energy use and its distance to your place or work and shopping centers are a major component of your environmental impact. Making an environmentally conscious housing decision will not only help reduce your energy consumption, but will also lower your maintenance and energy bills. In addition, some mortgage lenders and financial service companies have recognized the importance of a home's environmental impact and offer mortgage benefits to buyers of

Green Fundraising For Schools With One Big Caveat
Founded by elementary parents with an eye for the future and a realization that weve all had enough of the wrapping paper and cookie dough fundraising tactics, Greenraising, a program to help schools and non-profits raise funds using eco-friendly products has emerged. And with items for sale ranging from SIGG bottles and fair trade coffee to eco-friendly lunchboxes and recycled office supplies, the intentions are good and the products seem excellent.But whats that big caveat I mentioned above? ...

Survey: Do You Feel Safe on a Bike?
We promote bicycles as a green and healthy alternative to a car, yet a lot of people are afraid of riding in the city, noting that when a car and a cyclist meet, it is not a fair contest. And, as we noted in a couple of earlier posts, the Police and the Courts don't think much of cyclists either. It is a car culture where drivers have little interest in co-existing, while cyclists have to fight to get their bit of road space.

1947: Danish Furniture Knocks Down For Moving
It looks better than IKEA, too. Flatpack furniture isn't new; the British did campaign furniture for centuries, and according to Popular Science, February 1947: "DESIGNED chiefly for sale in Europes war-devastated countries, this new line of Danish furniture sacrifices little in visual appeal. Modern in appearance, the simple, functional pieces are well suited to mass production methods. They can be quickly set up or taken apart, thus easing the moving problem on the unsettled continent. Shipping and storing difficulties are correspondingly lessened, since in a knocked-down condition the furniture ...

Why Are They Called Accidents?
Ontario Provincial Police Sergeant Greg Stobbart was killed last year while riding his bike in training for a triathlon; a driver for a construction company smacked his head with the side-view mirror after swerving to avoid cars while trying to pass. That is getting so common that it is barely news any more; What is news came out last week in court: The man who hit him, who drives for a living, had a history of traffic violations, $14,000 in fines, and charges for driving with a suspended licence. Two months after the accident he was charged again for causing another. What sentence did he get in court? 100 hours of community service and two years' probation, along with...

Owl Recovery Plan Has Serious "Issues"
Shocking, we know: to think that a recovery plan drafted by Bush government "scientists" (see political cronies) would be deemed "deeply flawed" by an independent peer review. Yet that was the principal finding of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-appointed panel of Society of Conservation Biology and American Ornithologists' Union scientists, which stated that the plan ignored over 20 years of research about the northern spotted owl. The plan, they charged, would lead to reduced efforts to protect the endangered owl and its declining habitat - in the Northwest's last stands of old-growth timber. In a letter addressed to Interior Secretary Dirk Kemp...

The Power of Community: Locals Should Lead on Sahel 'Green Wall'
We all know that there is finally a massive effort underway to combat the effects of climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. You only have to look at the commitments coming out of the CGI last week to know that people around the world are stepping up to the challenge in a way that has not been seen before. However, it will become extremely important that we maintain scrutiny on the kind of responses that are being developed, ensuring they are effective, viable and appropriate. Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development,

Demolishing Lomborg's Cool It
There is nothing like a good and nasty book review to get you going in the morning, and environmental writer Alanna Mitchell does it to Bjorn Lomborg's new book Cool it. Too good not to quote directly: "In high-school biology class, we used to do an experiment with fruit flies. You put flies and food in a jar, screw the top on tight and wait to see what happens as the flies reproduce like mad.The goal is to see at what point the limits of the jar - air, food, space - begin to affect the ability of the fruit flies to exist. At some point, the jar becomes inhospitable and the flies die en masse.If Bjorn Lomborg, Danish author of Cool It: The Skeptical En...

AMD Open Architecture Africa Challenge - SIDAREC, Kenya
As proud media sponsors of the AMD Open Architecture Challenge TreeHugger is dedicated to keeping you guys up to date with what's going on with this ground breaking design competition. First of all we want to introduce you to all three community partners that people around the world will be designing for. Due to my involvement with Kallari over the last year, you have already heard quite a lot about this Ecuadorian

Katharine Hamnett Pulls Out of Tesco
Last year, amidst much fanfare, Katharine Hamnett, the original eco-warrior fashionista, announced that she was teaming up with Tesco, the biggest and much reviled supermarket, to produce a fair trade and organic line called Choose Love. All of the supermarkets have been rushing to improve their green credentials and this partnership seemed like a win-win: a real coup for Tesco, given Hamnett's impeccable reputation, and good for her since she ha...

Overcoming Prius' Green Edge
In the minds of many, Toyota's Prius has long been considered synonymous with hybrid cars. Praised as being ahead of its time and the darling of Hollywood and Silicon Valley types, the Prius quickly gained iconic status amongst the green set when it was first unveiled a few years back. Its long reign at the top, however, may soon be coming to an end: a new ranking of environmentally friendly vehicles from researchers at Cardiff University and consultancy Clifford Thames has determined that cleaner versions of conventional cars are fast catching up and may soon be poised to overtake it. A fe...

New Products by Chilean Musuc and Argentine Neumatica
Two of our featured eco-designers from Latin America have hit us with some new designs. On one side, Chilean industrial designer Rodrigo Alonso Schramm from Musuc studio has launched a new integrant of its N+EW line: a lamp produced mainly with e-waste and epoxy resin. Remember the N+EW project stands for No More Electronic Waste and is a statement about the amount of this type of materials we consume and dont usually care to recycle in Latin America, explained Alonso in a previous post. The first piece of the collection was a bench, and both will be presented at the