Home / treehugger.com rss archive / September-06-2007


Fuez Blends Recycled Materials
Fuez, a new company from Portland, Ore., recently introduced four surface-tile products, including one made by fusing concrete with recycled glasssimilar to the countertops offered by the New York-based IceStone. Comprising 41 to 77 percent recycled content, Fuez's tiles, countertops, and other surface materials are prefabricated to order, delivered to the job site, and then installed in two to three weeks, says Greg Martin, the company's president. Fuez's Web site is rather bare bones at the moment, but Martin says customers will be sample Fuez products at select Seattle retail outlets in the comi...

Where Corn is King
Curt Ellis, star of the film King Corn, talks about the ubiquity of corn and his forthcoming film in this interview with Sustainable Table's Diane Hatz. ::Sustainable TableSee also: ::On Corn: Michael Pollan vs George Bush...

Keri Smith + Little Otsu = Unscheduled Fun
Artist Keri Smith and the San Francisco-based Little Otsu have joined forces to create the Non-Planner Datebook. Smith admits in her blog that it almost sounds like a contradiction in terms. "It had occurred to me that at times all of my planning and life controlling and goal setting and to-do list making was making me a bit crazy," she says. "You see, I seem to be the kind of person who is simultaneously an overachiever (read: ...

Create a Greener Dorm Room
Photo credit: distinguishHow geared up is your dorm sweet dorm for this year's adventures in higher education? Okay, so you've finally found the sheets that will actually fit those extra-long cribsyou may even have come to terms with the staid regulation furniture you'll have to face for four whole years, but that doesn't mean you can't class up the joint a little, while adding some eco-friendly touches that will boost your mind, spirit, and possibly your GPA. After all, you want to feel ill after a late-night pizza-eating contest, not from the chemicals in your roommate's synthetic air freshener.You'll probably sleep easier, for instanc...

EcoModa: Chicago's Sustainable Fashion Showcase, Sept. 27
Part of the Sustainable Convergence 07 party (for all you hobnobbing types) being hosted by the non-profit Foresight Design Initiative, EcoModa will feature off-the-rack, environmentally forward, one-of-a-kind designer pieces, as well as accessories by Midwest and national designers and manufacturers. You can also take to the runway in a do-it-yourself eco-fashion contest, with members of the audience voting for the best outfit.Where: The Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, ChicagoWhen: September 27, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.Cost: $25 to $50, with proce...

Have a Backyard BBQ Wherever You Go: Folding Picnic Table
If you've got you're flat-folding BBQ or diminutive Grilliput, and are tired of sitting on the ground and using your clothes as a picnic blanket, then this folding picnic table is for you; heck, it'd even work well at your next tailgate party. Through some clever design, the full setup you see above folds into the slim box with a handle (on the left -- there's ...

West Coast Green Looking for Volunteers
Attention green building enthusiasts and sustainable lifestyle fans: West Coast Green, the annual residential green building conference and expo is looking for volunteers for this year's event held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on September 20th - 22nd. In return for your six hours of service (or more, if you like), you'll get a full conference pass (that would cost $575 if you bought it!) to check out the entire conference for free, giving you access to over 250 exhibitors of the latest innovative building materials, hear from the 220 leaders and visionaries in green building an...

Regular People, Natural Heroes
Returning to public television for its third season this fall, Natural Heroes is a series of independently produced films that turns the spotlight on people who are actively helping to better their local communities and the global environment, whether they're positioned among coral reefs surrounding Papua New Guinea or urban compost piles in New York City.Take a peek at the the promos for all 13 episodes on the show's Web site. "Power Shift," hosted by

The Umbrella Pot Waters Your Houseplants with Rainwater
If a WaterButt doesn't quite jive with your aesthetic -- or you don't want your neighbors to see you pouring water out of a plastic butt -- the Umbrella Pot might be a little more up your alley. Bringing rainwater harvesting down to the micro level, it's pretty ingenious; what else are you going to do with the water that collects on your umbrella? Plus, as long as you remember to put your umbrella away, you won't have to remember to water the plant growing in the base. With summer winding down and the rainy season (read: the next nine months) coming to the Pacific Northwest, this TreeHug...

Mexico Tries to Float Big Dams to Meet Renewables Goal
Renewable energy has been low on the totem pole of priorities in Mexico, particularly because the nation remains an important oil-producer and relies on fossil fuels for 85 percent of its energy consumption. But Alfredo Elas Ayub, the head of Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission, or CFE, recently announced that country would increase its mix of renewables by 23 percent (up from 2 percent of the current mix) by the end of the current administration in 2012. There's a catch, however. The CFE wants to count its 53 big hydroelectric projects and a few others under construction as renewable energy.Renewable ene...

Fisher on the 100 Mile Diet
I have always been fond of Philip Street's comic strip "Fisher" in the Globe and Mail. The protagonist is a frustrated writer working in a job he hates at an advertising agency; sounds like a lot of people I know. He did a cute series on the 100 mile diet this summer, perhaps with a few too many Canadian references but still worth a look at, starting in the archives on August 11. ::Fisher...

Volvo ReCharge
So far we have had Chevy, Ford and Toyota showing off plug-in hybrids in various stages of production. Next up in the plug-in parade: Volvo. Volvo has already shown off its eco-chops with advances in fuel efficiency, creating a prototype that can run on five different fuels, and creating the world's first

Raw for 30 Days - Documentary On Healing Diabetes with Raw Foods
Check out the trailer of a fascinating new documentary entitled Raw for 30 Days, a clever twist on the Super Size Me concept. The film chronicles six Americans with diabetes who typically subsist on junk food as they switch to a 30-day diet consisting entirely of vegan, organic, live, and raw foods. The hope is that they will be able to reverse their diabetes naturally without any medication.We won't give away the end but the results are pretty interesting. No d...

CharityBuzz Presents the Fourth Annual Chevy Chase Green School Auction
Want to go hang out with Cameron Diaz on set for a day? How about having lunch with President Clinton and Chevy Chase? Or attending the premiere of Ben Stiller's "The Heartbreak Kid" in Los Angeles with the man himself? Of course you do, and you're in luck! Our pals at CharityBuzz are hosting the Fourth Annual Chevy Chase Green School Auction, a charity auction to benefit The Center for Environmental Education Online. Founded by Chevy and Jayni Chase, the center is celebrating it...

Farm Aid Homegrown to the Music
Back in 1985, Bob Dylan made an off-the-cuff comment while performing at the Live Aid Concert"Wouldn't it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?" the statement hit a chord with Willie Nelson , Neil Young and John Mellencamp , and six weeks later Farm Aid was born. Over the last two decades,

Reuse Your Greywater with the Take-Away Sink
Jessica Nebel's Take-Away Sink is just what it sounds like -- a sink that doubles as a bucket, so you can take it away with you. This double functionality serves a double purpose: you can use your sink as a bucket (which, of course, negates the need for you to have a random bucket lying around) and it helps contextualize your water use and makes it easy to reuse your greywater. We could even see watering your houseplants with the water you collect when brushing your teeth. More pics after the jump. ::Jessica Nebel via

Make Your Own Minimalist Laptop Case
When I get my shiny new laptop I am going to put it in one of these- a homemade laptop sleeve from the greatest invention of the twentieth century, duct tape. I mean, computers and airplanes are important but if you can't hold them together, what good are they? Over at instructibles, zoundspandang shows us how, saying "I got tired of looking at the scratches and dents my MacBook suffered every time i tried to take it somewhere without throwing it in my rather large backpack. I needed something slim yet good looking. Something rugged yet inexpensive. ...

Norway Says Cars are not "Green" or "Clean"
You can't market a Prius as "green" in Norway; forget about calling your Tesla "clean"- it is all greenwashing to the Norwegian consumer ombudsman. "No car can be "green," "clean" or "environmentally friendly.Cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others" said Bente Oeverli, a senior official. "If someone says their car is more 'green' or 'environmentally friendly' than others then they would have to be able to document it in every aspect from production, to emissions, to energy use, to recycling," she said."In practice that can't be done," she said of tougher guidelines entering into force in Norway from October 15. The guidelines distributed to ...

Shipping Containers Get Bamboo Floors
Lo-Tek and Adam Kalkin will be chasing these: Eco-containers with bamboo floors. We have noted previously the toxicity of conventional container floors, which are often made with tropical wood. French shipping company now has 37,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of "eco-containers", saving 10,000 cubic metres of tropical wood. Expanding our eco-container fleet has a dual objective. First, we want to make use of modern eco-design ideas and limit the us...

Pee Powered Battery Now Available
When we last looked at pee powered batteries, they were still experimental; now they are on the shelves in AA and AAA sizes in Japan. It can be recharged with a variety of liquids including urine and other precious bodily fluids, is supposed to last 10 years, and pumps out 500 milliamp-hours (mAh), which is equivalent to zinc-carbon batteries but a third of what an alkaline does. Commenter Nick had a good idea in the last post: Imagine a Tesla filled with these. "Pile the family in, hook everyone up, and go. Oh, and can...

Climate Change in Africa May Have Driven Early Human Evolution
We've known now for a long time that humanity's earliest roots could be traced back to Africa. Indeed, it is thought that around 70,000 years ago early human populations first began to expand and leave the African continent to spread out across the world. Up until now, scientists had believed that these migrations and population fluxes were driven by the rise and collapse of high-latitude ice sheets. An international team of scientists has put forth a new hypothesis suggesting that a wetter climate prompted by a dramatic rise in African lake levels may have propelled early human evolution.In a recently published study, the researchers hypothesize that a trans...

Noble Home: Mid-Century Modern Green Prefab
Nobody draws anymore, we all use computers. I can't conceive of setting up a perspective by hand, that's why we have Sketchup. Thus I was immediately attracted to the Noble Home prefab, with its seductive mid-century modern drawings. The designs by Noah Grunberg and Jason Silverman of JASONOAH are evocative of this period of great experimentation, when the designer's goal was to develop a clean, modern, small and efficient home that was easy to build. Frank Lloyd Wright tried this with the Usonian Homes; Noah and Jason met while attending Taliesin, so it is a natural progression. They are also fans of Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: "Mockbee felt that anyone, especiall...

Climate Change Will Break Your Heart
Photo credit: yoshimovOf all the despicable, unsavory cads: Melting glaciers, driving polar bears onto land, and devouring our flesh apparently aren't enough for global warming. Doctors now warn that it could also affect your heart."If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease...

Alaskan Senator Claims Worst is Already Over When it Comes to Global Warming
Alaskan Senator and noted climate "expert" Ted Stevens (he of the "series of tubes" speech) has confidently asserted that with regards to the effects of global warming it's all downhill from here. Over the course of a recent news broadcast focusing on the impact of climate change on Shishmaref, a small village in Alaska, Stevens predicted the end of the adverse weather patterns was nigh:"We're at the end of a long, long term of warming. 700 to 900 years of increased temperature, a very slow increase. We think we're close to the end of that. If we're close to the...

Night Owl Paper Goods' Wooden Postcards
Electronic missives may be waste-free, but some occasions call for something a little more visceral, with warm or cool intentions conveyed through the indelible strokes of a pen against a tangible surface. ("Dear So and so, you suck," has so much more gravity when you're using your best penmanship.)For those moments, Night Owl Paper Goods has crafted a fetching series of veneer postcards thinly sliced from sustainably harvested wood. As a result, say the designers, very little power and no water is used in the process. All that's left for you to decide is whether dotting your "i"s with hearts makes you look like you're trying too ha...

Iron Prefab For Sale, 175,000
As noted in our earlier post on tin tabernacles, in 19th century Britain corrugated iron flatpack houses were a proud product of the industrial revolution. According to the Independent, corrugated iron was exported all over the world to make buildings of every size. While others were putting up corrugated iron churches or civic centres, the staff of William Cooper Limited, based in London's Old Kent Road, cornered the market in cheap, prefabricated agricultural buildings, including the Ballintomb Cottage. A local farmer ordered it from the catalogue of a London company and had it delivered by steam train, the...

ConAgra & Others Dropping Butter Flavoring Agent, Diacetyl, After USEPA Consumer-Exposure Study Reviewed
The reason "microwave popcorn" in a bag typically does not contain actual butter is because butter is expensive and might go rancid. Until now, manufacturers have added some fat or oil, salt, a preservative, and synthetic diacetyl, the latter being the factory-made version of what gives butter its "buttery" taste. In recent years, there have been serious adverse health impacts reported for those workers most exposed to diacetyl while processing microwave popcorn and other buttery flavored foods, opening up the question of whether consumer exposure to diacetyl vapor emanating from a freshly-opened, hot bag presents an unacceptable exposure. (This would b...

Quote of the Day: Jeff Goodell on Coal
Photo credit: davipt The coal industry is very good at touting new technology and less good at actually doing anything about it. There is new technology that's available now, called IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycle, a kind of gasification of coal. But the industry has resisted building these plants. They prefer to tout these plants that are ten or twenty years down the road and continue building the same old thing.The fact is that carbon dioxide from coal plants has gone up about twenty-seven percent since 1990, and they're continuing to go up. And global war...

TH Blog Love - Our Favourite Greens Of The Week
Ecorazzi: Bill Clinton, Oprah and Kiva - Changing The World One Loan At A Time by Paige Davis. "Kiva.org is no stranger when it comes to receiving celebrity support. The innovative microlending model has changed the way of giving by allowing individuals to loan to entrepreneurs in developing countries . From Adrien Grenier hosting Kiva awareness parties to now Bill Clinton featuring the nonprofit in his book, the Kiva dream is about to be realized exponentially." Green Options: Five Simple Steps for Going...

Flower Show on the St. Lawrence
Back to Montreal to check out the second year of International Flora, Le Festival de Jardins de Montreal. Located on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, with crumbling grain elevators as the backdrop, it's a flower show with Quebec attitude. And a twist--it's planted in June and is on view until September so gardens can mature and become well-established, rather than being uprooted after a week, as at most shows. There is an autumnal feel to the show, with lots of echinacea and grasses blowing in the wind. Some of the gard...

Offshore Windpower Will Rule
The US, which has so far lagged Europe by several years in the addition of offshore wind farms, will eventually be focused on offshore wind farms as well. Here's the example. "...a new Dutch wind farm is being built so far out to sea that it is barely visible on the horizon, reducing the visual impact of its 60 turbines to virtually nil while at the same time harnessing higher offshore wind speeds.""Offshore wind farms are likely to appear more and more frequently off European coastlines as governments seek to increase their use of renewable energy without angering their citizens by placing giant turbines on their doorsteps.""The 383-million ($549-million Canadia...

Not Quite The College Dorm You Remember
While its become apparent recently that college students have been turning to thrift stores in drastically increasing numbers as a way to save both cash and the environment, some at Pitzer College in Southern California have been hard at work along with members of the faculty and administration to plan and see through the construction of their new, eco-friendly dorms. The dorm itself, according to one student, looks like a resort, with muted colors to help it blend in with the mountains behind it, organic gardens run by students, a cactus landscape to conserve water, and rooftop gardens to help conserve energy and reduce runoff. Theyve also chosen to include a solar energy s...

Willie Nelson Rocks Times Square for the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance
Weve covered the rapidly forming Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance before here and here. Now we see from their website that they are having a party, and no ordinary party on the 10th of September, Hard Rock Caf New York will be hosting an evening with Willie Nelson and Friends, hosted by Woody Harrelson and Daryl Hannah, to raise money for this fledgling organization:He told your mammas not to let you grow up...

Ontario Election 2007: The Parties
I was going to write a post per day on the parties in the Ontario election but our hatchet-wielding editor questioned whether the rest of the world could keep their heads up through this, so I have condensed it into one post. Read about the Liberal Party here.Frank de Jong and the Green Party of OntarioWhat's not to like about the Green Party? Energy Policy: "Instead of squandering billions of tax dollars on expensive, heavily subsidized nuclear energy, or allowing coal-fired plants to continue to pollute the air we breathe, the Green Party believes Ontario can...