Category — Green Gadgets

The impact of plastic water bottles on the environment has recently been covered at length in the news and on daytime talk shows including Oprah. According to Earth 911, a website dedicated to green living, Americans purchase 28 billion plastic water bottles each and every year, and only a mere 13 percent of them are recycled. These stainless steel water bottles made by New Wave Enviro are a classy alternative to plastic. They’re available in 3 colors, hold a ½ liter of water each, and include a carabineer for attaching to your belt or backpack. You’ll find them at Nubius Organics. A few more words on the woes of plastic water bottles: In addition to the mounting piles of plastic water bottles in landfills everywhere, the use of plastic water bottles is criticized for the amount of petroleum it takes to produce them—a whopping 17 million barrels of oil per year! And, plastic water bottles have recently been suspected of leeching chemical residue into their contents. Stainless steel water bottles work great in conjunction with your own water filtration pitcher…see tomorrow’s post for a suggestion!

Wow, who would’ve known? A pure coincidence! Although “Green Vaccine” is completely unrelated to “Green Our Vaccines” march, I do whole-heartedly support the cause, and all of the people who were out in Washington D.C. last week rallying for it. Among them were Jenny McCarthy, her son Evan and Jim Carrey. Jenny and Jim have been active spokesmen for the cause since Evan was diagnosed with autism. According to the Jim Carrey Online Forum, Jenny calls Jim “the Autism Whisperer” because he is so great with Evan and has been able to cure him of his fear of dogs, water and thunderstorms. Evan’s condition inspired Jenny to write a book, Louder Than Words, about her experience with fighting for her son’s treatment. The vaccine controversy is disturbing to say the least, and I am glad that people are raising awareness about harmful toxins in vaccines and vaccine scheduling for kids. “Too Many Too Soon” statement on the back of the “Green Our Vaccines” t-shirts says it all.

CNN article - by Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey for ‘World Autism Awareness Month’

TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) - official site

Autism rally 4/6/08 - More news about the event

Generation Rescue - Organization dedicated to cleaning up vaccines

Time to trade in your cheesy magnetic poetry for these ultra cute leaf magnets by a Dutch design genius Richard Hutten. Originally designed to be used on the office ceilings of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, Hutten’s leaves have made it out into the wild and are a hot selling item at museum shops in Holland. Not quite sure as to when they will be available online, but I will keep my eyes peeled since I must have some!

Gispen via Dezeen

Yes, even Apple is going green. Last month Apple filed a patent to integrate solar cells into their portable devices. The new solar technology will prolong battery life significantly. According to Forbes, “information regarding the performance of a device’s solar cells could be displayed on the main screen next to info for battery power, text message alerts and time of day. Or this information could also appear on top of the solar cells themselves, which are likely to display some version of the Apple logo.” Either way, say goodbye to dropped calls and “you are now running on reserve battery power” pop-ups. I wonder how this will hold up to heat exposure since rule number one with electronics is to leave them out of sun’s harmful rays. MacRumors raises the question of whether the design will suffer as a result of solar implementation, but knowing Apple’s genius designers, I highly doubt that it will. I can’t wait for green laptops, green iPods and green iPhones to finally grace retail shelves. Until then there is always a portable solar charger.

* graphic design by GV

iSol Plus is an ideal solar solution for all of your portable devices. Buy iSol Plus and say goodbye to dead cell phone, iPod, PDA or PSP batteries. You can charge your gadgets wherever you are under the sun (10-20 hours). And if it rains, you can charge it with your laptop via a USB cable (2-4 hours).

Source: Silicon Solar - iSol Plus - $ 43.95

Specifications:
- Solar Panel: 5.5V 100mA
- Rechargeable Lithium Battery: 3.7V
- Dimensions: 4.5 in x 2.5 in x .6 in
- USB charging cable: 5V 500mA
- DC Outputs: 5.5V 500mA / 7.5V 350mA / 9.5V 300mA

Features:
- Charge using the Sun or USB connector
- Major brand mobile phone adaptors
- Comes with suction cups
- Charging and discharging indicators:
Charging in the sun
Charging with USB cable
Charging portable device

Spending too much on your electricity bills?

Have no fear, Kill-a-Watt is here!

Kill-a-Watt is a wall unit with a large LCD which provides you with information about appliances that are plugged into it. It makes monitoring your electrical usage painless; expenses are viewable by day, week. month or year. It also detects voltage, line frequency, and power factor and estimates the quality of your power. Kill-a-Watt calculates consumption by the Killawatt/hr, as your utility company, which makes figuring out the bill easier.And all that for under $ 20. Find out just how efficient your appliances really are, eliminate energy leeches and put that money towards a weekend trip (or more like current gas prices).