Category — Green Gadgets

From preparing meals to sorting the mail, your kitchen countertop is undoubtedly one of the most used surfaces in your home. Choosing an environmentally friendly and non-toxic countertop is an important decision when building a green home or starting a green kitchen remodel. Here are two suggestions for choosing a green countertop.

Bamboo: A renewable natural resource, bamboo countertops are beautiful and earth friendly. Bamboo destined for countertops is often sold in large slabs which must then be sealed and fitted to your kitchen. Bamboo countertops are available in several designs, including flat grain, vertical grain, and parquet end grains.

Glass: Although you might be skeptical about installing a recycled glass countertop, the material is actually a very durable surface. Recycled glass countertops are available in large solid slabs of pure glass, or glass/concrete blends, which can be formulated to match your decor. Glass countertops are particularly attractive when highlighted with accent lighting under kitchen cabinets or in other areas of your kitchen.

Putting your kitchen waste and lawn clippings to work through composting is an excellent way to live green. Not only are you making use of would-be trash, you’re creating rich, nutrient-dense soil for your garden. Although many green living advocates use simple barrels or bins for creating compost, here’s an alternative if you want a faster way to create compost.

The Tumbleweed Compost Tumbler claims to create compost in as little as four weeks. With a daily spin, the tumbling bin rotates on a center axis to allow users to spin the tumbler around, breaking down the contents of the bin, introducing more oxygen to the contents, and ultimately creating compost in a shorter period of time. I found the Tumblweed Compost Tumbler at Green Living for $199.

Green living isn’t just for the home front… here are two easy ways to go green while at work.

The Eco Button: Here’s a fun way save energy when it comes to computer use. With a simple tap, this cool looking USB device allows you to instantly put your computer into energy saver mode. I read about the Eco Button at The Office Master, a blog all about cubicle survival.

Power Strips: Here’s another green office tip. Plug your computer and any other office equipment into a power strip so you can easily shut them off before you leave. Since computer monitors are especially known for their energy-guzzling tendencies, this is a great way to save power and live green.

Have a great idea for a hover car, wind-powered bicycle, or any other form of futuristic transportation? Then Toyota wants to hear from you. They’ve created an online community, HEYA, for collaborating with consumers on the next generation of transportation.

Anyone can join HEYA to submit ideas before July 31, and the best entries will be selected to be part of siteLA, an exhibition sponsored by Quicksilver. Entries will be brought to life by siteLA’s “Visionaries in Residence”, artists and filmakers who will present the winning HEYA ideas in short film, painting, or photography. Winners will be flown to the siteLA exhibit in Los Angeles for the August 22nd kick off party. Exhibits will be on display from August 23 through September 5.

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).