Category — Green Machine

If you’ve read much about green living, you’ve probably heard about the environmental dangers of batteries.  Household batteries contain mercury, zinc, cadmium, maganese, and other components which are harmful to both your health, and our earth.  Over time batteries left in landfills break down, and leech these substances into our water and soil.

If you want to reduce your household’s need for batteries, you should check out some of the wind-up gadgets now on the market.

Universal Remote Controls:  This universal remote control will run for 7 days on just 30 revolutions of winding. It will also control up to 6 of your home electronics.  The wind-up remote control is available at Nigel’s Eco Store.  [Read more →]

Here’s a great way to save gas and reduce carbon emissions:  mow your lawn with a human-powered push reel mower.  While it may be reminiscent of the lawn mowers you grandparents used to use, this one has some modern engineering advantages.  Made by Brill and manufactured in Germany, this Brill Razorcut 38 push reel mower mows a 15 inch path with a 5 blade cutting system.  The blades are flame-hardened for long-lasting sharpness and durability, and the mower is designed to cut with far less friction than old fashioned push reel mowers. There’s also an optional grass catcher for use with this lawn mower.  It weighs only 17 pounds and since it doesn’t have an engine, it’s very quiet.  Push reel mowers are safe too– when you stop pushing, they stop cutting.

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).