Category: Environment

Spiral Island: Built on Empty Bottles

Spiral Island may just be the island of the future and not only because it has its own website. Richie Sowa has taken thousands of empty bottles (think water bottles, milk jugs) and put them into big nets, then attached the nets to a platform, then to other platforms. All these platforms are covered in soil and plants, thus making the coolest island ever.

An environmentalist to the core, Sowa is also an artist and a musician. More than just the universal dream of an island retreat, Spiral Island is also his vision for low-impact sustainable living. The next version of the island will be built to withstand more treacherous weather than the first and will also be located in a more sheltered part of Mexico’s waters.

Increase Happiness While Saving the Environment

Some blogger has put together a list of ways to improve your life and the environment by making minor changes in your life. Basically, stop letting other people and things (like work, technology, and other more modern annoyances) get in the way of you enjoying life. Live life to its fullest and you can help the environment. Sounds easy!

I understand our lives can be hectic, so if you can’t turn all of these things off on the same day, try to do as many as possible and spread them out if you have to. Just do them once a week. If you can do it more often, then great, you’re going to be that much happier.

Amazing Eco-Friendly Bra!

thanks yahoo!Chopsticks are made of wood, which means, like paper towels, they are made from trees. Trees are really good for the environment and saving them is great. A Japanese lingerie maker has found a way to promote reusable chopsticks in a sexy way.

Lingerie maker Triumph International Japan unveiled the “My Chopsticks Bra” on Wednesday in Tokyo in a bid to promote the use of reusable chopsticks instead of disposable ones.

Japanese bin an estimated of 25 billion wooden pairs of chopsticks a year, many of them already made from recycled wood chips, but a growing number of environmentally aware consumers want to combat this “throw away” culture.

“It’s a small step, but because many Japanese chopsticks are disposable, big chunks of forests are being cut down,” said Hiromi Shinta, spokeswoman for the company.

Save Paper Towels by Using a Sticker

these cme from trees

This simple sticker can make people aware that the toilet paper and paper towels come from tree. Apparently reminding people of this (also apparently) oft-forgotten fact can help protect the environment. Go order some stickers and put them up in your local coffee shop.

    Testing shows a “These Come From Trees” sticker on a paper towel dispenser reduces paper towel consumption by ~15%
    A typical fast food restaurant with two bathrooms can use up to 2000 pounds of paper towels a year
    The average coffee shop uses 1000 pounds of paper towels a year
    A single tree produces around 100 pounds of paper

A Very Very Green Building

leopold
Granted, many many years ago most places humans lived had little impact on their surrounding environment, and today we’re learning how to do that again. This time though, we got style.

Inhabitat has a story on the greenest LEED building ever built.

The building produces 15% more energy than what it consumes by using 198-panel 39.6 kilowatt solar electric system, the second largest in Wisconsin. To save on energy costs, heating and cooling will be done via a radiant system installed within the concrete floors. Proper insulation of the building, use of geothermal energy, good passive design to allow for daylighting and heating during winter and shading during summer, cross ventilation, and operable windows all contribute towards achieving this remarkable goal. Even the design of the site was carefully thought out to properly differentiate between high use and low use areas, thus diminishing the wasted energy required to heat or cool sections of the complex which would not be needed.