pollution

Done With Your Car? Donate it!

- Adam Clare

I got an email from this organization that looks to get old cards off the road and make the world better by donating the proceeds of the car to charity. This sounds like a good social enterprise that will make a difference. These guys are located in the UK but I’m sure similar services exist elsewhere.

Remember that cars aren’t required to live so once you get rid of your car – don’t replace it.

Giveacar.co.uk is a social enterprise that raises money for charities by accepting donations of unwanted cars. The service was developed to offer charities a new method of fundraising, and access a previously untapped source of donations. At the same time, Giveacar gives members of the public a cost-free way to donate their cars to charity, just as they might donate their clothes or furniture.

The service was launched in January 2010, and to date both the scrap metal industry and affiliated charities have met the scheme with overwhelming positivity. Giveacar has experienced rapid growth since it was founded and has enabled many happy customers to make a difference by donating their cars to a good cause.

Thanks Daniel!

Plants Eat Pollution

- Adam Clare

We all know that plants are really good at cleaning the air and that’s absolutely a good thing. Nowadays more and more research is looking at using plants to clean more than just the air. Recently, a researcher in Ontario has used plants to clean up pollutants in a brown field site.

“Traditionally, we dig up the contamination and take it to a hazardous-waste dumpsite or incineration facility, but then the soil is lost,” she says. “But, in using phytoextraction … after we pull all the contaminants out, you’ve still got this natural resource of the soil itself.”

The composted material may still need to be disposed of as hazardous waste, but the volume of contaminated matter has been greatly reduced, says Dr. Zeeb.

Read the rest here.

Thanks Mike!

Puff Shows Drivers How Much They Pollute

- Adam Clare

It’s well known that cars create a lot of pollution and that if we can get more people to drive their cars more efficiently (better yet – not at all) drivers would kill the environment a little less. To help drivers figure out how much CO2 they release into the air some enterprising floks created an app called Puff.
Puff

Puff is designed to let drivers visualize how much pollution they are emitting on their iPhone as they drive. This way drivers can adapt their driving to minimize their CO2 output.

“Puff is attached to the frame of the car or to the tail pipe. The lamp is light weight and thus well below the 50 pounds you can apparently safely hang from the exhaust pipe. The lamp itself is detachable, so you can take it inside with you whenever you leave your car at the curb. (…) The app also logs the drive data allowing you to keep track of various information such as how much total CO2 you’ve emitted during this trip or during all your trips with Puff, what is the average rate of emission, the total number of miles driven and the average MPG. It also estimates how much NOx, CO and hydrocarbons you’ve released into the environment.”

Read more at Pop-Up City

Plastic Boat Sets Sail to Plastic Patch

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

The Plastiki is a plastic boat that has set sail to raise awareness of the all the pollution from plastics that’s sitting in our oceans and it looks like they are off on an exciting trip!

The purpose, said expedition leader David de Rothschild, is to draw attention to the health of the oceans and to demonstrate the value of recycled plastic bottles. De Rothschild and his crew of five hope to sail to Australia, a voyage of about 11,000 nautical miles.

The Plastiki, named in honor of Norwegian explorer Thor Hyderdahl’s raft Kon Tiki, is a boat like no other in the world. Besides the hull of recycled plastic water and soda bottles, the vessel is made of a hardened plastic called PET.

The boat is a twin-hulled catamaran rigged as a ketch. It will rely on the wind for propulsion and has only a small auxiliary engine. No such boat has ever made an ocean passage before.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/20/BAIO1CILMT.DTL

You can take the Plastiki Pledge.

Toyota to Plant Flowers at Prius Plants

- Adam Clare

Toyota has received a lot of criticism over the production process of their Prius because the production process is quite awful for the environment. Toyota has reacted by designing new flowers to absorb bad air from the production facilities.

Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.

The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan.

The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).

The two new plants are part of a wide-ranging plan to reduce the impact of Prius manufacture on the environment. Since 1990, the plant has reduced CO2 emissions by 55 per cent.

Read more at Drive.

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