Innovative Ideas

How Green is Green?

ellen — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:51:03 -0400

Recently David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a great column called The Bottom Line of the Eco Balance Sheet, in which he talks about how difficult it is to accurately calculate the environmental impact of a product. As we move into the future, with all the talk about sustainability, it is critical that we as consumers and end users have a tool to qualify claims of green.

About 50 posts ago, I posted about the Pharos Project, an exciting matrix that was going to value products according to various criteria but it didn't seem to get off the ground.

Sharing my search for this holy grail, a friend recommended a blog called swissmiss by a designer named Tina Roth Eisenberg who I think shares my neighborhood if not my building. She posted about an attempt to codify what makes a product sustainable called the Designer's Field Guide to Sustainability developed by Lunar. Rather than spewing commandments, it's a beautifully crafted document that asks 4 questions:

1. What is it trying to accomplish?

2. How is it brought to life?

3. How is it used?

4. Where does it end up?

It is a working document whose authors invite contributions. I'm posting it above my desk.

Ellen

www.ehapc.com

[brooklyn green] www.ehapc.wordpress.com

Portland Gym Uses Human-Powered Electricity

ellen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:50:28 -0400

Portland, OR, one of our nation's greenest cities has recently opened a new workout gym. This gym isn't your ordinary New York City Sports Clubs though - it partly uses human power generated from members' workouts (in addition to solar power) to supply a portion of the electrical power.

The Green MicroGym offers a workout room, classes, and most of your typical gym equipment. This gym however also offers green consulting for other human powered gyms, outdoor workouts, orientations on how the gym works, and no minimums for memberships (or year-long commitments!) One other difference: There are no public showers at this gym, in attempts to decrease water usage for the building.

This gym uses all the energy exerted during members' normal gym workouts, to fuel part of the power needed to operate the building - a simple, yet brilliant idea (why hasn't anyone done this before?) .

I wonder if the act of creating alternative energy works as an incentive to go a little bit faster or pick up that extra 5 pounds - this concept gives a whole new meaning to "going that extra mile!"

Tips to Throw A Green Party

scleaver — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

It’s no surprise that this year’s Democratic Convention will be a politically correct affair, but what that really means is that the new patriotic colors are red, white, blue, AND green. In an effort to make this the most sustainable, green convention “in the history of the planet,” as Denver’s Democratic mayor John Hickenlooper told the Wall Street Journal, organizers are scrambling to stockpile unionized USA labor-made, organic cotton fanny packs and baseball caps and stock the pantry with local food.

November will be here before you know it, so here’s how to party like the Democrats at your own green political bash:

1. Email invites: Though the Republicans aren’t getting in on most of the green hype, they are saving trees by sending out convention invites via email instead of paper.

2. Color code your food: The Democractic convention will have a rainbow on every plate, according to the Journal, “each meal should include ‘at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t count.)”

3. Be flexible: To keep their food as local as possible, Denver’s vendors are trying to rework recipes to incorporate local wines and ingredients.

4. Reconsider flatware: While Dems are using compostable tableware, often shipped from Asia, some organizers are wondering if it would be better to use local china plates and wash them? It’s your party, you decide.

5. Establish a “trash brigade.” To accomplish the goal of reusing, recycling, or composting 85 percent of all convention waste, Andrea Robinson, director of greening for the convention, has 900 volunteers who will man the trash stations to make sure that trash ends up in reuse, recycle, or compost bins.

6. Go virtual: Fred L. Smith, Jr. president of the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute “suggested the Democrats could really shrink their footprint by staging a virtual-reality convention: ‘Just have everyone stay at home with their laptops, sitting in their pajamas, interacting through their avatars.’”

Photo from Oriental Trading where you can get green (colored) balloons.

Dallas (Green) Zoo Harnesses Poo Power -- Elephants' Contribution Critical!

Marcus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

What makes a zoo a green zoo? Dallas Zoo officials recently announced that they will be moving forward with an ambitious plan to power several of the zoo’s buildings and irrigation systems with fuel composed of animal droppings, cardboard, and tree limbs.

Jenny and Keke, the zoo’s two prized African elephants, will be crucial contributors to the project, creating a combined 300 pounds of waste every day!

The waste will be fed into a biogas generator, which will add oxygen to the compost and heat it to very high temperatures, creating a gas that will in turn contribute to heat, water, and electric power throughout the zoo.

BDS Technologies, a Dallas-based firm specializing in environmental and public works engineering, will design and build the zoo’s poo-powered infrastructure. Talks of the project began over a year ago, and the generator is estimated to be finished at some point before the end of the year.

While this new power system is projected to cost somewhere in the vicinity of $1 million dollars, Zoo officials are confident that the project will pay for itself within ten years, due to conventional energy savings and less frequent trips to the landfill.

Now that’s an idea you simply can’t poo-poo.

Disposing With Disposables

ckane — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:31:59 -0500

The recent tradition of bequeathing a disposable camera to each table at a wedding reception and letting the hoi polloi have at it, is universally agreed to be fun. These are the cameras that all the naughty bits will get shot on. (Sometimes a little too graphically.) Nonetheless, this less-stodgy of modern-day wedding tropes is also wasteful, like so many other modern-day wedding tropes. A service called YouShoot has stepped into the arena, with digital cameras for rent and a unified method for all guests to share their own digital photos from their personal cameras. It's a little like Netflix: pre-purchased CD mailers are distributed to the guests so they can burn their photos onto CD and share them with everyone else.

Of course, photos could also be shared on free websites like Flickr without using this paid service, but YouShoot is an easier way to coordinate all photos on one wedsite. So on the one hand, this seems like another service cashing in on the boucoup bucks to be made on big bridal business. On the other hand, at least there won't be more disposable cameras in the world.