My recent trip to Amsterdam taught me two things: weather is pretty much British (if you know what i mean) and water is a valuable good. I guess that explains why drinking water is so expensive and why The Netherlands are into water recycling. The picture was taken in Naarden Bussum train station, an area 50 minutes away from Amsterdam’s center. It’s pretty much self explanatory but if you want a little help with your rusty Dutch here’s a lose translation: “on this station we catch rain water and we use it to clean the station”.

The idea is simple, effective and environmental friendly. Rain water is collected from the roof, stored in a tank and pumped back to the platform for use by the cleaning service. How brilliant is that?

To make money you need to work hard, win the lottery or stop by Greece and recycle glass, aluminum or plastic bottless. The city of Athens installed quite a few of those huge recycling machines that give back a little something every time someone recycles. The price list in Euros is:

• 1 cent per soda or beer can
• 1 cent per 3 glass bottles
• 1 cent per 3 plastic bottles

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The city of Athens made a big leap ahead by signing an agreement with all major food stores for replacing plastics bags used for carrying goods. Starting on April 14th 2008 every major super market within Athens will promote and sell the new green bags made from eco friendly materials.

Retailers like AB Vasilopoulos, Atlantic, Veropoulos, Bazaar, Galaxias, Carrefour Marinopoulos, Dia Hellas, My Market, Metro and Sklavenitis agreed to heavily promote and sell the new green bags for no more than what it costs to produce them. As of this writing, the price is still unknowm.

The campaign will run for 5 years using the motto “I am not a plastic bag”, targeting nearly 4.5 million Athenians or half the population of Greece.

Via: Athens city government

In a collaborative effort for public environmental awareness, electronics giant Philips and news station SKAI are giving away 50.000 compact fluorescent lamps in Greece. When compared to incandescent lamps of the same luminous flux, CFLs use less energy and have a longer rated life, saving thousands of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

On January 26th, Philips and SKAI representatives will be giving away CLFs in the city of Athens, Piraeus, Marousi, Thessaloni and Ptolemaida. A week after, on February 2nd free CLFs will be given away in the city of Ag. Paraskevi, Koridallos, Kallithea, Ilioupoli, Patra and Aliveri.

The momentum of the effort is so great that the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs decided to mimic the initiative and suggested [.doc] the nation wide replacement of all incandescent lamps found in schools with CLFs. Feedback from the general public is also positive but some people are concerned about the mercury in CFLs.

Disclaimer: I work for SKAI Radio 100,3

Greeks are not to be considered as the most environmental conscious citizens of this planet but rules are made to be broken. Over the last couple of months more and more environmental friendly, or green if you will, commercials air on Greek radio stations. Greeks are now bombarded with commercials about new hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic, but if you thought that was it, you were wrong.

There are commercials evangelizing detergent’s and packaging superiority for products like SKIP and bottled water Korpi. According to a commercial, lowering the laundry’s temperature to 30C not only saves energy but also keeps clothes clean because of SKIP’s ability to dilute in cold water. Bottled water Korpi commercial claims that due to bottle redesign, the company managed to reduced plastic usage by 10% per bottle, a fact that enabled the company to sell 6 million less bottles, according to Korpi’s annual sales figures.

Whether such claims are hyped or not, is left to be seen. What really matters is that companies and marketing specialists realize and see the critical mass of eco-friendly Greeks out there.

Have you ever thought of dressing green along with living green? Organic clothing is a new option for wearing your favorite t-shirts without harming the environment and your skin. A typical conventional cotton t-shirt uses about 150 grams of acutely toxic pesticides and insecticides; that’s the size of a cup of sugar. Indigo clothing, a UK based company, offers a variety of organic t-shirts, v-nekcs, polo shirts and jerseys from “a number of brands, who manufacture promotional clothing and work wear with a difference; clothing that is made to exacting standards using quality organic cotton.” According to the company, “that means that you have purer, cleaner fabric and a comfortable, durable, well-finished garment.”

Check out their organic clothing product page here but before that, have a look on the story of organic cotton and how organic farming methods benefit farmers and their communities.

Disclaimer: I am not by any means associated or affiliated with Indigo Clothing

It took developers almost 20 years since the “Wind of Change”, a 1990 power ballad written by Klaus Meine, vocalist of Scorpions, to come up with maglev wind turbines. The new type of wind turbine uses full-permanent magnets to eliminate friction and claims to be 1000x more efficient than the windmill next door. The new wind turbines can produce electricity with wind speed as low as 5Km/h or 3 miles per hour. The technology is scalable and can be used to build turbines in capacities from 400 to 5,000 watts with 500 years life span and lower cost than today’s windmills.

Sounds too good to be true, but it looks like the Chinese power company Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology is currently building a $5 million factory to produce those maglev wind turbines and save humanity from thousands tons of CO2.