Green Options » Do+it+yourself

Biodiesel Boom Spurs Theft of Nasty, Used Fry-O-Lator Grease

Nick Chambers — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:49:34 +0000

Rotting, leftover fryer grease has turned into gold in the race to our energy future — and thieves have taken notice.

It’s early in the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning. A group of Northern California pseudohippies just finished a game of Zonk — or rather, the game just stopped because somebody quoted a line from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and everybody forgot what they were doing.

Yet, by a stroke of luck, the conversation about Harold and Kumar reminds the group of their real reason for staying up so late. They pack into a truck and head down to the local fast food joint looking to load up — but it’s not the food they’re loading up on, it’s the nasty, half-rotted, leftover fryer grease.

Biodiesel Guide: 7 Steps to Buying a Diesel

Clayton B. Cornell — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:22:45 +0000

Thinking about ‘converting’ to biodiesel?
It’s not as hard as you think.

This series of posts is intended for readers looking to start using biodiesel by finding an older diesel vehicle, ‘converting it’, and then finding a local fuel source.

Before embarking on a biodiesel adventure, it may be a good idea to determine whether biodiesel is available in your area (it probably is), and most importantly, whether or not it’s conveniently located. While some of us are willing to go to great lengths to find and use alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, this isn’t practical for everyone.

For information on how to find biodiesel, see 6 Ways To Find And Use Biodiesel Anywhere, and for more background you may want to get started with the Biodiesel Mythbuster. This post is primarily focused on buying a used diesel, but it should be helpful to anyone interested in using biodiesel.

Finding Your First Biodiesel Car (or Truck)

It’s important to understand that any diesel engine can run on any blend of biodiesel with no major conversion. In older vehicles, it’s not a bad idea to change out fuel lines (biodiesel eats rubber over time), but don’t let anyone convince you that this is difficult or expensive (more on this later). First, let’s find your first biodiesel vehicle:

Step 1: Determine Your Needs

Eco-Effective Furniture: DIY Packaging Projects

Elizabeth Redmond — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:24:59 +0000

When we order a new piece of furniture or new piece of technology for our home, it comes delivered in a box large enough for kids to build a fort in (what I did in an old refrigerator box once). There’s so much packaging that you have to call your trash service and request a special “large load” pick-up. I am ashamed to bring home a plastic bag from the grocery store when I forget my cloth, but how ashamed are we when we request this mountain of waste.

Well a recent graduate of Central St Martins’ Masters Industrial Design Program, Tom Ballhatchet, decided to use the guild in a constructive way. Instead of throwing away all this stamped foam packaging from his new flat-screen TV, Tom decided to construct an entertainment stand. It makes us think of the form of these extruded or stamped packaging part, oftentimes they are the same shape and size or have nice crevices that can serve as storage. My only wish in this project is that he found a way to incorporate the gigantic box and plastic wrap.

With this trend of Zero waste design and seeing packaging as superfluous, we are beginning to see even more products out there that use their packaging in the fully constructed form. Lite2Go’s packaging doubles as the actual lampshade leaving very little waste (the label and instructions for assembly). Designed by Knoed (i.e. know no-end), Lite2go is a good example of their mission statement- “taking into consideration the full life cycle of materials going into the products they design”. The packaging/shade is made of recyclable polypropylene plastic; and the electric cord and bulb can be recycled at the appropriate centers.

The interesting thing about this design is that it is just plain practical. One doesn’t have to be an eco-conscious consumer to see this. Why create extra packaging when it is unnecessary? Although the light is marketed as a green product, it could be marketed just as a light with a fun DIY surprise.

With this trend of cutting down on emissions and waste, we need to think beyond recycling. As recycling requires energy to break materials down into a new usable source, reusing materials for a new purpose is much more energy efficient. I challenge you to get creative with your waste and repurpose some of it at least once before you get rid of it.