At RICOH booth, we saw the demonstration of a new erasable advance paper. Printed document on this advance paper can be erased by ironing and be ready for another round of printing.

I had an opportunity to take the English guided tour at Eco-Products 2008. The Eco-Products exhibition is one of the largest green fairs in Japan, showing all kinds of green products and services to the public. The event draws a large number of visitors. It’s possibly the world’s largest event of its kind. The tenth Eco-Products 2008 exhibition was successful enough to attract 173,917 visitors this year according to the event organizer.

Visitors came from all over the world to see the latest of Japanese green activities. To accommodate such foreign visitors, guided tours in English, Chinese and Korean, were offered for free by volunteer staff from Japan for Sustainability (JFS) and EcoNetworks (ENW). The English guided tours were offered twice during the three-day event, but you needed to register for the tour beforehand at JFS’s website.

Our tour was guided by Frank H. Ling Ph.D. from USA, who works as a researcher for the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. Our group had five visitors including me plus a lead guide, Mr. Ling, with a few more staff for additional assistance.

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More details of some of the intresting products on display are to come later, but meantime here are some pictures from the event:

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Plan to be in Fort Collins for the premier green festival of northern Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair.

The Sustainable Living Fair is a solution based, hands-on, family oriented event designed to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about Sustainable Living Practices, Renewable Energy, Environmental & Social Responsibility, Natural Health, Green Building, Alternative Vehicles, Organic Agriculture, Local Economies and more.

This event draws thousands of people every year for a weekend of green education, community building, and inspiring speakers. For five bucks you can take your pick from over 50 workshops and learn about local food, sustainable agriculture and green living from hundreds of exhibitors.

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Wait, stop the press. I sound cynical and am raining on the parade. The Green Festival in San Francisco was great in many ways. Jeff McIntire-Strasburg can give you a good idea of where the fun was.

Let’s accentuate the positive: I may have been dismayed by all of the small samples of cosmetics and potions being doled out in small plastic containers, but there really were some impressive companies exhibiting at the Festival.

Buygreen.com for one: By carefully choosing products and giving shoppers detailed information about the source materials, manufacturing, use and disposal of each product (and even a relative score across all the criteria), BuyGreen.com makes it easier to buy, own and dispose of household and office products consciously.

Doug Farquhar and Allison Huke, owners, in the BuyGreen.com booth at the San Francisco Green Festival.

Providing detailed information about each item in the BuyGreen.com store is certainly labor-intensive, and online retailing is very competitive. I want to cheer them on and hope that such conscious consuming catches on quick!

Have you ever sat stuck in traffic for hours and noticed how many empty seats there are for every driver on the road?

This observation is exactly what prompted Oakland-resident Stephen Cataldo to found SpaceShare, the green carpool, rideshare, and travel hub for conferences and festivals around the country. Operating from the simple goal to have “less cars. more community,” SpaceShare provides access for various festival and conference-goers to connect with fellow greenies or music lovers while saving on gas and reducing pollution.

Stephen Cataldo rightly observes that “People travel to festivals and conferences to connect. Yet their travels are often uncoordinated, lonely and expensive.” And this is exactly what SpaceShare seeks to address by giving people a digital space to meet, connect, and arrange for rideshares to their favorite events.

I first found out about SpaceShare while looking for a ride to last year’s SolFest. Living in the Bay Area, I am lucky enough to rely on my bike and public transit for all of my transportation needs… That is, until I need to get to the latest green event outside of public transport limits!

Finding my ride through SpaceShare couldn’t have been easier and more fun. Through the rideshare link provided on the Solfest website, I entered a quick blurb about myself and the dates/place I needed a ride for, then scoured the list of drivers leaving from the Bay Area who were offering space in their car. The people I eventually found for the 3-hour trip up to SolFest were some of coolest, funniest, greenest people I’ve met out here. In fact, they’ve since become some of my closest friends. If you’re interested in learning more about SpaceShare’s latest activities, or to get involved, please visit www.spaceshare.com.