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My home is definitely my refuge.
Until recently, I thought I did a pretty nice job of doing my part for the environment when it came to my home: using eco-friendly cleaning supplies, buying CFL’s, setting the timer to regulate heat and air, but the more I read, the more I find that I can do. There are also a ton of companies emerging that are trying to make an impact while reducing their footprint.
Below are a few of my favorite online destinations for cool products and information for the home and home office:
- The Lazy Environmentalist, Josh Dorfman’s company, Vivavi, is a one stop shop for decorating a stylishly modern and eco savvy home. For a more traditional and equally stylish look, check out Brooklyn Farm Table’s reclaimed tables.
- For the home office, check out the Zody by Haworth. This ergonomically designed chair boasts cradle to cradle cert
ification and is made of recycled materials down to the nylon on the seats. Haworth even purchases wind credits to power the manufacturing of the product. While sourcing materials is one of the biggest challenges that they face according to the company’s Sr Design for Environment Engineer, Mark Bonnema, they are getting partners onboard and are creating a sustainable chain reaction. The company itself is pursuing some impressive sustainability objectives: sustainable products and design, energy management, green transportation, zero waste and emissions, green building and site management and social responsibility.
For years I’ve been reading about the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle. Beef production creates more CO2 than autos, factory farm conditions are unhealthy and awful, and veggies are healthier too! But let me be frank: I really really really like bacon. I can cut down on my meat intake, no problem! I only eat it with friends and relatives. But say good bye to succulent chicken breast, or slow-cooked BBQ ribs… forever? Well there’s only so much a girl can do, my friends.
So I suppose it’s not surprising that some people are looking for meat alternatives, and I’m not talking about Tofurkey. I’m talking about real meat, but minus the animal.
Editor’s note: We all know shoes leave a footprint, but probably haven’t given much thought to the environmental footprint created by shoe manufacturing. Travis Brown, a student in Professor Simran Sethi’s Media and the Environment course at the University of Kansas, takes a look at the impact of what we put on our feet. This post was originally published to the course blog on Monday, March 10, 2008, and on Triplepundit on Thursday, March 13, 2008.
America has a shoe problem.
2,286,472,000 shoes were purchased in the U.S. in 2005 according to the American Apparel & Footwear Association. There were 297,821,175 Americans alive at the end of 2005. That’s 7.67 shoes per person. Now I realize that I am a man and therefore do not understand the true glory of shoes, but this seems a little absurd. Think of all the different materials that go into making shoes and their packaging. Think of all the different places that those materials come from. Then think of where the shoes are made and how far they travel. In 2005, only 1.4% of consumed shoes were manufactured in America. 84.2% of American bought shoes that were made in China.
Just take a gander at this trend throughout the past few decades.
By Joe Mohr •
March 1, 2008
ECO2 Plastics makes me want to dance–although this was after it made me want to sob. I’ll get to the latter later. The former is why I’ve titled this post “Environmental Boogaloo”. Boogaloo (bugalu) is a type of Latin dance and music and, after speaking with the good folks at ECO2 Plastics, I want to dance!
Why I Wanted to Sob
In getting info for this article I found out what ECO2 CEO Rod Rougelot calls “recycling’s dirty little secret.” During the process of recycling plastic, tons of water is wasted during cleaning. This water is not your ordinary run-of-the-watermill water, however. A variety of harmful acids and detergents are added to the water to clean the contaminants, glue, and labels off the plastic. Deflocculants are then added to pull the solids out of the wastewater. Finally, (and this is a very general explanation of the process) the wastewater is treated to balance the pH level of the water. This is done through the use of more chemicals. End result: one, sanitized plastic ready to be recycled; two, a cocktail of harmful, detergents, chemicals, acids, bases, deflocculants, and contaminants headed down the drain and back into our fresh water supply (approximately 40 million gallons per year to be–approximately–exact). When I verbalized my feelings of being hoodwinked, Rougelot quickly pointed out that, although a dirty, wasteful process, it is still better than creating plastic from scratch. Thanks for the verbal tissue Rod. Goodbye, for now, tears!
By Sarah Lozanova •
February 28, 2008
John Sedgwick is the Co-founder and Vice President of Solaicx, a company that manufactures silicon ingots and wafers for solar electric (PV) panels. They are then supplied to solar panel manufacturers across the globe.
Solaicx began production at their new manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon at the end of 2007. While current capacity of the plant is 40 MW, production will increase to 180 MW in the future.
CleanTechnica: What kinds of general trends have you seen in the solar industry as a whole?
John Sedgwick: The general objective of the entire industry is to reduce costs. What we see in markets across the world is, as you lower the levelized costs of solar electricity down to the levelized cost of traditional electricity, the markets just go vertical. When you look over time, the industry is doing dramatically well at reducing costs.That’s even when you take into account some significant challenges, things like polysilicon shortages and other shortages that have popped up as a direct result of a market that has been growing at 35%, 40%, and 50% a year have caused shortages that have increased some costs in the chain. Yet, because of manufacturing efficiencies, conversion efficiencies, and economies of scale, the industry has been able to hold the line on any cost increases and has done pretty well at reducing costs.
There's no definitive answer to that question (yet), but the Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is putting the hard sell on California-based Tesla Motors (creator of the very cool electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster) to locate a new manufacturing facility in the Wolverine State.
