Yes. It exists. GreenGraffitti, a service of Netherlands based graphic design/marketing firm Hemshaven, creates ads using three ingredients: Dirty, high foot traffic urban sidewalks, a stencil, and a high pressure water sprayer. Apply stencil to sidewalk, spray water, remove stencil, and you have a visually compelling, totally non polluting, long lasting (up to 6 months they claim) ad.

GreenGrafitti say it’s, “completely carbon neutral and contributes in a unique way to a healthier environment.” But the question comes to my mind, yes they’re not using paper, ink, PVC, etc, but what about all that water that’s used?

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Even though the residential wind power sector has seen tremendous growth over the last decade, an article in The Arizona Republic estimates that there are still only 4,000 residential wind turbines nationwide. The primary reason that wind energy has been slow to take hold is that wind turbines are fairly visible, and therefore highly controversial, installations. According to the American Wind Energy Association, small wind systems (100 kilowatts or less) need to be at least 30 feet above barriers which might break the force of the air currents reaching the turbine. Right now, the industry recommends wind turbines only for sites that are at least one 1 acre in size. Consequently, wind turbines in urban areas are still quite rare. (In a September 2007 post, earth2tech featured a San Francisco home which sports a turbine, and pointed out that this may be the first urban wind turbine in the country.)

Unfortunately, individual efforts to experiment with wind power, even in outlying areas, have encountered a lot of roadblocks. Proposed turbine installations are usually evaluated by local governments on a case by case basis, since most city zoning laws have height restrictions which would implicitly prohibit turbines. Oftentimes, even if permission is granted and a turbine is erected, neighbors unite to fight the decision. (For individual turbine projects that have made news for seeking exceptions to local codes, see these articles on Wayne, New Jersey and Atlanta, Georgia).

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The future city, Dongtan, is growing out of an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta. The unique Ecocity being built on the island is also a creative way to protect the island’s ecologically sensitive wetland environment from China’s fast-paced development.

What will life in China’s first ecocity look like?

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A 200-word essay, a clever solution, and a $25 fee secure your entry into this international competition that seeks to build sustainable urban communities. Re:Connect encourages ecopreneurs to consider the role of technology in urban environments, the localization of key services, and biomimetic neighborhood design.

Register for the competition by June 1st and submit your innovative entry by June 15th for consideration. Prizes include $2,000 in cash, media promotion, and the opportunity to sustainably transform an urban landscape. While on the Re:Connect site, be sure to browse additional competitions and resources including:

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Los Angeles has a dearth of publicly owned fruit trees, but who owns the fruit they produce? The three activists behind Fallen Fruit dare to ask, “Is this my banana?” By their estimate, 22 different crops can be harvested from public land trees in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles alone. Among these are citrus fruits, quava, walnuts and even prickly pear cactus pads, which can be turned into the Mexican delicacy, nopalitos. Their mission is to encourage city planners and officials to plant only fruit trees as part of municipal landscaping. Public funds and worker hours go into maintaining municipal land, so why not have these plants also produce edible harvest? Fallen Fruit also organizes fruit harvesting events, usually at night and usually in plastic lab coats for effect.

A less political example is the Fruit Tree Project of Vancouver - a community initiative that connects residents who have fruit trees on their property with soup kitchens and other community organizations that help eradicate hunger. The group also hosts canning workshops in an effort to encourage local eating during the winter months. The movement has an additional benefit: it is sponsored by Nelson Bear Aware, an organization that tries to eliminate human-bear conflict. It turns out, the spoiled fruit from urban fruit trees has been attracting bears for decades, exposing them to the possibility of being shot or run over.

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A couple of weeks ago, Kemper Barkhurst at EnvironmentalSurvival.com dropped me a note about a concept he was developing: urban harvesting. In his post on the topic, Kemper notes that much (perhaps most) of the food we eat in the US travels long distances to get from farm to plate; at the same time, many people with fruit trees in their own yards let that produce go to waste. The urban harvesting service that Kemper’s proposing would assist home and landowners with harvesting that fruit:

Our mission is to directly connect this otherwise wasted fruit with the local markets, processing facilities, and food banks. We also plan to share all our experiences with this service by openly extending this information with the rest of the World. We hope others will adopt our strategy and start similar services in their own community.

Like Christopher Uhl’s neighborhood gardening concept, urban harvesting is incredibly simple and sensible. There’s no mystery to why fruit that’s as local as our own backyards often goes to waste: Kemper notes “..most homeowners lack the time and interest to properly share or store this food.” But, of course, there are people and organizations that could use this locally-grown bounty, so Urban Harvest plans to connect the supply of and demand for this fruit that will otherwise rot.

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Luckily, companies around the country are stepping in to fill this void. Here in Los Angeles, Greenopia is definitely the leader of the pack. Billed as “the urban dweller’s guide to green living” the Greenopia guide is available for $12.95 in a portable paperback version. The listings include just about every category that you can imagine, including service providers (my dry cleaner, at last!), restaurants, retailers and other green resources.

You can pick up a guide at many locations throughout LA, including area Whole Foods Markets. The company also offers a San Francisco edition, launched last month, along with a new website that includes searchable listings for both cities. And, according to Greenopia’s Hannah Davey, the company has plans to expand to New York within the next year or so, followed by Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and Boulder/Denver.

Unlike a typical Yellow Pages model, like Co-op America’s National Green Pages, businesses are strictly local. Perhaps more importantly, businesses cannot pay to be listed in Greenopia – they have to qualify. The results of this screening process are included in the guide as Greenopia’s own “leaf award” rating system. Representing each business’s commitment to sustainability, the ratings are based on considerations specific to each category. For example, restaurants are rated primarily based on the percentage of organic, locally grown, sustainably produced food on their menu.

This qualification process sets Greenopia apart, as it provides assurance that a business has earned the right to be included in the guide. Though the boom in environmentally-friendly products and services is definitely a good thing, who has the time or ability to investigate every “green” claim? Thank you, Greenopia, for helping us act locally, while thinking globally.

If not us, WHO? If not here, WHERE? If not now, WHEN?

These are the questions that gave birth to the Bay Area Urban Alliance of Sustainability three years ago. With a mission to "Inspire and integrate the sustainability movement,” and a vision to "Support the transformation of the world into a harmonious social, economic and natural environment for the benefit of all," UAS is working to connect local green organizations and individuals through programs centered around networking and community education — essentially giving people a platform where they can access and collaborate with others in the local green scene.

Being a volunteer-run organization, the easiest way to get directly involved in UAS is through volunteering or becoming a member.

As a member you get a number of benefits, including an individual, hour-long sustainability consultation about easy ways to reduce your eco-footprint. You can find out more about anything from feasible food options to green jobs in your local area. You can also ask about other help topics or discuss various green solutions you’ve seen or been involved in.

When people in your zip code sign up, UAS will organize an area-specific potluck to connect you with other green people in your neighborhood.

Members also have access to sustainabilty consultants via phone and website. Check out www.uas.coop for the e-newsletter, or to find out more on collaborative green solutions in the Bay Area.

What would you think if you saw one of these stickers on a paper towel dispenser in a public bathroom? The folks at TheseComeFromTrees.com hope you'll think about the source of the paper towels and use as little as possible. By placing these stickers in plain view on paper towel dispensers, they're calling out an often forgotten fact about where the resources we use each day come from, and inspiring people to take a simple form of action right then and there. The stickers supposedly reduce paper towel usage by about 15%, saving 100 pounds of paper (about one tree) every year. For a simple little sticker, that's quite an impact!

These Come From Trees claims to be the first guerrilla public service announcement, a form of alternative marketing aimed at getting the public to think about their paper consumption, and take small steps to reduce it. While I'm not sure that this is the first guerilla public service announcement, it is certainly is a simple yet effective one. The message would benefit from being completely created using sustainable materials, of course, such as recycled or tree-free paper, and perhaps laminated with wax instead of petroleum-based plastic. I'm hoping as this project evolves, efforts will continue to make the stickers themselves fall more in line with their message.

Guerilla marketing is not a new phenomenon, but it is about time it was used for the benefit of the environment rather than the benefit of a corporation. Guerilla marketing is a subtle and usually low-cost way of marketing that often involves meeting the audience at their level and in their environment, most often this means on the street. Often the audience of a guerilla marketing message doesn't even know they are being marketed to, which makes this form of marketing both effective and controversial. The guerilla public service announcement seems like a great direction to take guerilla marketing tactics in.

Another example of a guerilla public service announcement was a campaign targeting air pollution in Chicago, which used a pressure washer to stencil messages into city sidewalks and show just how dirty the city was. Human shapes made from clean sidewalk bore the message "Chicago is plagued by air pollution. Don't just lie there. Contact your alderman." This is another example of a simple guerilla marketing message that incites immediate action.

When I see marketing messages on sidewalks and in public places, I can't help but think that they were inspired by street art and grafitti. Something about guerilla marketing just screams Banksy, although most marketing messages aren't quite a bold and poignant as his work. Street artists like Banksy often involve social commentary in their work, so street art is a great model for spreading a socially or environmentally important message. Now, if only all the guerilla public service announcements were as nicely designed and hard-hitting as Banksy's work…

If you want to help spread awareness about paper conservation, you can order stickers from These Come From Trees and (with permission of the property owners of course), post them on paper towel and toilet paper dispensers in your area. Or, if you're more artistically inclined, bust out some sidewalk chalk and create a guerilla public service announcement of your own, even if it's on your own driveway! I am now oddly compelled to start writing "stop global warming - go vegetarian" all over my local campus… sounds like a great weekend project.