Picnic in eco-style

I've been researching materials lately, and I ran across Verterra. Hard to believe, but these eco-friendly dishes are made from fallen leaves and water. That's all--no plastics, binders, adhesives, lacquers, or other chemicals. The resulting product is porous, so it isn't recommended for reuse, but probably would hold up to multiple washings if you're careful. In photos, they're lovely. 

We usually party with either real plates or basic Chinet (also compostable in our industrial city system), but the first really good excuse I have to use these, I'm placing an order*. So pretty!

*If I ever see these in person, I'll update this post.

Images from Verterra. Discovery via Lunar's materials guide.

Eco-lemonade

"Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood," -Newt Gingrich

 

With the vitriol our politicians (and citizens) spew toward each other, I’m already dreading the upcoming election season. On top of the toxic conversation, campaigning and all its associated signs, paper, stickers, etc. also contribute substantially to landfills. This designer found a way to make lemonade out of corrugated plastic lemons. 

Bonus, who doesn't admire a clever DIY pendant light? 

Via Core77. Photos from Andrew Thomson.

Bear Market

Cute product and cute branding. The story is that Mr. Jermyn’s shirts were “shrinking” so Mrs. Jermyn repurposed them into teddy bears. I always love alternative uses of menswear, and the collar detail on these is especially charming.

 

Get your own here.
Photos from Mrs. Jermyn. Via ecouterre

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

I’ve been doing crowd-sourcing research for my 9-5, and I ran across this. I’m passionate about the whole bottled water challenge. I understand the issues; I’ve seen Tapped; I carry my Sigg bottles almost everywhere. On the flip side, I think it’s good and healthy for people to drink water, and bottled water is a modern convenience that seems potentially vital in this age of sugary sodas and obesity.

I keep thinking back to “the good ol’ days” when people didn’t buy water or carry it around with them like pack mules. What did they do? They drank from water fountains. Just try to find a public water fountain these days--It’s challenging. Peter Gleick (aka this week's lab crush) and Google to the rescue! The WeTap project uses crowd-sourcing to map public drinking fountains. 

They are looking for volunteers to help with the project in the SF Bay Area and in LA. All you need is an Android-based smart phone and a gmail account. Oh, and a willingness to seek out, test, and post public drinking fountains. If you’re not on the volunteer side, you can still check out the resulting map. The program is in Beta now. I'm not crazy about the current interface, but I'm sure it will get slicker as the project evolves.


SF Gate via Treehugger. Photo by flickr user TPapi (CC license).

Today's big marketing idea

It’s Earth Day, so the internet is brimming with green articles to read and eco-products to buy. I’m going to give you something instead:

See this article on CNET, all about Greenpeace’s efforts to pressure the computer industry to green-up the power sources for their big server farms. On the Greenpeace scale, Yahoo scores the highest, in part because their data centers are located where there’s abundant hydropower. Google does OK, as the company invests in wind and solar power to offset their carbon footprint. Apple does poorly. You can read all the details on CNET.

So what? So here’s my big marketing idea for all those companies pushing cloud computing:

“Your cloud, powered by the sun.”

I’ll even let you have that for free if you make it real. You can trademark it and run with it. 

Chart from Greenpeace. Via CNET.

You can dish it out...

You know I'm a sucker for creative uses of recycled glass. Fix Studios designed this amazing wall divider featuring vintage pressed glass plates suspended in epoxy. What a great use of grandma's overly frilly dishes! 

If you're in Vancouver, you can see it yourself at the restaurant Lapellah, where they (according to the interwebs) have jalapeno thyme hush puppies on the menu.

Images from Fix. Via re-nest.

Fairytale Fashion

Today's post is just a little green eye candy. Check out Ryan Novelline's stunning couture dress made almost entirely from recycled Golden Books. The bodice is composed of those trademark golden spines. Click on through to the designer's site for more pix, including a whole "making of" series of photos. 

Via ecouterre. Images from Ryan Novelline.