- Posts tagged eco
- Explore eco on posterous
a font of entrepreneurial ideas: Springwise
This website is quite interesting, if you like ideas.
http://springwise.com/
People post ideas they've seen happening - you can't post if you haven't seen the idea implemented. You can also browse by industry, so here is Food and Beverage: http://springwise.com/food_beverage/index.php?page=10 and here is Eco stuff: http://springwise.com/eco_sustainability/ Three of my faves:
Eco-minded bathroom fixtures are no longer hard to find, but they still tend to focus more on function than on form. One notable exception is W+W, a combined toilet and sink from Spanish brand Roca that combines compact style with green-minded thinking.
Launched last fall, W+W is a single, L-shaped unit in which the sink and toilet are not only attached but also integrated internally. Specifically, wastewater from the sink is used to fill the toilet's cistern, thus saving as much as 25 percent of the water that would normally be used. An automatic cleaning system prevents bad odors and bacteria, while a specialized tap controls the water's temperature and flow for maximum energy savings, Plumbing Park reported.
Developed by the Roca Innovation Lab and designed by Gabriele and Oscar Buratti, the prize-winning W+W is priced at EUR 2,731. An eco-iconic innovation to bring to the green but style-conscious masses near you...?
Website: www.roca.com.es/w+w/w+w/en/index.html
Contact: www.es.roca.com/en/contact
If the energy people expend dancing and working out can power cellphones, lights and other electrical appliances, why not apply the same concept to all the energy spent by millions of people every day simply walking along city sidewalks? That's exactly the premise behind Pavegen slabs, which can be inserted among regular sidewalk sections to capture the kinetic energy people spend just walking.
Each rubber slab from UK-based Pavegen Systems gets depressed by about 5 mm each time it gets stepped on. Using just that small movement, it can convert the kinetic energy used into electricity, which is then stored in the slab. Specifically, 5 percent of the energy harvested is used to make the slab's LED glow, making it clear to users that their energy has been captured. The rest can be used to power pedestrian lighting, information displays and many other applications. Pavegen's patent-protected technology has also been used to harvest energy from users' footsteps on stairs; custom branding is available.
Following recent tests in East London, Pavegen is now seeking both investors and additional testing sites for its eco-iconic innovation. One to get in on early...?
Website: www.pavegensystems.com
Contact: hello@pavegen.co.uk
Spotted by: James Graemer
Food Waste
Following on from my Bloody Well Smell It post, I want to investigate how food outlets and restaurants in my local area deal with their waste.
Here's a professional service for food waste collection and composting, but it's based in Essex. I wonder if anything similar exists in Brent. I need to get a campaign going under the Transition umbrella... and then tie it to free compost for our gardens...
Juniper Food Waste
Run by a team of dedicated and experienced professionals, our sole purpose at Juniper is to provide a food waste collection service that is cost effective and efficient, that addresses corporate social responsibility and regulatory requirements, in a manner that is environmentally sound.
The Bloody Well Smell It Yourself campaign...
Right, I'm launching some new campaigns. The first one will be called
"The Bloody Well Smell It Yourself" awareness week. This means USE YOUR NOSE to test whether food is really off or whether you are just being ripped off by the manufacturer who are covering their backs by putting the Use By or Best Before date a week before it really needs to be there.
OR the opposite problem is of course having loads of rotting stuff in the fridge. Particularly single people who are sharing domestic quarters do this, I find. They buy in bulk once a week or less, when hungry, and don't get around to planning or eating up leftovers.
Either way, it's all WASTE. And that means methane emissions from landfill 23 times worse than Co2.
So the answer - buy less more often, locally not at the supermarket, plan better, and don't believe the hype about dates.
Here's someone who's started a charity to redistribute surplus food to the needy :
http://www.fareshare.org.uk/
Getting the Plot...allotment plans!
My name is down for 2 allotments (greedy!) which should be coming up in the next year. Because I am unlikely to be able to tend to them all by myself, let alone eat the produce, I'm planning to turn them into permacultured forest gardens in which my local community can learn to grow and share food by close observance of nature and how it behaves in order to get the best fruit and veg. Seeing as I only took up gardening in September 08, I've gotta lot to learn! So in fact, I'll be looking for teachers and gardeners ready to come along and show groups what to do and why. I attended a short permaculture course at Naturewise in the Lea Valley in July '09 and there's certainly a lot of fascinating theory to learn about too. Wish I had time to attend the longer courses. http://www.naturewise.org.uk/page.cfm. There is even a Permaculture Picture House in east London devoted to showing films on this topic. The best known is Rebecca Hoskings BBC documentary "A Farm for the Future", which you can probably find a copy of somewhere.
I'll be returning to this post to write more about permaculture and to start mapping out how we might plan the plots and if you have any suggestions as to planting combinations you have found successful, I'd love to hear. EG - maize supports the climbing runner beans and squash plants used as ground cover beneath them prevents weeds.
On the other hand, I need to get the community involved so I'll leave a lot till then. I'd also like to get a local artist on board to document our plots development. Also, I'd like to see bikes with trailers selling the produce door to door, all over the community.
As always, how to fund it?




