BGreenz

Green Innovations

September 21, 2010

Here are the few green innovations by few innovators to save our earth from global warming.This kind of innovations to be highly appreciated.

Hotel offers free meal to guests who are willing to generate electricity
The Crown Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen , Denmark , is offering a free meal to any guest who is able to produce electricity for the hotel on an exercise bike attached to a generator. Guests will have to produce at least 10 watt hours of electricity – roughly 15 minutes of cycling for someone of average fitness.They will then be given meal vouchers worth $36 (26 euros).

Disco pub gets electricity produced by people dancing at specially modified dance floor
All the flashing strobes and pounding speakers at the dance club are massive consumers of electrical power. So Bar Surya, in London, re-outfitted its floor with springs that, when compressed by dancers, could produce electrical current that would be stored in batteries and used to offset some of the club’s electrical burden. The club’s owner, Andrew Charalambous, said the dance floor can now power 60 percent of the club’s energy needs.

Company creates a desktop printer that doesn’t use ink nor paper

Who says printers only use paper to print documents? It’s time for you to meet the PrePeat Printer then. Different from conventional printers, PrePeat adopts a thermal head to print on specially-made plastic sheets. These plastic sheets are not merely water-proof, but could be easily erased, just feed the sheets through the printer again, and a different temperature will erase everything or just write over it. Also claimed by the manufacturer, such one sheet could be used up to 1,000 times so that you’ll reduce your expenses on paper for sure

University constructs a green roof as a gathering place

Green design is an enormously popular trend in modern architecture, just take a look at this amazing green roof at the School of Art , Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore . This 5-story facility sweeps a wooded corner of the campus with an organic, vegetated form that blends landscape and structure, nature and high-tech and symbolizes the creativity it houses. The roofs serve as informal gathering spaces challenging linear ideas and stirring perception. The roofs create open space, insulate the building, cool the surrounding air and harvest rainwater for landscaping irrigation. Planted grasses mix with native greenery to colonize the building and bond it to the setting.

Designer creates a sink that uses wasted water to grow a plant

Made of polished stained concrete, the Zen Garden Sink has a channel that allows the water used while washing your hands to water a plant. Created by young Montreal designer Jean-Michel Gauvreau the sink comes in single or double basin model. The sink is designed in a way you won’t get your plants all soapy. There is a main drain at the bottom of the basin for soapy grime. Your little plant friend just gets whatever you choose to dole out.

Designer creates light-switch that changes colors to teach children how to save energy

Teaching the importance of energy conservation is the goal of this design from Tim Holley. He calls it Tio, and it’s a ghost-shaped light switch that gives kids a visual reminder of how much energy they’ve used by leaving lights on. Tio starts out green and smiling. If the light is left on for more than four hours, he turns yellow and looks shocked. And if you dare to leave that light on for more than eight hours, sweet little Tio turns into a raging red hulk, complete with frowny mouth and angry eyes. But he won’t just visually remind your kids about their energy habits; information from the light switch is sent to Tio’s computer program so the entire family can see how they’re doing. In a brilliant piece of visual positive reinforcement, Holley’s program lets kids grow a virtual tree which gets bigger and healthier the more energy they save.

Environmental company creates a staple-free stapler to avoid staple pollution
Staples are supposed to be so bad to the environment that a company decided to create a staple-free stapler. This product promises to make collation eco-friendly. Instead of using those thin metal planet-killers, the staple-free stapler “cuts out tiny strips of paper and uses the strips to stitch up to five pieces of paper together.” You can even order them customized with your corporate logo so you can, you know, brag about what your company is doing to stop the staple epidemic.

Designer creates an iPhone charger powered by a hand grip

Wedding Invitation

September 14, 2010

How to be environment friendly in wedding invitations, here are the few tips for saving our global from global warming

Many of today’s couples are trying to be more environmentally conscience when planning their wedding. When it comes to your wedding invitations, being more earth friendly can actually be accomplished with some simple choices. In some instances, you may even save a little money.

Bold Statement Wedding Invitations.Possibly one of the most thought about choices is having them printed on a recycled paper. This particular design is printed on paper that is Green Seal Certified, made with 100% post-consumer fibers and created without the use of chlorine compounds.

Another simple choice is to use less paper in your wedding invitation ensemble by considering these ideas:

* Select a more traditional single-panel card style.

* Eliminate the need for including a reception card by having your reception information printed directly on your invitation (having less weight in the envelope might even save you from adding extra postage for mailing). If space allows, your dinner and reception details can be added on as extra lines aligned with the rest of your verse printing. In some cases, the style may allow the option of a corner copy for listing these details (3-4 lines that are printed in the bottom left or right corner in a smaller sized font usually for a small fee). Corner copy is not recommended for narrow or tea length designs.

* Choose an invitation style that gets mailed with only a single envelope instead of the typical double (inner and outer) envelopes. A self-mailer is a great example since it includes an envelopment that wraps around all of your pieces and seals up to become the actual mailing envelope. One envelope will also save you time when it comes to addressing. Please note that this style may require extra postage depending on the size of the invitation.

* If you will be including a response card, consider enclosing a postcard which not only eliminates the return mailing envelope but will also require less postage. A great style that actually has a response postcard attached for easy removal and mailing back by your guests is a seal n send wedding invitation. This economical all-in-one design folds up and seals into a self-mailing piece so it also eliminates the mailing envelope altogether.

* Setting up a personal wedding website can provide your guests with online maps, directions, names of hotels, registry information, etc. This will eliminate the need for extra invitation insert pieces also saving on paper.

When it’s time to choose your wedding invitations, you will of course want them to reflect your own personal style. Here, you’ll learn how to choose or make unique wedding invites that are also eco-friendly.

The easiest way is to make or have your invitations printed on recycled paper. Today’s recycled papers are much stronger and of better quality than those of the past. When you choose recycled paper, try for that which is completely made from post consumer content. If just one ton of recycled paper is used,

it saves enough energy to power a home for 6 months! Companies like Earthly Affair, Greener Printer, and Naturally Ever After, create wedding invites made with recycled cardstock and sustainable practices.

Another trend is seeded paper. It makes a unique invitation that your guests are sure to remember, and instead of throwing it in the trash, they can plant it in a pot or a nice sunny spot, and get wildflowers to grow. Of The Earth offers handmade seed wedding invitations and DIY wedding invites created with seeded paper. These wedding invitations are creative, beautiful and offer a great way for wedding guests to remember your big day; every time they see they plants that have grown from your seeded invitation!

You can also buy paper not made from wood. Tree-free paper makes up 1/3 of the paper made in underdeveloped nations. Plants like flax, hemp and cotton are spun into fibers that are used to make quality paper.

If you decide to go the DIY route with your invites, all the types of paper we just talked about come in a variety of textures, thicknesses and colors, and can be used in most PC printers. Using a simple design on one piece of paper is the greenest choice, and they can easily be made more or less formal. To embellish them, you can glue dried flowers around the border.

It’s easy to have wedding invitations that are both stylish and eco-friendly. Just choose your paper carefully, use a natural ink and a simple design, and they’re sure to reflect your personality and your style.

Ref:http://www.gogreenstreet.com

Wedding Invitation

September 14, 2010

How to be environment friendly in wedding invitations, here are the few tips for saving our global from global warming

Another simple choice is to use less paper in your wedding invitation ensemble by considering these ideas:

* Select a more traditional single-panel card style.

Ref:http://www.gogreenstreet.com

Eco Friendly Furniture

September 9, 2010

We have to make eco friendly products a part of our life in all means.Here is the one that, we all should make our life comfortable with recycled or environment friendly products.

In what seems like just a few years, consumer awareness about sustaining the health of the environment has rapidly increased and manufacturers for every type of product have jumped on the eco-friendly bandwagon. You can’t go shopping without seeing at least one eco-friendly product on the shelves. Home furniture is just one of those product categories that are touting eco-friendly properties. With all the costs that are associated with a home, including utilities bills, maintenance and home insurance, people are looking to invest in the best furniture that also aids in the health on the environment. When you see a piece of furniture that claims to be eco-friendly, it can be for a number of different reasons.

Eco-friendly furniture may use materials that include recycled content, which has been produced from post-industrial or post-consumer waste. Old materials such as glass, plastic, metal and wood can be transformed and incorporated into new pieces of furniture. Furniture may also utilize materials that are considered sustainable, which means the resource can be grown at a rate that is equivalent or faster than the rate that is it being used or consumed. These sustainable or rapidly renewable materials prevent the depletion of natural resources and decrease harm to the world’s ecosystems. Companies may even package furniture with recycled or renewable materials and may use less packaging in general.

Lots of handmade furniture can be considered as eco-friendly because of the less energy that is used compared to the energy it would take to run machines. An eco-friendly piece of furniture could also have been made in a plant that minimizes the use of natural resources like water and use energy in the most efficient ways. The building that the furniture is made in may have been built in a way that minimizes carbon emissions or utilizes alternative energy sources, such as solar power. Generally, furniture that requires little processing can be considered as eco-friendly also.

Eco-friendly furniture should be made of materials that emit very few or no carcinogens, toxins, irritants or volatile organic compounds (VOCs). For example, a piece of furniture covered in lead-based paint isn’t exactly eco-friendly because lead is a toxic metal, especially to small children who may ingest bits of the paint. Toxic compounds, such as some wood preservatives, and other compounds that deplete the ozone layer, should not be used during any phase of the production of eco-friendly furniture also.

Eco Friendly Furniture

September 9, 2010

We have to make eco friendly products a part of our life in all means.Here is the one that, we all should make our life comfortable with recycled or environment friendly products.

Carbon emissions

September 7, 2010

Carbon emissions are most dangerous for our mankind and all living beings.of course we are in urgent need of fixing the issue.Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect.The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

Carbon emissions: Who cares?

Who cares about carbon emissions? Carbon dioxide creates the largest contribution to the greenhouse effect, which is what is slowly, yet persistently, warming our globe. That makes it the most important greenhouse gas out there; it’s currently responsible for about 10 – 25 percent of the greenhouse effect. The next two on the list is methane and ozone, incidentally, do not crack the double digits, so carbon emissions are in the lead, in a bad way, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

All this is to say, really, that we live not only in a carbon-based world, but a carbon emission-based society and economy, and the scope of activities that produce carbon emissions is just huge. Anything involving coal, natural gas, petroleum has a carbon emission

Fossil fuels or mineral fuels are fossil source fuels, that is, hydrocarbons found within the top layer of the Earth’s crust.

They range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquid petroleum to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields, alone, associated with oil, or in the form of methane clathrates. It is generally accepted that they formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants and animals by exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth’s crust over hundreds of millions of years. This is known as the biogenic theory and was first introduced by Georg Agricola in 1556 and later by Mikhail Lomonosov in 1757. There is an opposing more modern theory that the more volatile hydrocarbons, especially natural gas, are formed by abiogenic processes, that is no living material was involved in their formation.

It was estimated by the Energy Information Administration that in 2005, 86% of primary energy production in the world came from burning fossil fuels, with the remaining non-fossil sources being hydroelectric 6.3%, nuclear 6.0%, and other ( geothermal, solar, wind, and wood and waste) 0.9 percent.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being formed. Concern about fossil fuel supplies is one of the causes of regional and global conflicts. The production and use of fossil fuels raise environmental concerns. A global movement toward the generation of renewable energy is therefore under way to help meet increased energy needs.

The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes (= 21.3 gigatons) of carbon dioxide per year, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year (one tonne of atmospheric carbon is equivalent to 44/12 or 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide). Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that enhances radiative forcing and contributes to global warming, causing the average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response, which climate scientists agree will cause major adverse effects, including reduced biodiversity and, over time, cause sea level rise.

Fossil fuels are of great importance because they can be burned ( oxidized to carbon dioxide and water), producing significant amounts of energy. The use of coal as a fuel predates recorded history. Semi-solid hydrocarbons from seeps were also burned in ancient times, but these materials were mostly used for waterproofing and embalming. Commercial exploitation of petroleum, largely as a replacement for oils from animal sources (notably whale oil) for use in oil lamps began in the nineteenth century. Natural gas, once flared-off as an un-needed byproduct of petroleum production, is now considered a very valuable resource.

Heavy crude oil, which is very much more viscous than conventional crude oil, and tar sands, where bitumen is found mixed with sand and clay, are becoming more important as sources of fossil fuel. Oil shale and similar materials are sedimentary rocks containing kerogen, a complex mixture of high-molecular weight organic compounds, which yield synthetic crude oil when heated ( pyrolyzed). These materials have yet to be exploited commercially.

Combustion of fossil fuels generates sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, which fall to Earth as acid rain, impacting both natural areas and the built environment. Monuments and sculptures made from marble and limestone are particularly vulnerable, as the acids dissolve calcium carbonate.

Environmental effects

Fossil fuels also contain radioactive materials, mainly uranium and thorium, that are released into the atmosphere. In 2000, about 12,000 metric tons of thorium and 5,000 metric tons of uranium were released worldwide from burning coal. It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island incident. However, this radioactivity from coal burning is minuscule at each source and has not shown to have any adverse effect on human physiology.

Burning coal also generates large amounts of bottom ash and fly ash. These materials are used in a wide variety of applications, utilizing, for example, about 40% of the US production.

Harvesting, processing, and distributing fossil fuels can also create environmental concerns. Coal mining methods, particularly mountaintop removal and strip mining, have negative environmental impacts, and offshore oil drilling poses a hazard to aquatic organisms. Oil refineries also have negative environmental impacts, including air and water pollution. Transportation of coal requires the use of diesel-powered locomotives, while crude oil is typically transported by tanker ships, each of which requires the combustion of additional fossil fuels.