You know we love upcycling around here, so when the folks at MINIWIZ offered to send me their case for the iPhone 4 that's made from trash, I knew I had to take them up on it.

The case is made out of an architectural grade plastic called POLLI-BER, that the company developed. Polli-ber is a trash composite made with processed organic rice husk and post-consumer thermoplastics from used car bumpers, CD containers, bottle caps, etc. Pretty cool, right? Keeping plastic out of the landfill and replacing something that people buy with a more sustainable alternative!

The case fit my phone nicely, though I wish that it also protected the phone's face. I drop my phone a lot, and my last iPhone bit the dust when the screen shattered.

One really cool feature about the RE-Case is that it seems to be geared towards folks who use mass transit. There's room in the case to insert your refillable transit card, though I guess if you have one of those tap and spend credit cards, you could use that, too. They provide an EM shield that you stick between the card and your phone, so the phone won't demagnetize your card.

The case is cute, and I like that it's multi purpose. One thing that sort of bothered me was the packaging. Here's what the press release says about the packaging: "RE-case is packaged in recycled cardboard." What they don't mention is that the recycled cardboard is then wrapped in plastic film. Since they don't mention anything about it, I'm assuming this isn't made from trash or recycled. Plastic of this quality also isn't recyclable, so each case comes with a bit of trash that's headed for the landfill. Here's everything that came with my RE-Case

Don't get me wrong: I love that they're diverting waste from the landfill to make a product that people are buying already. If you're in the market for an iPhone 4 case and the screen thing isn't a concern for you--lots of iPhone cases don't have screen protection--this is a great way to buy a case with a lot less waste. It certainly has fewer disposable bits than most of the cases out there.

The rep from MINIWIZ who sent me the case to review commented via email on the plastic wrap issue. Here's what she had to say:

Our distributors demanded that we sealed the entire packaging with plastic (anti-theft, anti-dust, whatever) and you have no idea how peeved we were. But alas, it was a hard battle to convince retailers to carry them in the first place, when all they wanted were rhinestones and crazy colors.

Interesting, right? I think that's a side of production that you don't normally see. Companies need a good relationship with distributors, because that's how you get your product into stores.

What's really revolutionary to me is the POLLI-BER material. As you know, I hate petroleum-based plastic products, and this material seems like an economical, sturdy replacement for some virgin plastics. It's architectural grade, which means it's pretty sturdy, too. I could see benches, picnic tables, picture frames, and all sorts of other housewares made with this stuff. Since the composite does contain a mish mash of plastics, it's probably not a good idea to use this stuff to make dishware or food storage, but for other types of housewares it seems like a great option.

You know we love little ways to add green to small spaces, but what about bigger areas that could use more green space?

Pretty much any major city could use a little oomph in the green space department, don't you think? Cities tend to be more about buildings and roads than parks and gardens. That's why NYU student Marco Antonio Castro Cosio focused his master thesis bus rooftops. He describes the project, Bus Roots, on his website:

Reconnecting urban communities with nature in a practical and playful way. Bus roots is a public and playful project that uses plants as a creative medium.

It connects the citizens with their community while trying to use the least amount of resources and improving the quality of the environment around it.

Between city buses, school buses, and even private coaches, rooftop bus gardens could actually add a good square footage of green space to cities. What impact would it have on air quality if these buses were transformed into miniature rolling parks? Even better: what if you planted food in these rooftop bus gardens?

Adding rooftop bus gardens to New York's MTA buses alone would add over 1.5 square feet of green space to the city. Not to shabby!

Source: Wake Up World

Image Credit: Photo via macascos

Remember those super nice gals at Greyslater who gave away a shampoo and conditioner bar set? Well, they are at it again with another awesome no-waste idea: the mason jar to go cup for your coffee or tea!

By now I'm sure you've seen the Cuppow. It's a special lid for a Mason jar that instantly turns it into a sippy cup. The trouble with toting your hot coffee in a glass jar is that the steamy liquid is going to turn the glass awfully hot. The super savvy ladies at Greyslater have a genius solution: add a cozy to keep your hands cool and help your coffee stay warmer for longer. You can find all the supplies you need to make a Mason jar coffee cup over at Greyslater! Already have a stash of Mason jars? You can just pick up the Cuppow and the cozy, but they carry glass Mason jars, if you need one.

Have you guys seen any cool to go cups lately? As you have probably figured out, I'm a little bit obsessed with to go mugs.

What began as an experiment in window farming became a crowd-sourced answer to our industrialized food system.

When Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food, she didn't let her tiny New York apartment stop her. Rather than grow her herbs and veggies in messy dirt, she decided to create a hydroponics system for growing food indoors made out of reclaimed plastic bottles.

She also decided not to create a product but crowdsource with co-developers. The garden started out growing a salad a week in her New York apartment window. Now, there are window farms all over the world building and testing - basically doing Research  and Development (R&D), just like a corporation. The difference is that the window farms testers are doing this as a passion project. She calls the process R&DIY - Research and Develop it Yourself.

The community holds a patent on the project. That means they're beating companies like Monsanto to the punch, keeping this food technology out of their hands and in the hands of the people.

Want to get in on some R&DIY action? You can check out Riley's website for deets on what they're up to and how to get involved!

October is a pretty intense month for me. Between craft markets, conferences, weddings, and music, I've been on the road more than I've been at home. One of the ubiquitous things about a road trip is billboards. They pop up along every highway, but I don't think folks consider how much waste goes along with outdoor advertising.

The way that they get the art up onto billboards is basically by printing the artwork onto a giant piece of vinyl (plastic!) and stretching it over the huge frame. That means that every time a company changes or discontinues its outdoor ad campaign, they're sending all of that plastic to the landfill. There are some companies that are transforming that plastic into other products, like bike bags, but a lot of that plastic just ends up in a landfill. Boo!

While heading down I-95 towards Savannah, we spotted "green billboards," and it definitely gave me pause. We were going to fast for me to snap a photo, but the one above is similar to the one that we saw.

What makes a billboard "green?"

The first, most obvious change was that these billboards were electronic. That means no big sheets of vinyl. Instead, they just upload the artwork, and they're ready to sell you fast food, hotel stays, and cheap amusement park tickets without all of that waste. With anything electronic, though, you have to wonder about a few things:

1. How are they powering the screen? If it's from the grid, that means coal, and that is far from eco-frienly.
2. How did they produce the screen? Were the parts made in sweatshops? How green are the guts of this thing?
3. What happens when they break? Nothing lasts forever. Will these giant billboards end up in the landfill?

The first question varies depending on the company. Many electronic billboards are solar powered, which is pretty awesome.

Questions two and three are even tougher to answer. It is very hard to track supply chains for electronics, and it's difficult to produce a truly green monitor. While green monitors may be made with lower levels of toxins like cadmium and lead, they still contain these heavy metals, and something this size is bound to be somewhat toxic.

There's also the point that the folks at Ode Magazine make about the green billboards that went up in Times Square:

But aren’t billboards mainly irritating because they’re mental and visual pollution? After all, billboards are everywhere and they seem hard to avoid. Brands are infiltrating every aspect of our lives and polluting our mental environment, as the Canada-based culture jammers group Adbusters has been arguing for many years.

All that said, I'm happy to see any industry taking a look at the waste it's producing and looking for alternatives, but I do think that billboards have a long way to go if they're going to be truly green. What do you guys think?

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by normanack

Remember Park(ing) Day? Well, the city of San Francisco has turned the once a year event into something that businesses, and even private citizens, can celebrate every day!

Rather than transforming a parking space into a mini park for just one day, San Francisco businesses can get permits for permanent mini parks in front of their establishments. These "parklets" are springing up all over San Francisco and Oakland, turning asphalt into social green space. High five, Bay Area, for putting people before vehicles!

The pretty terrible photo above is the only one I managed to snap of the parklet we ran across in our travels. This is one of the the only (possibly the only) parklets owned by a private person, rather than a business. It's hard to tell here, but they turned a street parking space in front of their home into a little patio with plants, a spot for their trash, curbside recycling, and compost bins, and for seating.

Could you imagine how it would transform cities if more folks did this? Ready access to parking definitely encourages people from drive places. What if there were just nowhere to park?

Have you guys spotted any parklets in your travels? I'd love to hear all about them in the comments!

Remember that amazing machine that turned plastic into oil? Well, a new company called Plastic 2 Oil is taking that idea and running with it.

They're not using the exact same technology. JBI, the company behind Plastic 2 Oil, has developed a catalyst that speeds up the process and reduces the associated waste. The plan is to "mine" landfills for plastic and use their proprietary technology to turn it into usable oil. According to Jo Borras at Gas 2.0:

JBI’s proprietary catalyst and unique process engineering enables JBI to capture nearly 90% of the hydrocarbon content of plastic, with any remaining residue or non usable substances (about 2%) removed during the normal course of operations.  The remaining gasses contain small amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel, which are then condensed into liquid form and separated before being routed into temporary fuel tanks.  The remaining gaseous “light fractions” – which include methane, ethane, butane and propane – exit the temporary fuel storage tank and are, themselves, compressed and stored for later use.

It only takes an hour to convert 1800 pounds of plastic into usable fuel. The company website says they're producing a liter of fuel for each kilogram of plastic, so that 1800 pounds of plastic equals about 216 gallons of gas.

JBI is teaming up with RockTenn, a packaging company, and essentially mining their all plastic landfills for raw materials.

Here's a quick video that gives you a peek into the process:

Pretty crazy, right? Of course, the best solution to our plastic problem is to just use less plastic, but in the meantime, this program has the potential to do a lot of good!

PsPrint Online Printing