Sometimes, all you need is to take an existing design, and give it a twist.

In every house in the world there is a drawer. In the back of that drawer you’ll find: string, brightly-colored elastic hair ties, stubs of candles, 3 amp fuses, paperclips and many other fundamental building-blocks of the modern universe.

And if that drawer is large enough, there’s part of a bakelite light fitting – the inspiration for Shangia designer Zhili Liu’s new lighting range. Those with a soft spot for our feathered friends (a certain editor springs to mind) will love the way these lights don’t so much hang as perch.

Cute they most certainly are…but eco-friendly? Alas, they’re not upcycled plastic but fresh bone china – but the design is flawless. It’s the simplest of twists on an old theme, where suddenly the humdrum becomes the gorgeous and stylish.

And it’s not made of plastic – but for a change, that’s a real shame. Bakelite is a tough, durable, inert material of a thousand uses and has become enormously collectable – a curious fate for something mass-produced and cheaply-made that still lurks in every half-forgotten corner. Both desirable and absolutely everywhere, bakelite is perfect for creative upcycling. Look at the magical designs wrought by LA designer Amanda Loos, or these rings made from recycled bakelite pool balls. (Junktion are also its fans).

If we’re going to salvage the design from the junk drawer of history – surely the raw material deserves a comeback as well?

Images: Dezeen

There’s a sad sight. After they’ve lugged your belongings from one corner of the world to the other and obviously won’t last another mile, the final stop for your careworn companions is the trash. There’s no alternative. It’s a fact.

Nonsense, says the team at Junktion!

If you’re keen to make your life a trashless one (particularly on Tuesdays), there are many ways to upcycle your garbage – but there’s a limit, surely? There are some items that you can’t do anything with – like empty gas bottles…?

No trying this at home, please. Junktion are professionals and know how to get into gas bottles safely!

Based in Tel Aviv and founded in 2008, this upcycled design company is interested in all the everyday things folk leave behind (rather like the Wombles, then). They’re keen to challenge our concept of “junk”, and they think there’s quite enough stuff in the world already for their creative purposes.

A car trunk door becomes a sofa. A chopper bicycle reforms itself, Transformers-style, into a stool. Metal piping becomes a classy-looking towel rail.

And if it’s attention-grabbing decor you’re after, how about this industrial-style octopus of a lamp, made from a metal cooking pot writhing with swarms of illuminated teapots? Or desklights make of bakelite-style phones?

Junktion trades out of their shop in Tel Aviv, asking locals to supply them with the raw materials. If they opened near you, would you be a regular customer?

Images: Junktion (via Haute*Nature) and Phineas H.

Mention refrigerators to a room of environmentalists…and you’ll notice a sudden chill in the air.

That’s hardly surprising. Once a luxurious marvel, the fridge has become an essential, invisible part of our modern lives. There’s one in over 99.5% of all American homes. It may have revolutionized food storage, but at a lamentable cost to the environment (most notoriously via CFCs released by crumbling fridge insulation)…and to our electricity bills. Before those fine folk at Energy Star rolled their sleeves up, fridges were the most power-hungry appliances in the home.

So, dear fridge. We have many questions. (Such as “where did that ‘d’ come from?”). But uppermost on our lips is: do we really need you?

Ottowan Rachel Muston decided there was really only one way to find out (as Stephen Kurutz reports for the New York Times) – and she didn’t quite manage a fridgeless existence. Perhaps we merely need alternatives to the white monster in the corner of the room, and thankfully, designers are well ahead of us. Taken the winner of design boom’s recent Green Life competition, the Thermodynamic Cooler by Rochus Jacob. It works in a similar way to Mohammad Bah Abba’s award-winning design, using the cooling properties of evaporating water to drag heat away from the centre of the pot. Simple, beautiful, effective – and unpowered.

Or instead of using a metal behemoth that is measured in cubic feet (!), why not fit your home with an array of small fridge units that you can charge and store individually, using only the ones you need and carrying them wherever you want? Hey, is it our imagination, or are they exactly lunchbox-sized?

Images: Rich Anderson / design boom / The Design Blog

The Slime’s Where All the Flavor Is

They’re nutritious, free range, a touch rubbery, and have graced the plates of Europeans for thousands of years. Instead of picking the snails off your lettuce, why not add them to your salad? High in protein and low in fat, these sustainably foraged appetizers will just slip down.

A Golden Future for Our Environment

When you’re caught short, head for the garden. That’s what the Pee Outside movement believes, citing the 3 gallons of water used every time the toilet flushes. Since exposing yourself in daylight is generally frowned upon, please grit your teeth until nightfall – remember, it’s for the planet.

Energy from Motion (the Other Kind)

In a form of alchemy beyond even the wildest dreams of Isaac Newton, the Sintex turns our poop (and other organic waste) into enough energy to run our homes. Elsewhere, dirty diapers are turned into diesel fuel. In the search for the next big sustainable energy source, we’d be wise to start at the bottom.

Oh! What a Lovely Green War

It’s a dilemma for the eco-conscious military man: is there a sustainable way to bomb 10 shades of cr*p out of the enemy? Now there is, with the low-fallout, low pollution eco-bomb, because some smoking craters are greener than others. Alternately, why not just aim for the real deal?

Skimpies Your Man Will Love (if His Phone Powers Out)

Ever shimmied along the beach in a two-piece number, wondering if your iPod had enough charge left in it? You’ll need the Solar Powered USB Bikini, then. As you’re a walking electrical supply, it’s probably best to avoid the water. Or if you like to parade through the sunshine in your smalls, why not try this multifunctional organic cotton outfit complete with solar panel and cleavage-mounted drinks dispensers? There are some designers out there who are deeply single.

Tasty, Tasty Weeds

Why should goats have all the fun? Before we discovered how to process food until it barely sustains us, we ate things straight out the ground wherever we found them. It’s still possible, as we illustrated yesterday (and here’s a British version, courtesy of Guardian Environment), but oh boy, you’d better be sure you’ve got the right plant.

Commuting, Getting Fit and Looking Dumb for People in a Hurry

Never mind that cycling and walking have been popular for hundreds of years and forever, respectively – some people think they’re a waste of good exercise-time. The Floating Human-Powered Gym wants you to tone up as you lift-share – while the Speedfit wants to, well, make you look bloody stupid. Nothing wrong with generating energy as you work out, but exercise some common sense.

Don’t Wave Flags: German Football Fans Score Own Goal for Environment

When proud German football supporters fixed flags over their cars in the run-up to the Euro 2008 football season, the Austrian automobile club cried foul, claiming that it was bad for the planet. It seems that a fluttering flag reduces the fuel economy of your car, draining the world’s remaining oil reserves and kicking us shrieking into the dark ages. How utterly selfish.

Images: WTL photos, cameronparkins, Gizmodo, jemsweb, chichacha, Army.mil, hans s

If you’re still chuckling from the weirdest of 2008’s green building designs, pop some popcorn and pull up a chair before you check out the Dragonfly – it’s a 600-meter-tall wing-shaped skyscraper filled with self-sufficient offices and vertical gardens. Would you be happy to see this against the Manhattan skyline?

New Zealand comedian Mike King has been talking green for a while now, yet that didn’t keep him promoting the pork industry – until he broke into a pig farm with animal activists and saw things for himself. “If I had known this was going on I would never have supported this.” Read the full story at Stuff.

Another summer, another tide of sunscreen attacking man and beast alike – unless you go for the new wave of eco-friendly versions. Check out Alternative Consumer’s recommendations, and have a look at our own.

If you work in the heirloom tomato industry, you’ll be fuming after Scientific American’s Brendan Borrell described heirlooms as “feeble and inbred” in an article that implied these strains of fruit were fatally flawed and needed a genetic band-aid. A blistering response wasn’t long in coming, prompting Mr. Borrell to take back a few of his ill-chosen words. You can read our Vanessa’s thoughts on the subject at Civil Eats.

How about this for inflammatory? Writer and activist Michael Pollan is so concerned about food from mass-commercialized agriculture that he advises us to avoid all food we’ve seen advertised. Pioneering or paranoid? Read his argument at AlterNet and decide for yourself.

When people look at wind turbines, they make a lazy association: spinning blades = bird-killing machines = worse than traditional power. The problem, argues Benjamin Sovacool at Scitizen, is that few of us see first-hand the damage mining and acid rain does to our feathered friends, and out of sight means out of mind. Wind turbines have a ways to go, it’s true, but the conventional energy industry kills far more birds.

For the fellas out there who like to explore themselves – I mean figuratively, for pity’s sake – there’s a new magazine on that very topic, called Masc. Top tip? Funny is hot.

Some things shouldn’t be so small – stamp-sized cellphone manufacturers, I’m talking to you. In the same category is bonkers Brit Perry Watkins, who has turned a children’s ride into the world’s smallest road-legal automobile. Parking should be a cinch, although beware of being crushed under the wheels of passing bicycles. A unique concept, we dearly hope.

If you clicked on our popular TOMS vegan shoe giveaway and are now finding that standard footwear no longer measures up, hot-foot it to Greenopia where Katherine has listed the top eco-sneakers on the market today and gives advice on where to donate your shoes when they’re falling off your feet.

He’s walked 1,200 miles to raise awareness for the plight of homeless children. He’s about to walk the 600 miles from Atlanta to Washington. And he’s 11 years old. A kind of philanthropic Karl Bushby, Zach Bonner is a fund-raising walking machine, and you can read his story at MSNBC.

As someone who once got a chili seed in one of his eyes, I can attest that making hot sauce is dangerous. You need to know exactly what you’re doing, so we reckon you can’t go far wrong with Aleta’s comprehensive guide at Omnomicon. Although – is there a greener alternative to vinyl gloves?

We know that organic is the way to go in principle. But what about practice? Enough of “should”: is organic better? Chelsea Green’s Makenna Goodman isn’t so sure. Have we been robbed by companies willfully misusing the loosely-defined organic label? Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm thinks Goodman’s aim is a little off: the real problem is the food system that small-scale farming challenges. Where do you weigh in?

If you’re wondering what the force of nature known as Bette Midler is up to these days, you don’t live in New York. She’s been tackling the city’s legendary garbage problems, and her New York Restoration Project has stumped up $38 million for good causes – not the first time she’s set such an inspiring example. Respect to the lady with the voice that parts your hair.

So, modular house-building is convenient, adaptive to the environment and oh-so-very-cool. But did you realise that you could knock a prefab together in just 8 days? It takes me that long to put up a shelf, let alone a house.

Finally, a dumb but impressively brave act of environmental terrorism. Just imagine if their timing had been off.

Image: Sleeping Bear

Would you drink the condensed breath of your coworkers?

The EcoloBlue 28 Atmospheric Water Generator, which I first saw at Ave Natura, is a marvel of green ingenuity. Using nothing but a tiny current of electricity, it’s an office cooler that fills itself up over time, no water supply required.

That’s because the EcoloBlue fills up by wringing moisture from the surrounding air. The device filters the water, renders it bacteriologically safe (according to the water quality lab reports on EcoloBlue’s website) and gurgles the results into your waiting cup.

So while it’s true that you’d be drinking the expelled moisture of Tom in Accounting’s post-lunch burp, it’s really not so bad. (Depending upon how you feel about Tom.)

Consider:

Water from the EcoloBlue is just like what comes out of your tap, only a lot quicker. It’s nature with a small fire lit under her, hurrying along the natural hydrological cycle.

It’s amazingly cost-effective – no pipes or water deliveries required, and a claim-back rate of around 5 gallons of water for every dollar of electricity spent.

It keeps people away from bottled water – and anything that fights against the growing threat of global water shortages deserves our attention.

It’s upcycling the very air around us – a dazzling technical feat!

The biggest hurdle that EcoloBlue has to clear isn’t a technical issue but a cultural one. It’s how we react to a product that shortens the water-recycling loop so we’re intensely aware that the water in our cup left another human being a very short time ago.

The air expelled from our lungs is at 100% relative humidity (think of how quickly your car windows fog up and run with condensation on a cold day). Sweat evaporates off our skin – where does that go? In this instance, into someone else’s next sip. Condensing our office air into drinking water is a kind of refreshing honesty about the way the world works already. We just may not want it poured down our throats.

Images: Clearly Ambiguous and Amazon

At last, an endangered species that deserves to be – the battery hen.

Free range eggs may be significantly more expensive, but that’s not stopping shoppers plucking them from the shelves while turning their noses up at caged hen eggs.

This is yet another example of how ethical consumerism rules the roost in today’s marketplace (okay, enough with the chicken puns). Thanks to the hard work of people like British TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the patrons of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, the appalling living conditions of caged hens is now common knowledge. The more the word gets out, the more unacceptable battery farming becomes. About time, too.

The Guardian reported May 15th that according to a leading market research firm, the number of free range eggs sold annually is likely to top 2 billion by the end of the year. This is largely thanks to the admirable stances adopted by major UK retailers including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s, all of which have been have been officially labeled Good Eggs. They refuse to sell intensively produced eggs on principle, even bringing their phasing-out schedule forward to meet changing demand.

But all this raises an important question – can we really trust the free range label?

In the U.S., there’s no legal definition of a “free range egg” with obvious consequences. In the UK the legal ground is a lot firmer with the DEFRA Laying Hens Code (pdf), but this doesn’t always translate to what we might personally define as “free”. By both European and UK law, a free range chicken is one that has open-air access for at least half its life. And the rest of the time? There’s the worry. If you want a clearer conscience and a tastier omelet, keep an eye out for pastured eggs.

Free range eggs are the CFLs of the chicken world – a step in the right direction. For now, it’s good to know that chickens can finally see daylight, but it’s up to us as consumers to demand continued progress from our agricultural and political leaders if we’re to see truly sustainable, ethical living conditions for the animals we choose to raise for food.

Image: woodleywonderworks (and here’s why chicken eggs are different colors).

In the future, rising sea levels are going to drive people out of their low-lying communities and up to higher ground. But you might not know it’s going on right now.

As Luanne reported recently, the government of the Maldives is facing the prospect of inundation with admirable foresight by moving to a carbon zero economy by the end of the next decade and adding a splash of green to its luxury status.

The country is also going to use future profits to fund a wholesale relocation of the population to another part of the world before the island chain disappears under the waves by 2100.

Ninety years to prepare – sounds like luxury indeed if you’re from the Carteret Islands.

For the last 20 years, the inhabitants of this South Pacific atoll have been struggling to keep out rising tides, planting mangroves and erecting sea defences, but now the population of 2,600 are in full evacuation m0de, funded by the Papua New Guinea government.

Like the Maldives, the Carteret islands are low – just 170cm above sea-level at their highest point – and every high tide swamps the islanders’ efforts at subsistence agriculture and raises the salinity of the soil even further. It’s untenable, so they’re off.

Dan Box of The Ecologist has been watching the Carteretians rebuild their homes at Tinputz on the coast of Bougainville, and is currently preparing to visit the Carteret islands to see for himself how they’re faring.

Experts aren’t certain that the islands are being wiped out by global warming. This is a volcanic island chain, so sea floor movement is to be expected. But if independently rising sea levels aren’t primarily to blame, it could be the degradation of the coral that forms the backbone of the islands. When this dies, islands lose their natural defences against the sea – and coral is fragile enough to be killed by something as seemingly innocuous as sun screen, let alone the severely destabilizing effects of warmer seas.

However, as George Monbiot notes at The Guardian, these aren’t the world’s first “climate change refugees” – and they’re certainly not going to be the last.

For example, a rise of 20cm (well within the 88cm upper boundary estimated by the IPCC report in 2001) will make three quarters of a million people homeless in Nigeria alone.

We’re already coming up with innovative new ways to build flood-resistant homes, but until these become a widespread reality, we’re faced with the modern-day version of the King Canute story – and the best we can do is get out of the way.

Image: Addu Atoll, Maldives – nattu

Did you know…

…that cycling is almost comically efficient? You’re getting around 3 times as fast as walking but burning the same amount of energy. You’re like a car that does 1,037 kilometres a litre. Part of it is the sensible weight ratio: you’re around 6 times heavier than your bike, compared to your car being 20 times heavier than you.

…the U.S. government now pays you to cycle to work?

…that cycling is free? No sh-t, Sherlock, I know – but just weigh that against the cost of your gym membership. Do you pay money to sit in a car, then pay money to go to the gym? Could you combine the two and pay nothing, all the while keeping your fashion mojo intact?

…bikes make amazing coffee tables? And bowls?

…that the percentage of U.S. students cycling to school or college is less than a third of what it was in 1969? Meanwhile, the child obesity crisis intensifies every year, despite an impassioned warning by the Surgeon General in 2003.

…that America is designed for cycling, actually? As a starting point, look at the 38,158 miles of the Adventure Cycling Route Network.

…there are even bikes you can wear?

…that cycling is becoming a lot more social than you’d think?

…that this musical duo did 4,700 miles on bikes while promoting one of their albums? Check out the evidence, and our interview with them in March.

…that bicycles are time machines?

Images: moriza, m-louis, kamshots

First up, hate throwing away pill bottles? I do – and ditto the capsules that 35mm film came in before we went digital. Put them all to good reuse instead.

Why are we doing all this? Why go green? Why talk it up to anyone who will listen? According to The Good Human, these are the wrong questions – because there are zero reasons not to want to go green.

At last, the practical yet painfully unhip personal shopping trolley gets a make-over. Out go the plastic, tartan-painted horrors (iconic if you’re a Brit) and in come the ethical Turtle Trolleys. Form an orderly queue.

For those of you living in climates with more sunlight than rain, one fun way to take the load off your AC bill is to line the windows with a film that blocks most of the heat and all of the UV rays. We spotted this variety via Modern Eco Homes, although that’s not a recommendation, since we haven’t tried it and the reviews are rather conflicted. Nice idea, nonetheless.

Feeling like the tide of human kindness is at a low ebb? Maybe the story of a tiny cardboard robot can convince you otherwise – and show a little of what binds people together in the big cities even when they think they’re alone.

Here’s a peek at some of the blogs we read.

For a head-scratching example of how environmental pollution gets even more messy when it hits the courts, read the mystery of the $42 Million Pesticide Dump at Treehugger. Shared blame means no blame, apparently.

Congratulations to Viva Terra – they’ve made it onto TIME’s Green Design 100.

On April 25th, Ford set their new hybrid on a journey to promote its astonishing fuel economy. Ford claimed it could manage 1,000 miles on a single tank of gas. Ford was wrong – it managed a jaw-dropping 1,445 miles. Is this the perfect PR stunt?

Watering plants is all about fine judgment. When you’re growing plants as an agricultural business, it could also be the difference between dehydrating your plants to death or killing your profits with over-watering. But modern technology has the answer – a tiny sensor that monitors if individual plants are getting just the right amount of water. Sounds like science fiction, but it’s right here at IEEE Spectrum.

Take a look at the photos in this post at designklub. Without looking at the text – how big would you say they are? You’re probably way off, because it’s the fascinating work of Christien Meindertsma, who is channeling the 16th Century Dutch cordage industry with his practical, tactile creations.

Have you heard of the Energy-Water Nexus? If not, be prepared – it’s a worry.

The latest casualty of global warming is…an Internet domain name? Like the Maldives, the islands of Tuvalu are starting to disappear into the sea, and they own the .tv domain. If they go, do their websites? No so – and frankly, I think the inhabitants are probably worrying about other things right now. Gawker via Hippyshopper.

A splash of color for you. The Boys in Blue are going green, as seen at Red Green and Blue. Got that?

Proving that modern table design is far from dormant, these three sustainably-produced tables have just graced the Modern Design Function Exhibition in San Francisco, and they’re all the work of local table guru Dylan Gold.

Why won’t the world simplify itself? Why do we fight entropy so much with our clutter and complication? I admit, I’m actually speaking about myself here – but if you struggle to simplify as well, try some of these spring-cleaning, simplifying techniques at Apartment Therapy.

Goats are eating machines. That’s why they’re proving a good green alternative to lawnmowers, with the added value of being family-friendly and almost unbearably cute. Ever-greening Google was quick to spot this – and MG Siegler from Techcrunch dropped in to see how a hired army of goats had fared with Mountain View’s variety of 4-foot brush.

We already know that dung is a deeply stylish substance – in the right context, that is. But would you believe that cattle dung will soon power L’Oreal? It’s fast becoming clear that poop – er, “biomass”- will be a superfuel of the 21st century.

We’ve talked about the problem of palm oil before. The Independent has undertaken a two-month investigation, and concludes that even more palm oil is being use than originally thought – finding it in 43 of 100 of Britain’s top grocery brands, no less.

When it comes to eco-friendly lighting, it’s nice to see America take the LEED. (You’re fired – Ed.). The latest glowing engineering feat? The Henry Miller theater in New York – the city’s first to be LEED-certified.

Josyln at Simple Lovely just drew her line in the sand. This Earth Day, she used her final paper towel. What would you – or what did you – give up this year? (We’ve given up the bottle.)

It could have become yet another Los Angeles housing development – but today, the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook offers a glimpse of the city before it was the city. One worry – it’s near what is estimated to be the largest urban oil field in the United States. See the full story at Dwell.

And lastly, if you’ve wondered what Larkyn has been up to, she’s been growing her own blog, Little Willow. A sample post: she’s helping spread the word about shoes resurrected from the basement of a Swedish clog factory.

Image: Szymon Blasczczyk