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 …

Tags: cooling , green , innovation , office , recycling , technology , water

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I can’t say I’ve ever given much thought to the humble banana skin. Once I peel the banana, the skin is simply thrown into the compost. But work currently being done by scientists at The University of Nottingham has opened my eyes to the fact that it has the potential to do more than simply rot away.

Joel Chaney, a PhD student at the university, has developed a method for turning banana skins (and leaves) into fuel briquettes that could be used for cooking and heating.

The process involves using a …

Tags: banana , energy , fuel , innovation , technology

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Some people have an incredibly creative ability to make a pretty sweet lemonade out of very, very rotten lemons. What I mean is this: I live in northern Arizona, and much of our electricity comes from coal power plants on Navajo and Hopi land. Not cool. Not a sustainable industry or healthy for the residents. But that’s another story. This story is about turning coal burning’s poisonous by-product into homes.

Navajo Flexcrete is a small, innovative company, based out of the tiny town of Page, Ariz. Using …

Tags: business , design innovation , energy , home , housing , innovation , pollution , sustainable construction

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Living in New Zealand, a country that has, in my opinion, the best and safest drinking water, it’s hard to imagine that one-sixth of the world’s population (nearly one billion people) are without clean water on a daily basis.

Most of us simply acknowledge information such as this by finding an organization to donate some money to help fund clean water campaigns and then move on to the next pressing issue. But some Iowa engineering students didn’t. They heard the facts and then rolled up their sleeves and designed a $5, …

Tags: drinking water , innovation , potable water , sanitizer , social justice , technology

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After thousands of years of striving to develop the longest-lasting, hardest-wearing items for daily use, inventive-minded humans are now being urged to design things that deliberately fall to bits as quickly as possible, for the good of the environment.

Of course it’s only the throwaway parts of modern life that need to be shorter-lasting. (Everything else can simply be reused). Packaging, office supplies, newspapers ““ either we need to rethink our need for them, or stop making them so durable. There’s a difference between organic (in …

Tags: biodegradable , innovation , landfill , science , technology , waste

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A new makeshift shelter has emerged in the form of resin-soaked cellulose recovered from recycled cardboard and newspapers.

Costing $5,000, the Universal World House was invented by design engineer, Gerd Niemoeller, as a quick dwelling for long-term refugees in Third World shantytowns. The paper house, developed at German’s Bauhaus University, was featured in the Times Online. It contains built-in single and double beds plus a veranda equipped with a private shower and bathroom. It’s apparently easy to assemble, earthquake-proof and stable enough to withstand strong winds. The interior …

Tags: architecture , housing , innovation , poverty , recycled , reduce , reuse , Third World

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Firewinder is a swirling corkscrew of LED lights that spins when the wind catches it, getting brighter the faster it turns. It’s as mesmerizing as when you wave a sparkler and your eyes can’t quite keep up, so you see glowing streaks in the air.

What’s it for? Well, to mesmerize you. But there’s a message, too. Here we are, at the bottom of an ocean of air (1 ton of it pressing down on each of us), buffeted by currents we can’t see, still just learning to tap the invisible …

Tags: art , gadgets , home , innovation , lifestyle , nature , technology

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Show of hands: how many of you dream about moving to the country, growing your own food and living off the grid? It may not be for you, but my husband and I talk about this all the time. Our biggest obstacle? Affording the land and infrastructure and then making enough money to get by until we become self-sufficient. The people who have done it are inspiring.

Take the story of Mr. and Mrs. Phillipe-Johnson, who gave up steady employment, moved to the country, assumed a lifestyle …

Tags: carbon neutral , farming , green , innovation , sustainability , Voluntary Creative Simplicity

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Look into the future of custom housing: steel frames and insulated panels delivered to your lot for quick, on-site assembly. That’s what’s being done at Eco Steel, a firm of architectural visionaries that connects with other forward-thinking industry partners to deliver these dwellings to homeowners and businesses. Instead of fully finished prefab, the building systems gives you an excellent shell to be finished by your own green contractor.

EcoSalon has been singing the praises of modular prefab dwellings, not just because they often contain recycled content …

Tags: architecture , decor , design , energy , green , innovation , material , prefab

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