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

In an ideal world, I’d live a paperless life. But so far, that’s not happening. In fact, there are days when my desk looks like it’s going to collapse under the weight of all the books, magazines, and sheets of paper that have somehow landed on it.

Pure chaos which, in all honesty, does not help get the work done. In fact, I’m starting to believe that clutter can serious inhibit creativity. So I relocated all the books, papers, and magazines to the dining room table. But that’s not really an ideal solution. I need something to help organize all the loose paper that’s lying around. I need something to help straighten things out.

Enter The Naked Binder, the greenest, most eco-friendly binder around. Made from consumer post-waste, it’s free of any plastic, vinyl or toxic chemicals and is totally recyclable. No decorations. No color. Not ugly, just unclad. They are simply bare board naked binders, strong, attractive, and built to last – an unusual feature in our throw-away society.

The Naked Binder, by the way, is part of the “1% for the Planet” organization and donates 1% of their net sales to organizations working to preserve the environment.

For those of us who haven’t succumbed to the Palm Pilot or Blackberry, it’s time to shop calendars and datebooks for 2009. I found some cool green options for your kitchen, home office or desk at work that contain images and information to raise eco awarness. Yes, you have a date with ecology. Take a look:

From Calendar Club, helpful reminders every month that our planet needs saving. The 101 Little Ways to Save the Planet is a pocket wall design, $21; The Living Green is a daily desk calendar, $14; the Deluxe Ecological calendar for the wall contains panels that put us in touch with the cycles of nature and the seasons, $15.

Soy-based inks on cotton paper are used to produce 12 gorgeous sheets of soft, seasonal illustrations in this delicate Letterpress Calendar (below) from See Jane Work, $35.

We’ve hooted plenty at EcoSalon about the artistry of the Night Owl Papergoods products, and it extends to the sustainably harvested wooden calendar (below), featuing the medallions and other illustrations of the company’s talented artists, $31.50 at Delight.

Downloaded onto your desktop, the wallpaper used as a monthly calendar enlightens little computer users about everything from Human Rights Day to what polar bears like to eat. You can find it at Eco Kids. (Shown at top.)

My name is Luanne and I’m a webaholic. Okay, now you say “Hi, Luanne” cause you should probably be in a meeting, too.

If you’re like me, you’d wear a cyber patch if there was one on the market. For instance, right now the old cat is howling cause she’s starving and craving her morning salmon, but I’m busy writing this blog so she’ll just have to wait.

While I’m not prone to immoderate gaming (why bother when you can amuse yourself with Craigslist ads), I do exhibit several of the symptoms experts identify as an increasing computer dependency.

When I return home from a long day, I rush to greet my best friend and check new messages, even before greeting my husband. “Hello, lover,” I say to P.C. “I’ve missed you sooo much.” One time, when my best friend got a nasty virus, I  just about lost it, feeling completely detached from the outside world. I regarded the technician who repaired it as a superhero, as valuable as an organ transplant surgeon. I kept telling him he saved my life.

Also, because of my dependency, I have cast aside invaluable resources of the past, such as the dictionary, maps, paper invitations and thank-you notes, the Yellow Pages, city newspapers, daily calls to friends and photo labs. Enter Google, Mapquest, Adobe, Huffington Post, Facebook and Evite. Lazy, hurried people unite!

While there are scant Betty Ford-style clinics for people like me, it’s clear there’s a burgeoning need. In fact, Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, Ph.D. of Harvard University, says we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg in society’s dependency on computers for information, fun and entertainment. Anyone who’s visited a computer cafe at night knows she’s right. Guests sit alone, sipping wine or coffee, substituting their notebooks for human dates.

Orzack (above) founded the Computer Addiction Service at Harvard’s McClean Hospital to treat what she calls Internet Addictive Disorder or Cyberaddiction, which she likens to pathological gambling or compulsive shopping. “Like those other addictions, it affects other people – family, friends, and co-workers,” she points out.

The trend, she says, affects all ages starting with computer games for kids (my girls, included) to chats for the vulnerable adult. The darn Mac or PC can even split up a family. She says compulsive use can be a major factor in divorce, especially when couples split because one of them finds someone else on the web. Colleges report excessive computer use is associated wtih academic drop-outs. That’s kind of a catch-22. Who can get through school now without one?

Orzack guesstimates between five and ten percent of Web surfers suffer from a Web dependency. Are you one of them?  Don’t lol. Take a peak at some of the symptoms:

Psychological symptoms

A sense of well being or euphoria while on the computer
Inability to stop the activity
Craving more and more computer time
Neglecting family and friends
Lying to employers and family about activities
Problems with school or job

Physical Symptoms

Carpel tunnel syndrome
Dry eyes
Migraine headaches
Back aches
Eating irregularities
Failure to attend to personal hygiene
Sleep disturbances

Orzack believes that like any addiction, this one can be best treated with Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which provides coping skills to prevent a relapse. Sometimes medication is even necessary. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with my obsessive friend, Diane, who can spend 10 hours hunting down discounted Oilily clothes for her daughter on Ebay. Talk about a gaming problem.

Can Orzack treat addicts on-line? “I’m licensed in Massachusetts, not in cyberspace,” she says. Guess not, unless you live near Harvard.

Still, there are more treatment resources surfacing, such as Internet Addiction Help in Santa Barbara, and  ICA Services (425-861-5504), a 12-step program for computer addiction based on the Alcoholics’ Anonymous approach to recovery.

For me, there’s a bit of irony to all of it. I rely on the computer to connect me to the outside world, yet it is adding to my isolation. I doubt that’s what Bill Gates and his ilk ever had in mind.

Image: Stefan Friedle

Some of the pieces are hauntingly beautiful. Some a bit otherworldly. Either way, the green concept of Britain’s Ghost Furniture is one I feel that more retailers should possess: Help Europe’s sweet vintage furniture come out of hiding.

After 30 years in the ad biz, Di Overton and Harvey Roll moved to the country (Northumberland) and set up shop, using artisans to create specialist paint effects to infuse new life into old relics unearthed from Paris and elsewhere. The company invites collectors to consign their treasures, offering to give them “the Ghost treatment.”

Each piece, such as the lamp, candelabra and tea assortment below, arrives with a tale of its history and Certificate of Authenticity. Ghost will ship its spirited goods to you. The accessories, which are fairly reasonable, are easier to ship to the U.S. than the furniture and right cheaper too, mates.

Have a look at the site and you will be delighted with the eco-chic retro revival. It’s flea market gone fabulous!

Blushing Butterfly Lamp      Green Tea         Candelabra Blanc

Shown at top: the artsy conversation piece “Dinner for One“

We all know we need to exercise. And none of us seem to have the time. Even I, who mostly work at home, still find it hard to fit regular exercise into my routine. But human bodies were clearly not made to be sedentary, so here’s how you can sneak some extra action into your life.

Take the stairs. Skip the elevator and climb a flight or two. Sprint the stairs two at a time if you want to make it aerobic!

Park further away. Cruising into the mall or the grocery store can have the added bonus of a little extra walking.

Do office exercises. If you’ve got a private office or access to a conference room, take a few heart-pumping breaks. Whip out a minute’s worth of jumping jacks, run in place (with your knees high!) or do some squats and lunges. Anything to keep your office-bound body from getting too creaky.

Deliver messages in person. Email is easy, but why not deliver a message face to face ““ and take a quick stroll around the office while you’re at it?

Hide the remote control. It might seem like the ultimate inconvenience, but having to get up to change the channels or adjust the volume gives your body those little spurts of extra movement that you need.

It’s true, nothing can ever replace real aerobic exercise; remember, our not-too-distant ancestors walked, rode horses, and worked the land. Most of us in urban settings won’t have the chance to do any of that, but any extra movement you can add to your life helps. So do it!

Image: fazen
 
 

Every season brings a new set of experiences and responsibilities and with that can mean additional pressures. With fall upon us there are new schools to navigate, job positions to secure, and exercise schedules to be addressed. But taking on new tasks or returning to previous ones can be easier and more manageable if you can identify stress triggers, manage your time, and take steps to curb job burnout, says the Mayo Clinic.

While stress in small doses can be a motivating factor, prolonged stress can take a psychological and physical toll on your body. High stress levels have been linked to depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal problems, an impaired immune system and cancer. The following tips compiled by the Mayo Clinic and edited by EcoSalon may help you fly through fall and give you a heads up on winter.

Identify your stress triggers:

While some causes are obvious like job loss, divorce, or the death of a loved one, small daily hassles and demands – like a long work commute or finding childcare – can take a toll over time. To identify stresses that may otherwise continue to sneak in and out of your daily life, keep a stress journal for a week, listing the demands on your time and energy.

The Journal

Write down any events or situations that make you uncomfortable, giving a brief description of the situation. Include such things as where you were, who you were with, who was involved, and what seemed to cause the stress.

Also include your reaction and whether or not you had any physical symptoms. Include how you felt, and what you said or did.

Assign a numeric tag to the intensity of your stress, 1 being low, and 5 being high.

The List

Include all of the responsibilities that create a demand on your time and energy. As above, rate the intensity of stress that each demand creates. For instance, caring for an elderly parent, driving kids to after school activities, or volunteer responsibilities.

After one week, sit down and analyze your findings. Select an event that had been flagged as stressful, then look for ways to resolve it by selecting and implementing a solution. Suppose, for instance, that you’re behind at work because you leave early to pick up your child from school. You might check with other parents to see if your son can ride with them.

The best way to cope with stress, they report, is to try to find a way to change the circumstances that are causing it.

Improve Time Management Skills

Effective time management skills can help you identify goals, set priorities and minimize stress in your life. Use these tips to improve your time management skills and lower your stress level:

Create realistic expectations and deadlines for yourself, and set regular progress reviews. 

Throw away unimportant papers on your desk.

Prepare a master list of tasks.

Use a daily planner.

Copy tasks from your master list onto the page for the day on which you expect to do them. Evaluate and prioritize daily.

For especially important or difficult projects, reserve an interruption-free block of time behind closed doors.  

Extinguish Job Burnout

25% of people say that their job is the primary stressor in their lives!

Identify the source of the problem. Whether it’s an unrealistic workload, job insecurity, inadequate compensation, office politics or a hostile work environment, you need to figure out what’s making you miserable at work and take steps to deal with it.

Develop friendships in and outside the office. Sharing unsettling feelings with people you trust is the first step toward resolving them.

Minimize activities with negative people who only reinforce bad feelings.

Take a vacation or a long weekend.

During the workday, take short breaks.

Set limits. When necessary, learn to say no in a friendly but firm manner. Often stress results from weak boundaries.

Choose battles wisely. Don’t rush to argue every time someone disagrees with you. Keep a cool head, and save your argument for things that really matter.

Have an outlet. Read, enjoy a hobby, exercise or get involved in some other activity that is relaxing and gets your mind off work.

Seek help. If none of these things relieves your feelings of stress or burnout, ask a health care professional for advice and reward yourself for realizing that you want to make a change in your life.

Image: _eskimofriend_

Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations – whatever the event, a gift is in order. And being eco-conscious, you want to give a gift that doesn’t leave a huge footprint. All the same, no one wants to be political or preachy (well, I hope no one). Here are some eco gift ideas that work for everyone:

When all you really need are flowers, go organic and biodynamic.

Hemp or eucalyptus fiber hammocks for guilt-free lounging. A sure winner of a gift for any man. (Hmm…)

For the artist in the family, a handmade journal made of very clean, very odorless elephant dung paper.

For the practical indoor gardener – the Egg Plant, perfect for desktop agriculture.

How about an Andy Goldsworthy book, full of the most gorgeous natural art photos you’ve ever seen?

Here’s a whole variety of ethical, sustainable, sometimes classic, sometimes funky jewelry.

For the newly arrived human on the planet, organic cotton baby clothes.

A totally original clutch for the purse collector in your life. Made of eco materials, but you’d never know it from the looks of it.

For the outdoorsy person you know you and love, how about a hemp backpack?

The perfect office gift: handmade coffee cozies knit from reused materials.

That’s just the beginning. Hunt around the site and you’ll see that these days, few eco-friendly gifts carry even the slightest tinge of green attitude. I also recommend that you check out the eco accents summer sale at sponsor VivaTerra for a wide variety of chic eco gifts that aren’t the least bit crunchy. Good luck on gifting, and skip the Hallmark, because people love homemade cards the best. Have fun being creative!

Image: Kimberly*

Sara’s shameless plug: Hi, it’s your editor. De-lurk, dear reader, and leave this fabulous writer a comment. You can also share this post with friends ““ just click your favorite social bookmark listed below. New reader? Be sure to sign up for the free weekly newsletter. You can also subscribe to any RSS feed your heart desires.

It’s out there, somewhere. And I will find it.

It’s a desk that fits me perfectly, that encourages me to sit down to get on with some work. It’s beautiful, practical and somehow has a positive environmental impact. Beyond those criteria, I’m easy – urban or rustic, antique or modern, I’ll try anything.

My first bet is usually second-hand furniture, because it’s recycling – not just of materials but of stories, every polished scratch becoming a trigger for my imagination. But then there’s the appeal of the shiny and new (hey, I’m a guy, what can I say). I love Hudson Furniture’s huge tables – but they’re not exactly practical for a study or library, both of which my dream house contains.

How about the Kidney Shaped Desk from John Wiggers? Sustainable Hawthorn polished like glass and topped with nonslip black leather, in a long chair-hugging curve. You can tell Mr. Wiggers is itching to use the word "ergonomic". But no…that super-slick wood’s not quite me.

Now, my Inner Geek backflips when I see the SOLo Lounge Table. Ultra-modern and on wheels, it’s inset with solar panels that can soak up enough energy to recharge your laptop 3 times every day. Wheel it around, take it on holiday (nothing about how much it weighs?) – it’s an impressive display of practical alternative energy, and anything that weans us off the grid gets my thumbs-up. But it looks…..a bit too modern for me. Call me old-school. Oh, and it’s $14,000.

I’ll just have to keep looking. Unless you have any suggestions?

Have you ever been jealous of a colleague’s business card? Remember the classic scene in American Psycho when a business card with a watermark made Patrick Bateman enraged with jealousy? Well, a simple watermark has nothing on these amazing business cards that act as a house plant. That’s right, you can actually put a small plant in your business card!

Jamie Wieck’s business cards have a small pocket in which you can grow a miniature house plant, alfalfa or watercress. These cards can also be put in water or soil if you’d like your mini plant to continue to grow. Most business cards look the same and are generally not very memorable, but these cards from Another Bloomin’ Designer will be the envy of all of your colleagues and keep you first in mind with your customers, or at least at the top of their business card heap.

Sara’s shameless plug: Hi, it’s your editor. De-lurk, dear reader, and leave this fabulous writer a comment. (We love chatting.) You can also share this post with friends ““ just click your favorite social bookmark listed below. New reader? Be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter to win free eco goodies! You can also subscribe to any RSS feed your heart desires.

Image: Jamie Wieck via Trendhunter