In this economic crisis, one always wonders if one is in the right job. Well, being eco-friendly can be very benefitting even monetarily do. Forbes recently came up with a list of environmental jobs with salaries easily over $100,000.

The top 10 job include:

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Ever thought how many trees would’ve been cut to manufacture newspapers and furniture? Ever thought how newspapers could be recycled to make a bench? Well, everybody is not as innovative as this aspiring eco-conscious designer, Oscar Lhermitte, a student of London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. This youngster has figured an admirable way to recycle newspapers.

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The kind of megapolises we live in makes us wonder what is going to be like after a few decades. We may imagine crowded streets without enough space to move our toes. However, Nobel-Prize winner Dr. Daniel Kammen believes the cities can in fact be self-sustaining eco hotspots and can allow people to lead a healthier lifestyle than we do today.

Any of the polluting and energy consuming devices and technologies may be phased out and the cities would be blessed with cleaner air and water. Urban gardens could provide as an alternative to farm products, which strip the soil of its nutrients. Alternative fuels, good waste disposal systems, and also mass housing may help our future cities sustain themselves and not leave ugly carbon footprints. In fact, carbon footprints are left by each individual, even when one drives to the supermarket.

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You can turn pee into water with a special kind of machine. As insane as it sounds, the trick has been performed by inventor Dean Kamen. Already a big name in the world of water filtration, Kamen has again gathered a lot of attention thanks to the Slingshot machine he has created.

Running on cow poo, the Slingshot is a filtration system that can turn any water-containing liquid, yes please read pee, into drinking water. The ideation is simple. Vapor compression distillation enables this little wonder to convert all kinds of liquid, from sea water to puddles, into clean and distilled water. It does not need a filter and since it can run only on cow dung, it can easily be installed in developing countries and many rural areas.

Kamen also gives a free gift with the Slingshot, electricity. Yep, the machine also generates electricity as a by-product. Cool, two benefits from one fully eco-friendly machine. Do check out Kamen’s video on the Colbert Report.

Via Treehugger

A famous Oregon Winery called Willamette Valley Vineyards turned a silvery 25 this year. Apart from offering quality liquor to us all for all these years, this winery also set a benchmark of eco-friendliness. From the very beginning, Willamette Valley Vineyards has been offering 10 cents for each wine bottle brought in for recycling irrespective of who the original producer is!

The bottle deposit law was first passed by Oregon that supports recycling. Under this law, participating vendors are offered 5 cents for each drink container they recycle. And wine bottles were not included in this. So, you can see what an important and inspiring role Willamette Valley Vineyards is playing. Founding winegrower, Jim Bernau, was also honored by Low Input Viticulture and Enology (LIVE) for his vineyards’ sustainability.
But there is more. In 2007, Willamette Valley Vineyards introduced sustainable cork stoppers that were certified by the Rain Forest Alliance. Kudos to the organization for telling us really why the wine bottles are made of green glass!
Via enn

Biodegradable plastic would be a welcome change that will surely take us to our world of green. A young NY based company Perf Go Green has come up with a range of products from commercial trash bags to plastic drop cloths that will help reduce plastic waste.

Looking at the hug mass of plastic that hits the garbage dump, the introduction of biodegradable alternative would be a big step towards a greener earth.

Good news is that Perf Go Green products incorporate recycled plastics, combining them with Oxo-Biodegradable proprietary method. This method makes their bags easily decomposable into simple products when exposed to microorganisms, moisture and oxygen; contrary to regular plastic that takes hundreds of years to breakdown.

If true, this would be a breakthrough!
Via treehugger

This may be called optimum utilization of resources or a measure towards being biodegradable. If you have ever pondered over the amount of food waste that becomes a food for the dustbin, this one is sure to put a smile on your face. The innovative Hybrid Gas Range created by award-winning Korean designer Seokmoon Woo, is an amazing concept, utilizing food garbage as an alternate fuel for the gas range. This concept helps reduce food garbage in households while meeting a chunk of their energy needs as well by allowing them to switch between the collected methane and regular gas at the press of a button.
If we change food garbage at home into methane energy, we can cook with methane instead of gas all the time. Considering that the dwindling natural gas resources have raised an alarm worldwide this device is sure to be a boom for the consumer.

The concept allows users to put away their food garbage in a classifier in the center which ferments and creates methane that is used as fuel for the gas range. The resulting waste is dehydrated by the machine and collected in a tank at the bottom that can be disposed off later. Though still a concept, this one is sure to have buyers in the market the day it is launched.

Via designist.kr

Natural calamities are all too real a threat in different countries all across the world. Rafael Smith’s amazing creation, Uber Shelter, is sure to meet the immediate shelter requirements created by disastrous events. A multi-storey Emergency Shelter offering people individual living space, this collapsible flat pack design allows the shelter to be quickly transported by air, sea or land, and it can be assembled with just a few necessary tools. When the shelter is no longer needed, it can be dismantled, flat packed again, and moved on to the next disaster area. The Uber Shelter is stackable and it is made from recyclable and reusable material which serves as an edge over the others.
This project, as per the designer, is a shelter solution that meets the needs of emergency response alongside providing victims with a more personal place to live; a base unit that can serve as a very basic shelter but also have the capabilities to upgrade and implement modern infrastructure which makes it cope with large scale displaced populations.

Uber has been designed to adapt to different situations, terrains, and climates. Camp needs are addressed in phases starting with the bare essentials to more pleasant solutions and conveniences. So this one, is sure to act as your savior.

Via tuvie

If you want your young kid to pick up the habit of recycling early or if you intend to add a touch of classy musical feel to your trash bin, then this is perfect for you. It is not very often that one gets to see a concept that looks good, sounds good and also does well for the planet. The Xylophone Bin is one such rare concept which we would like to have ourselves and enjoy some beautiful notes every time we put the waste back where it belongs.

“Xylophone Bin” is an amazing creation by Dominic Wilcox designed for Danish Company Vipp?s charity auction event held in New York. The bin has crafted wooden stairs around it that go from longer to shorter. When you open the lid, a metal ball is released on to the steps and goes bouncing down the steps to create a symphony of sound. It goes from the high note to the low note and probably this will encourage your young one (and even you) to put trash where it belongs more often. This truly is one eco gadget that is a delight to the senses.

Via: Dominicwilcox / Designboom

Above and beyond the manufacturing of plastics creating harmful chemical pollutants, the recycling course of it also bears out to be a hard-hitting and deleterious job. In view of that efforts are being made all over the world to ban or discourage the use of plastic as of its detrimental eco effects. We all can make out that how intricate it would be for the optics and imaging company like Olympus to confiscate plastic material altogether from their processes. Yet they have proclaimed the company would eradicate a massive quantity of plastic stuff out of their packaging section in near future contributing to create a greener environment.

Olympus group is probing out options to get rid of just about 70 percent of their plastic material coming out from audio products and a bit larger percentage of around 80 from the xD Picture Cards fragment. If succeeded Olympus’s eco strive would set a stirring global exemplar worldwide.

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