Wondering how to recycle your old rusted oil drums? May be French designer Francois Royer will show you an easy way to make them useful for decorating your home. The Stanker series is a collection of such oil barrels which have been molded into artistic pieces of furniture. The first among them was shaped in 2003 from an industrial oil drum and trolley wheels.

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All of us surely enjoyed playing with doll houses when we were kids, especially the girl gang. These little cardboard replicas were our sweet homes where we did every thing from washing to cooking. The thought of living in such houses brings back those memories. This is what the Australian architecture firm Stutchbury and Pape designed. Priced at an affordable $35,000, these prefab homes are made out of cardboard and are 100% recyclable.

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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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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

The concept of ‘green buldings’ seems to be catching up in India. These structures are truly eco-friendly as they harvest their own water and not to forget the solar power systems. Not only this, they even have their own waste re-cycling system.

Plus the greenery in the otherwise concrete junglse that metros in India have become, is sure bliss. The construction has been done so that more than 50 per cent of the bulding is covered with glass like it is in Japan, which reflects the sun’s rays and keeps the indoor cool; thus, saving power.

When the fad was at a nascent stage, a 20,000 sqaure feet green building was consructed in Hyderbad in 2004. But now, the green attitude is catching up. You will be surprised to know that the green buldings (please read 315) in India today cover over 235 millin square feet.
Via zeenews

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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This really is nothing beyond a symbolic way of saying that France intends to go green and that the French government is ready to embrace eco-friendly technology. But the good thing about cutting the sizzle off of the Eiffel Tower is that it is actually being acknowledged as just a ‘symbolic gesture’ and no one is trying to make a big deal out of it in terms of energy saving. While many might welcome the move, one could surely save plenty of power somewhere else rather than dim the lights on Paris’ most striking monuments.

Since January 1, 2000, every hour after dusk, the 20,000 bulbs twinkle brilliantly for ten minutes in what has become a tourist hit. But starting next month, Sete, the company subcontracted by Paris to run the tower, has decided to half the time the bulbs are on, cutting illumination from 400 to 200 hours per year. The decision is part of a plan to make the Eiffel tower and other monuments more environmentally friendly.

Tickets and documents in the tower are made of recycled paper, and management claims that all the electricity used comes from renewable sources. It is currently studying a plan to put solar panels on the roof of its restaurants. This latest green initiative comes just after the “city of light” completed a massive five-year energy saving plan to replace the standard incandescent light bulbs with metal iodide light bulbs on 125 of its monuments.

Now you could still use solar power of even tiny windmills to power the lights on the Eiffel rather than cut the time in half. The tourists are surely not going to take to it all too well and while it is for a wonderful green cause, there are surely other ways of awareness than taking the sheen of France’s eternal symbol of lights and love.

Via Telegraph