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Have a less expensive green holiday
The Seattle Times recently ran a piece about green holiday shopping. The piece noted that in a recent survey about one-fifth of US consumers say they plan on buying more green gifts this year. That’s not a change from last year when about as many said they’d be going green for the holidays. Further noted in the study, about 55% of Seattle respondents (wow – a lot) say they’ll pay more for greener gifts. That’s pretty encouraging because people everywhere seem to be looking for greener gifts and less toxic toys for the kids.The downside is that not all folks [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Data Center Underneath Cathedral Will Heat Finland Homes
Data centers generate a lot of heat. In fact, over 50 percent of the energy used by data centers is for cooling the servers, not computing. Almost all efforts to make them more efficient focus on keeping the equipment cool with less energy. But what if all that heat could be used for good? We recently wrote about the potential of using waste heat to generate electricity, but this time the benefit of the heat is the heat itself.
The excess heat generated by a new Finnish data center will be used to warm homes throughout Helsinki. The data center will be builit under the Uspenski Cathedral, nestled in the bedrock in a former WWII bomb shelter. The waste heat will be captured and pumped into the city heating network that consists of water-heated pipes that deliver heat to homes.
The data center, being built by company Academica, will be able to heat 500 large houses, equivalent to the energy output of one large wind turbine.
In order to attain the title of “world’s greenest,” the data center will also consume half the energy of a typical data center. Academica expects the efficient data center to cut half a million dollars from their energy bills.
via Reuters
Most Unhealthy Mall Food
As you may have noticed Blisstree Green is all about green living, and while health, in my opinion, is heavily related to green living, they’re not totally one and the same, and this is not technically this isn’t a health site. That said, I don’t post health issues unless they relate to green – however, I recently came across a very interesting article about the worst mall food in America, and it’s too good not to post.
Plus the mall is such an anti-green place to be anyhow. It’s crowded, all lit up, and all those goods in one place make [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Insecticides Linked to Autoimmune Disorders
In yet another reason why you should ditch toxic household supplies, recent research shows that there may be a link between exposure to household insecticides which include roach and mosquito killers, and the autoimmune disorders rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Epidemiologist Christine Parks, and lead investigator of the study, said that while not all correlations can be accounted for, i.e. it’s possible that the women in the study have something else in common that accounts for their higher risk of developing an autoimmune disorder, the findings still do raise a red flag.
Previous research has already linked agricultural pesticides to higher risk of [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Southface Energy Institute – A Resource For Sustainable Design
Energy efficient building designs and technologies are everywhere these days. In fact, the sheer number of options can seem a little overwhelming for those interested in sustainable construction techniques. But Southface Energy Institute, headquartered in Atlanta, can be a valuable resource for homeowners, commercial or residential builders, or individuals who simply want to [...]
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Green Cyber Monday Deals
I posted a few Cyber Monday deals in my Green Black Friday post, but just got news of some other deals going on as well.
The Inhabitat Shop is having a huge sale on all things green – 30% off all sorts of eco-friendly goodies. Plus, if you’re not sure what to buy check out their green gift guide.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is offering a cool Holiday Gift Catalog that includes over 200 ways support WWF’s conservation initiatives. One popular option includes WWF’s Species Adoption of the Month Club, where your gift recipient will receive one plush every month for [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Using Osmosis to Generate Clean Energy
Solar. Wind power. Wave power. Geothermal. Tidal power. If you’re a regular EcoGeek reader, you’re probably pretty familiar with the different major power generating alternatives to the burning of non-renewable fossil materials. But still, osmotic power generation is likely something you haven’t heard of before. Your first question is likely ‘How do you use osmosis to generate electricity?’
Osmosis is a process whereby water with two different concentrations of solution (in this case, salt) is separated by a semi-permeable membrane. Fresh water is able to pass through the membrane to the salt water side, but salt water cannot cross back in the other direction. This causes an increase in pressure on the salt water side, and this pressure difference is used to run a turbine which produces electricity.
Statkraft, a Norwegian renewable power company, has begun operations to use this process to generate electric power. The test facility, opened this week in Norway, is just a small demonstration plant which will produce only a few kilowatts of power. However, by 2015, Statkraft expects to be producing 25 megawatts of electricity by osmotic power.
Since the osmotic process requires a great deal of freshwater to function, we can forsee some serious problems for this system in the many parts of the word where the availability of fresh water is limited. The osmotic process also produces waste water that is saltier than freshwater, but not as salty as seawater, and the discharge of large quantities of this brackish water could be detrimental to local aquatic ecosystems.
via: Beyond the Beyond and Slashdot
Beautiful reusable lunch bags
Waste-Free Lunches estimates that most packed lunches for school alone creates about 67 pounds of waste per school year (that’s about 19,000 lbs of waste per each average elementary school). However, kids aren’t the only ones eating packed lunches. Many adults take their lunches to work. Some college students even make it a point to pack a healthy snack or lunch – and this creates waste as well. Especially if you’re using disposable plastic baggies, paper napkins, and other disposable containers.
One way around this issue is to buy reusable lunch gear. There are TONS of reusable lunch options for kids [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Nine inexpensive green gifts for kids
Earlier this week we looked at 10 inexpensive green gifts for adults. It’s not fair to leave the kiddos out though. Luckily there are tons of eco-friendly kids gifts that can be had for $40 or less. Following are some eco-friendly, non-toxic toys for the holidays that will amaze the kids while keeping your budget in check.
$10-$30 – Sprig toys are battery-free, eco-friendly, paint-free, kid-powered toys made with Sprigwood, a child-safe bio-composite of recycled wood and reclaimed plastic that smells like pine and has visible wood flecks. Sprig makes adventure play sets, trucks, sand and water toys, and much more. [...]
Post from: Blisstree
Find the best eco-sex toys
Currently there are plenty of eco-sex toys sweeping the market – good news for a tree hugger or for someone concerned with their personal health. The problem is that all these choices can be totally overwhelming. Below is a breakdown of some eco-friendly toys and where to find them.
I Rub My Duckie: Bondage a phthalate-free little guy from Big Teaze Toys
JUST THE BASICS:
The first step is to avoid the baddies. This means toys made of plastics which may contain phthalates and other icky chemicals – which are bad enough in bottled water products but to put them you know [...]
Post from: Blisstree
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