“If you watch your plants and listen to them, they will tell you what they need and where they should go.” He said.  “Look at that sagebrush over there.”  As we loomed over the sagebrush he pointed to the ground around it’s base and said, “see, it makes it’s own mulch, the leaves fall to the ground and branches grow in such a way to trap them around it.  It doesn’t need a lot of water and you don’t need to give it a lot of water because it traps the water it needs under that mulch.”  “just like a cactus expands to hold the water it needs and if you over water it, it will pop and die.”

While I love my plants I never really payed such attention to them.  I placed them where I wanted them, watered and fertalized (organically) them and would get frustated when they would die anyway.  Wondering always if it was because I was working organically and not doing it right.  What was really happening was that I was not “listening to my garden.”  Those plants that would self sow and come up five feet from where I really wanted them to be were only moving to a better place in the garden.  Maybe not better for my “plan”, but better for their survival. 

So, rather than go on and on here (which I could easily do), I want to leave you with this.  If you “listen” to your garden and do what it asks you, you will see huge success, beautiful flowers and more produce.  Your plants produce EVERYTHING they need and will create the environments they need to survive (if you are growing natives, non natives have a hard time adapting to new climates).  You will do less work and you will have happier plants. If they want to pick up and move, let them.  Relax and enjoy nature.

Photo Source:  by khenigar via Flickr Creative Commons

My initial impression of the laptop sleeve that they sent me was that it was pretty much exactly like neopreene.  The same look the same feel and the same stretch.  It fits my machine nicely, flexes a bit and looks great.  Turns out it is even washable.  What I really noticed though was that there was no odor coming from the sleeve or the package it came in.  Nothing.  Completely odorless.  The no VOC claim is true!  That is a big plus for me.  So how did they do it?  Well, read on for a message from their website. 

Do you love the feel of neoprene, squishy and smooth with a little bit of stretch? That is what neogreene is, without any of the toxins. Ever smell neoprene? It stinks like chemicals, right? That is the VOCs (like paint) from the solvents used to glue the fabrics to the synthetic rubber. The 1930s technology that created polychloroprene (the generic term) made for a material that was almost impervious to other aggressive chemicals. That makes it wonderful for industrial applications like gaskets (what is a gasket?).But, it meant only the most aggressive of glues could hold a textile to the exterior. These solvent adhesives contain all kinds of potentially harmful chemicals depending on the supplier; from toluene to formaldehyde.

GreenSmart has abandoned the chloroprene chemistry of neoprene entirely and developed a material with all the attributes without the hazards, We call it neogreene. It is water based chemistry that allows for water based adhesives that still provides the squishy and smooth material with a little bit of stretch.

Specific to all neoprene, neogreene uses 25% less electricity and 25% less petroleum to produce? And the stink? With neogreene, that is gone for good

I am not only impressed with the product, but also with the company.  They have made a concerted effort to run their company sustainably and to develop only products that will make a difference.  You can read more about them and their philosophy here.  Believing in transparency they have also provided access to the neogreene lab reports here. 

 Neogreene currently comes as a laptop sleeve or a water bottle insulator and prices vary, depending on size and range from $13-$15 for bottle sleeves and $25-$40 for laptop sleeves.  All are available for purchase on their website. 

I have been giving a lot of thought to the “green” thing these days and I have been trying to decide what would be a better term than “green” Why? Because people are becoming tired of  green and tuning it out when they hear the word. So what can we replace it with that might be better? Is it good, great, or what?

A green built home by Gorilla Design of Salt Lake City.

I decided that good is the term we I need to use. Why good? Well good conveys a message of quality, a message of something being well built and a message of something just being right. All things that green products are. If you are creating good products, then you are most likely are creating green products.

Can you see it now? Consumers making green good choices the world over. Buying green good homes. Buying green good lightbulbs. Buying green good heating and cooling systems. Manufacturers creating green good products. Consumers stop being satisfied with cheap and poor and moving toward green good and affordable with an environmental payback that provides the least amount of impact to the environment as possible.

So what do you think? Would love to hear some feedback.

This is a pretty cool  invention by a young man in California. He has put together a way to generate power through an alternative to wind turbines. His invention uses a membrane that is pulled taught. When the wind moves over it, it causes it to oscillate. This oscillation in turn moves two magnets around two sets of coils and generates small amounts of power. The thought would be to develop this into large scale production. I wonder if it will work? Fabulous invention nonetheless.

Watch the video to learn more and read the article over at popular mechanics.

The issue:
In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public’s trust. They were selling toys with dangerously high lead content, toys with unsafe small part, toys with improperly secured and easily swallowed small magnets, and toys made from chemicals that made kids sick.  Almost every problem toy in 2007 was made in China.

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, 2008.  Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels.

For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however, the costs of mandatory testing will likely drive them out of business.

• A toymaker, for example, who makes wooden cars in his garage in Maine to supplement his income cannot afford the $4,000 fee per toy that testing labs are charging to assure compliance with the CPSIA.
• A work at home mom in Minnesota who makes dolls to sell at craft fairs must choose either to violate the law or cease operations.
• A small toy retailer in Vermont who imports wooden toys from Europe, which has long had stringent toy safety standards, must now pay for testing on every toy they import.
• And even the handful of larger toy makers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007.

The CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of toys that have earned and kept the public’s trust: Toys made in the US, Canada, and Europe.  The result, unless the law is modified, is that handmade toys will no longer be legal in the US.

If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.

So what can you do about this? You can write your congress Person or senator.  Using this sample letter or by writing your own.  You can find your Congress Person here and Senator here.

You can also click the image to the left to head over the Cool Mom Picks site for even more ideas and excellent resource links. Or visit change.org to make your voice heard and move this on to the second round as an item on Obama’s agenda.  Visit change.org by clicking on the widget below.

Two posts over at clean technica really caught my eye today.  The first being about an umbrella that generates power from the rain to power it’s own LED lights.  The umbrella is made of PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) which actually harvests kinetic energy.  According to the post, the harder it rains the brighter it gets. Just one more amazing way to generate power from everyday action.  Like the revolving door and the floor in Japan.  Someday your every movement will power everything!

The second post that caught my eye over at Clean Technica was this one.  Apparently a VERY POSH hotel in Dubai, the Palazzo Versace,  will be refrigerating their private beach so their guests don’t get hot feet.  Yeah, you heard right, the city that is constantly getting credit for building amazing LEED certified wastes of natural resources is now going to have cold sand in the summer time.  My gosh!  I can’t wait to wiggle my toes in it (not really)!!!

It is sad to think that in a world where sustainability HAS to become the norm we are still thinking of things like refrigerated beaches.  The very same world where we can now generate power from raindrops on our umbrella.  Well, I guess that it would be OK if they could generate the power to refrigerate the beach through their toes wiggling in the sand.  Ah, why justify it?

]]> http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/15/power-from-raindrops-and-footsteps-waste-beach.aspx/feed/ 4 http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/14/rogue-jellyfish-the-new-green-job-new-global-warming-plan-and-more.aspx/ http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/14/rogue-jellyfish-the-new-green-job-new-global-warming-plan-and-more.aspx/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:53:20 +0000 Andrew Stone http://ecozebra.com/?p=1391

Jellyfish gone wild ruining beaches, report says – MSNBC

Calif. adopts sweeping global warming plan – MSNBC

Can green firms grow in today’s downturn? – Christian Science Monitor

Up on the Roof, New Jobs in Solar Power- NY Times

Big Vatican Christmas tree to be recycled into toys – Reuters

]]> http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/14/rogue-jellyfish-the-new-green-job-new-global-warming-plan-and-more.aspx/feed/ 0 http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/13/cfls-vs-leds-which-way-do-you-go-with-your-lightbulbs.aspx/ http://ecozebra.com/2008/12/13/cfls-vs-leds-which-way-do-you-go-with-your-lightbulbs.aspx/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:41:32 +0000 Andrew Stone http://ecozebra.com/?p=1378 CFL’s are gradually losing favor to LED’s as the energy saving bulb of the future, even with companies like GE ramping up production of CFL’s. In the video above Hank Green of ecogeek.org does some research and side by side comparisons of the bulbs in question and I think you will find it quite informative.

CLF Recycling Kit

As the prices drop and production increases, I expect we will all move to the more environmentally sound LED bulb. So, please do dispose of your CFL’s responsibly when you replace them.

Royal Boon Edam Group Holding has proved, once again, to be the world leader in entrance technology with their latest feature in revolving doors. Boon Edam developed an energy generating revolving door for the Driebergen-Zeist railway station in The Netherlands, which not only saves energy but also generates energy with every person passing through the door.

The door will not only generate energy, it will also store the energy to power it’s generator.  The generator will then control the speed of the door while it is revolving.  Lighted with low energy LED’s, the door will switch to the buildings main power only when traffic is low and enough energy is not being generated to power the lights.

Another cool feature are the LED scales inside the door that indicate the amount of energy that is generated. When passing through the door at a slow speed, the scale will end up in the red or orange zone, whereas a normal or fast pace pushes the scale into the green zone, indicating that significant electric energy is generated. Another LED indicator at the control unit shows when the illumination of the revolving door is powered by human energy, or by the mains supply. “Human Powered Energy” stickers were applied to the revolving door to make users aware of their contribution to this green building. The total amount of energy that is generated by the revolving door is accumulated and shown on a large display inside the building.

A very cool idea that has come to fruition and just one more step in developing self powering technology.  Just think, there is the potential that everything that moves in your home may generate power one day.  WOW!

Source:  Boon Edam press release via inhabitat.