Popsci.com has an article on what to do with the miles of junk floating in the Pacific. It’s called, “Plastic-Eating Drone Could Swallow Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” An electric boat would tow a net to scoop the debris. We haven’t gotten to the part yet, where something comes along to scoop up the nets.
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Wash your clothes in a pollution-eating laundry detergent, and you’ll decrease your city’s smog, according to a report in the Scientific American. The “CatClo” detergent coats clothes with nano-particles that convert nitrogen oxide pollution (caused mainly by traffic) into harmless byproducts. More info at Catalytic-Clothing.org. You clean the air (in your own small way) just by walking around. Sitting around doesn’t count.
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Ultra-thin laptops are often called “ultrabooks” and look a lot like the Mac Air. They’re popular because of their light weight and long battery life. They use solid state drives (memory chips), so they’re fast and you don’t need to carry discs. The downside for many models is if the battery needs replacing, you have to send it back to the manufacturer. Only the Sony Vaio T13 and HP Elite Book Folio 9470 have user replaceable batteries.
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– Lights can be printed onto wallpaper. Researchers fromLinkoping University,.Sweden, have grown white LEDs (light emitting diodes) on paper. This is the first time anyone has built LEDs directly on paper.
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Arborday.org has trees for sale online (very cheap) and info about being a “Tree City USA.” A tree city gets forestry guidance from the Arbor Day organization.
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C40.org reports on what some of the world’s biggest cities are doing about pollution. C40 is a network of 40 large cities and claims that all together they account for one-eighth of the world’s population. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg chairs the group. Just looking at the list of cities is a geography lesson. Curitiba, Brazil, anyone? Curitiba means “Pine Nut Land” and it has 1.76 million people. (Joy loves pine nuts.) (The list has to be incomplete, by the way, because we think China alone has 40 cities bigger than Curitiba.)
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EMagazine.com has articles on green tech. In a recent issue, we learned that residents ofBellingham,Washington, are now driving on the first certifiably green roads. Short sections of road are paved with material from 400 crushed toilets mixed with asphalt with 30 percent recycled content, including recycled concrete. No bathroom jokes, please.
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According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government throws out around 10,000 computers a week. While the government has made improvements in their throw-away habits, the report said, it noted that federal agencies often provide little assurance that their old computers are disposed of in any useful or environmentally friendly way.
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Light Bulb Finder” for Android or iPhone/iPod/iPod Touch, got an award from the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a free app that helps you switch from incandescent to energy-efficient bulbs. It displays bulb images, prices, environmental impact and info such as how long you need to own the bulb before it compares favorably to regular bulbs.
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Running out of things to worry about? Hisz.rsoe.hu is a Hungarian site that maps a lot of things going on in the world, disaster-wise. If there’s trouble, they want you to know about it. A world map has lots of points you can check. (They don’t do political problems.)
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