Green Daily

There are more than 3 billion cellphones in the world today, more than 1 for every 2 people. While cellphones are great for bringing people together and encouraging communication in parts of the world where it's difficult to install telephone wires, that's an awful lot of e-waste waiting to happen (or already happening). Most phones contain plastic, metals, and chemicals that can be recycled, but according to a survey from Nokia, very few people actually do recycle their cellphones.

How few? 3%. Now, there is good news. A lot of people are selling or giving away their old phones, which helps keep them out of landfills. In fact, only 4% are making their way into landfills. What's surprising is that nearly half of all old cellphones aren't going anywhere at all though. They're hanging out in a drawer because people are too lazy to throw them away, give them away, or recycle them.

The top reason people gave for not recycling their old phones is that they didn't know it was possible. But as much as 80% of the materials in some phones can be used to make other products. In the US, many electronics chains collect used cellphones at retail locations. You can also find a list of Nokia's collection points at the company's recycling page.

[via Environmental Leader]

The city of Philadelphia is on a mission to reform sanitation. Just a few days ago the city launched single stream recycling (no more separating paper, plastic, and glass). And now Philadelphia officials are testing solar-powered trash compactors on city sidewalks.

Here's how it works. You're walking down the street, and you've got a candy wrapper, fast food container, or other piece of trash to throw away. In most cities, you'll be on the lookout for a little trash can on a street corner. In Philly, you might find a trash can, but you also might find a trash compactor which is capable of storing far more trash, thus cutting down on the number of trash pickups.

There's a sensor inside the compactor that notices when you chuck some trash inside and then the machinery springs into action. The receptacles can hold about 200 gallons of waste, or nearly 4 times the amount of trash that the current cans hold.

Following the footsteps of Best Buy, Office Depot is launching a tech recycling program. But there's one major difference: Office Depot will charge you $5, $10, or $15 for each box of electronic recyclables you bring in. The price will help defray the cost of the box, shipping, and recycling your old computer parts and other electronics.

The recycling process will recover glass, plastic, copper, aluminum and other reusable materials. Office Depot, like many other retailers also offers free recycling for PDAs, rechargeable batteries, and ink and toner cartridges.

You can find a complete list of items Office Depot will accept for recycling at the company's Tech Recycling Services web page. But in a nutshell, you can recycle most computer components and peripherals, telephones, cameras, and audio/video equipment including small televisions. Office Depot will not accept appliances, cracked monitors, or items with liquids.

What do you think? Would you be willing to pay up to $15 to recycle a large box of your old gizmos? Or would you rather drive a bit out of your way to find the closest Best Buy offering free recycling?

[via Good Clean Tech]

Bicycles are already one of the greenest forms of transportation. They don't use gas or an engine, so there are no emissions. So how do you make them even greener? Build them out of cardboard instead of metal.

Cardboard is already a fairly green (OK, brown) product. Two thirds of cardboard is made from recycled fiber. But that's not really what drove 21-year-old Sheffield Hallam University design student Phil Bridge to create a prototype bicycle made from cardboard. The truth is, as a building material cardboard is a lot cheaper than metal. Bridge says his bike could be built for as little as $30. The most expensive parts are the ones that require metal, like the fork and the wheels. If you left them out, the bike would cost just $8 to build.

The bike is designed to withstand rain and other weather. But cardboard obviously isn't as durable as metal. Bridge says the idea is that you would replace the frame every 6 months or so. The tires and some other longer-lasting parts are designed to be slotted into a new frame.

Bridge's bike is still just a prototype and isn't available for purchase yet. And it's not clear if it ever will be. But the concept is pretty cool. You know, if you can live without shock mounting.

[via Matter]

If you feel guilty every time you buy disposable paper plates and cups for a picnic, you might want to check out VerTerra products. The company sells plates, bowls, cups, and other dishes made of compostable plant materials. No chemicals, waxes, or dyes are used.

VerTerra products can stand up to the rigors of the refrigerator, microwave, or even an oven. That means you can use them to store your leftovers and reheate them without using a different container.

It takes 2-3 months for the plant-based dinnerware to biodegrade. And while they're described as single-use products, you can certainly use each item several times before tossing it in the compost bin.

There are two things that make computers generally pretty lousy for the environment:

1. They use a lot of energy.
2. They become obsolete fairly quickly which means they contribute the global e-waste problem.

Design student Ben Chase has designed a concept PC aimed at solving both of these problems. The computer is capable of running Windows (he doesn't say whether it's running Windows Vista or XP), and uses just 27 watts of power, which is pretty low by desktop standards and not too bad by laptop standards either.

The PC is also modular, which means you can upgrade components simply by sliding them in and out. No tools necessary. So if a computer maker were to bring this PC to market, they would offer modules with items like hard drives, DVD drives, or other components. And the easier it is to upgrade a PC, the less likely it is that you'll wind up throwing the whole box out.

[via Engadget]

When a car burns gasoline, it produces energy and waste. The energy helps your car move, while the waste is let out through an exhaust pipe so that it can slowly kill the planet. But just because your car is spitting out CO2 fumes doesn't mean that they're completely useless.

Origo Industries will be showing off a new system at the Green Car Guide Live! show in the UK next week that can capture CO2 from your exhaust pipe and turn those emissions into fuel. You can then use that fuel to power your house, or even your car.

Basically, you trap the CO2 and then carry it home and dump it into Origo's algae-based system which helps turn the CO2 into "bio-oil." Or you could just get a bicycle.

[via Gizmodo]

You know you should recycle your old computer, cellphone, or camera. But it can be such a pain trying to find a local non-profit, government, or company that lets you drop off used electronics for recycling. And once you find a location, it might be halfway across the state.

But everybody lives near a Best Buy, right? Well, if you happen to live near one of 117 stores in the Baltimore, San Francisco, and Minnesota areas, Best Buy is launching a new program that lets people drop off used electronics for recycling.

Here's a list of items the participating locations will accept:

• Television and computer monitors 32 inches or smaller
• Computers
• Phones
• Cameras
• Other small electronic devices and peripherals

Best Buy will not take TVs or monitors larger than 32 inches, air conditioners, or appliances, although you can pay $100 to have Best Buy pick up your larger television or appliances. Each store nationwide also has a recycling kiosk for ink cartridges, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, PDAs, and CDs or DVDs.

There's no word on if and when the company will expand this program nationwide, but this limited program has pilot project written all over it.

[via Engadget]

You can recycle bottles, cans, and newspapers. Why not office chairs, desks and conference tables? UK-based GreenWorks does exactly that. If you've got old office furniture (and you live in the UK) that's no use to anybody, GreenWorks will dismantle and separate furniture parts for recycling. But that's just a small portion of what this group does.

GreenWorks also accepts donations of more gently used office furniture, which it helps keep out of landfills by fixing it up and selling or donating it to charities and businesses. The non-profit has been around for 8 years and has helped divert more than 60,000 tons of furniture from landfills in that time.

[via Eco Joe's]

New York City passed a tough E-waste bill earlier this year that would require electronics makers to get meet recycling benchmarks. Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the bill, saying it violates interstate commerce laws, but City Council yesterday overrode that veto.

Both Council and the Mayor have already agreed on legislation that requires electronics manufacturers to take back used gadgets and appliance. But Bloomberg balked at setting touch penalties for non-compliance. Now that City Council has overridden his veto, the new bill effectively becomes a law -- but it's up to the mayor's office to enforce that law. And since the law doesn't actually take effect until 2012, when Bloomberg will no longer be in office, it's anybody's guess as to whether the law will actually be enforced or if the issue will be decided in the courts.

If the law does ever actually go into effect, electronics manufacturers would be required to recycle at least 25% of their items that are sold in New York City. If they fail to meet that target, they will have to pay $50,000 for each percentage point they're off by.

If you've got a computer that was built in the last few years, odds are it's got a processor that scales up when you need an extra performance boost and scales down when you don't. By doing this, your computer uses less electricity. And if you've got a laptop, the battery will last longer.

But most of the network servers and routers that power the internet never get the chance to scale up or down, because they're dealing with a constant flow of internet traffic. They run at pretty much the same speed all the time in order to make sure your YouTube videos start the instant you hit the play button. Researchers are looking into ways to cut the cost of internet traffic by changing the way network hardware processes data.

NewScientist reports that researchers at Intel and the University of California have come up with a method that could cut the electricity usage of network hardware by between 40 and 80% by slowing down the flow of network data just a tiny bit or by changing the way traffic is handled. The first method would let network hardware run at a lower speed, while the second would give it a chance to "sleep" every now and again.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been testing a system that tries to route traffic through servers that are already in use first, allowing the company to put some inactive servers to sleep. In a recent test, Microsoft found it could reduce electricty by about 30% this way.

[via Environmental Leader]

I'll admit it. I live in a state with a bottle deposit law, but I don't take my bottles back to the store to get my deposit back. It's just not what I'm used to doing, and I don't buy a lot of bottled beverages. Of course, I put my used bottles out on the curb for recycling, so the environmental impact of my bottle consumption is the same whether I return my bottles to the store or not. But a lot of people don't recycle their bottles. And there's at least some evidence that bottle deposit laws can help convince them to do so.

Michigan, for example, claims a 97% bottle recycling rate. And Michigian has a statewide bottle deposit law, as do 10 other state. Now New Jersey lawmakers are considering becoming the 12th estate to enact a bottle deposit law. And the usual debate is coming up: would a bottle deposit law actually encourage recycling, or is it just another tax on New Jersey shoppers?

The EU requires that cars be 85% recyclable. And while there's no such mandate in the US, some American car parts certainly get recycled. But what exactly does that mean? When you trade in your European junker, do its parts wind up in other cars? Do they become aluminum cans? Probably. But it turns out you can also buy attractive glassware made from recycled windshields.

Unccommon Goods sells wine and beer glasses and even a fish bowl (which looks a bit more likg a fish jug to me). A set of two glasses will set you back $20 to $22, and the fish bowl is $65. You can certainly find cheaper glassware. But we gaurantee that these glasses will be a better conversation piece than whatever you find at K-Mart.

[via Autoblog Green and Good Clean Tech]

The jury may still be out on whether Ethanol and biodiesel are the solution to the world's oil addiction. There's some evidence that diverting food crops to fuel production is raising the prices of food, and it's questionable whether you could grow enough fuel crops to power all the vehicles currently relying on gasoline. But what if you could fill up your car with Ethanol produced in your backyard, not in a field in Iowa?

The EFuel100 Micro Fueler is a contraption that will let you do just that. Basically, you add some water, sugar, and yeast, let it sit for a few days and you've got ethanol that you can use to power your car. The Micro Fueler can also take alcohol, and co-founder Thomas Quinn says he sometimes makes ethanol from discarded alcohol picked up from bars and restaurants.

Between supplies and electricity, it costs about $1 to produce a gallon of ethanol. But the up front costs are a bit higher than that. A Micro Fueler will set you back about $10,000, although with government subsidies, you can probably chop a few thousand dollars off that price.

[via Gizmodo]

Sure, changing the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescents can cut your energy bills a bit and save you a few bucks. But if you're a municipal agency like the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, with 60,000 lights to replace, those savings can add up fast.

The MTA is in the process of changing the lights in the New York subway system to LEDs. So far, the agency says it's changed 47,000 signal lights. When the upgrades are complete, the change could save the city up to $4.8 million per year, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the LED lights are 150 percent brighter than the old light bulbs to boot.

The MTA is also replacing incandescent bulbs at subway stations with compact fluorescent lights.

[via Good Clean Tech]