Green Daily

I do my best to avoid drinking bottled water, but every once in a while, I find myself someplace where the tap water just tastes (or smells, or looks) bad. But I have a solution now -- EcoUsable Ech20 filtered water bottles.

The stainless steel bottles aren't just BPA-free -- they also have a personal filtration system, so you can take icky, gross water and turn it into clean, tasty agua in seconds (seriously, I took part in a demo of this at Surf Expo and the water went from brown to crystal clear, and tasted great).

They offer multiple sizes and colors, and are priced reasonably -- the 18 oz. filtered water bottles are $34.99, and the 25 oz. version is $39.99. Replacement filters are offered on the site as well, for $24.99. Bottoms up!

GreenDaily's new Green Toolbar is here, it's awesome, and it's available to download. And I know, you're wondering how a toolbar is supposed to help you be more eco-conscious, right?

Easy peasy. It includes the Green Wizard Utility, which is an optional component that will help you fine-tune your computer to save energy. Additionally, it'll give you daily eco-tips, right there in your browser -- getting your green on was never so handy.

Go on and download it today -- it's fast and free, and a great way to make the time you spend on your PC echo the way you live the rest of your life!

GreenDaily's new Green Toolbar is here, it's awesome, and it's available to download. And I know, you're wondering how a toolbar is supposed to help you be more eco-conscious, right?

Easy peasy. It includes the Green Wizard Utility, which is an optional component that will help you fine-tune your computer to save energy. Additionally, it'll give you daily eco-tips, right there in your browser -- getting your green on was never so handy.

Go on and download it today -- it's fast and free, and a great way to make the time you spend on your PC echo the way you live the rest of your life!

(Photo by Getty Images)

I've had my iPhone for more than a year, but I've been slow to load up on apps, mainly depending on my friends to tip me off to hidden gems.

Then last week I saw an Earth Day commercial for green iPhone apps (or a commercial on Earth Day for iPhone stuff ... it could have been a coincidence) and suddenly had an urge to find out more.

At this point there's no good way to search the iTunes store -- or if there is, I'm not smart enough/young enough to figure it out. Instead I did some internet research and read a bunch of reviews. These are some of the highest rated green iPhone apps, with the biggest buzz and in some cases the most potential to grow:

• greenMeter ($5.99) -- do you know how fuel efficient your car is? How about your driving? This app measures how much fuel you're using, and your driving style. Then it gives you feedback to help you reduce your fuel consumption and impact on the environment.
• Get Green ($.99) -- get daily reminders delivered to your phone every day.
• iGreen ($.99) -- all the green news, all in one place, right when it happens.
• GasBag (free) and GasBag Pro (a little faster, no ads, $.99) -- find the closest and cheapest gas station in your vicinity. Worth it if you've ever driven around outside of an airport, looking for a gas station before dropping off a rental car. It will also help you avoid the extra emissions and gas guzzling of making the rounds of your local gas stations.
• 3rdwhaleMobile (free) -- a location based directory that helps you find green businesses. You can also rate and add reviews. It's in beta, but it's the kind of app that has a lot of potential as it grows.

FYI, I didn't include any of those dumb apps that let you grow a tree on your phone, and they plant one (!) tree when you buy it. That just seems dumb. If you want to donate money to plant a tree, go right to the source and donate to something like the Nature Conservancy's Plant a Billion Trees. Your phone doesn't need to get involved.

Sure, iPhone apps are cool, but sometimes the old fashioned way still works best.

(Photo by Ed Yourdon on flickr)

Ideally, to celebrate Earth Day, I'd have my computer turned off and unplugged. However, like many of you, that's just not a possibility -- my job sort of calls for a computer to be used all day, every day, you know? But there is something really simple you and I can do to green our machines.

AOL's new Green Toolbar is here, it's awesome, and it's available to download. And I know, you're wondering how a toolbar is supposed to help you be more eco-conscious, right?

Easy peasy. It includes the Green Wizard Utility, which is an optional component that will help you fine-tune your computer to save energy. Additionally, it'll give you daily eco-tips, right there in your browser -- getting your green on was never so handy.

Go on and download it today -- it's fast and free, and a great way to make the time you spend on your PC echo the way you live the rest of your life!

As CFLs continue on the path towards mass adoption (or bridging the gap until LED bulbs become more affordable) prices are going down, bulbs are being mass-produced, and consumer groups are complaining that the quality standards are deteriorating rapidly. Has the aggressive push to make CFLs more affordable hurt quality and therefore damaged some of the CFL's hard-earned reputation?

It's finally here, Tesla's first foray into affordability and practicality -- and it looks/sounds pretty awesome. The annoying car cover from that teaser photo was thrown off today at Tesla's press event today in Hawthorne, CA, where the Model S -- which seats seven, charges in 45 minutes, and has a range of up to 300 miles -- made it's first public appearance.

How can a drain make your water heater more efficient? Well, it's actually pretty simple. The Eco Drain recaptures your refreshing morning shower's excess hot water and uses it to reduce the load on your water heater. With no moving parts and a supposedly clog-proof coating, the hot water from your drain is channeled into a mixing valve which transfers heat from your sudsy waste water to incoming municipal water.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering about exactly how the heat is exchanged between the two water sources. Apparently, the design maximizes the surface area of the two channels, allowing heat transfer as the water runs through the Eco Drain. According to Eco Drain, the waste water and fresh water are separated by a "double wall," so there's virtually no chance for them to mix. By their estimations, this completely sanitary heating method could cut your water heater use by up to 40%. Nice.

Now, to tackle the dilemma of whether or not to turn your water heater down below 140°F.

[via Inhabitat]

There are so many good things going on with small-scale wind turbines -- they're a beacon of good intentions, affordable, and now super easy to install -- it's a shame that in practice, micro wind's benefits are infamously dubious. Potential counter-productiveness aside, the Jellyfish Wind Appliance is bar none the coolest and weirdest-looking micro turbine to draw major league attention -- and that's saying something.

You know what they say: money is the root of all evil and power corrupts. So, you might as well start educating your children about both at an early age. Coming in at second place in this year's Greener Gadgets Conference is the Power Hog -- a toy that teaches children how annoying it would be if everything in the world was coin-operated. Just kidding, of course, the Power Hog is designed to teach children about the energy costs associated with their electrical devices.

This gadget is basically a energy-monitoring piggy bank attached to an extension cord that requires a donation to power your child's TV, Nintendo Wii, etc. As long as children feed the piggy meter, their device stays on and the dollar sign on the side glows green. As the Power-Hog begins to run out of funds, the dollar sign flashes red faster and faster. Kinda weird, right?

Look, everybody's got their own parenting style, and that's cool -- but something about making your kids pay to play Wii really makes me bust out laughing. On the upside, it's a sneaky way to force your children to supplement the electric bill with their allowance.

[via DesignMilk]

Just this week, HP started shipping their new Ecolabel-certified HP Enviro Series Notebook Battery, which can get 4 hours between charges and rocks a full charge for at least 3 years. The 4-hour Sonata battery pack, developed by start-up Boston Power, is easily an improvement over the somewhat disappointing performance of most batteries. Also, the Enviro Series battery boasts a charge that will fade less over time -- something you can appreciate if you have an old laptop that literally dies after being unplugged for 15 minutes.

With most consumers looking at the bottom line to guide most of their purchasing decisions -- I know I am -- do you think many consumers are willing to throw down $150 on a super efficient lithium-ion "sustainable" laptop battery? Considering that even my Energy Star laptop can only go about an hour off the cord, I think it's probably well worth the price.

[via Earth2Tech]

It's true you can turn your shower liner into a tarp, and your tea tins into q-tip receptacles. You can even turn your bath mat into a chamois for your car and replace it with a mat of green moss. But can you turn a used fire hose into a back pack?

Not without some training and an industrial sewing machine. The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena has made sustainability a focus of its entire school. Every program focuses on creating and processing sustainable, frequently recycled products. And the gear is already making its way to market.

Take for example Spencer Nikosey's designer messenger bags and totes. The student has designed ruggedly chic bags from surplus army tarps and discarded fire hoses. He has already found an unnamed company to produce the bags along with numbered dog tags.

Radhika Bhalla has designed multipurpose bicycle carts that women in India can build easily out of common materials. The project would reduce back breaking labor on the women's part and use sustainable materials to build something useful.

Leslie Evans designed the "Vespera Hairdryer," a hair dryer that is easy to disassemble, repair and recycle. Hair dryers are known to be unfriendly to both. And Joseph Choi designed a single-serving tea set that saves energy usually spent heating more water than needed. That's a big deal in countries like India and England.

The school has embraced the concept as a challenge. Designers have long thought of eco-friendliness as an afterthought or an impediment to attractive, smartly designed products. Classes in sustainability are required, and the goal, and so far the achievement, is to create smarter, more effective and attractive stuff sustainably.

[via LA Times]

Imagine a world where nobody steals used cooking oil, because there's no grease trap. Instead, every fast food place in town reuses their grease to heat and power their restaurant with a VegaWatt cogeneration system. About the size of a washer/dryer combo, the VegaWatt disposes of used fry oil by running it through a 4-stage cleaning process and burning it in an EPA Tier 4 diesel generator to supplement 10-25% of a restaurant's power, and it's fully automated.

The VegaWatt has the capacity to guzzle the grease of restaurants equipped with 3-5 fryers -- and if you've got more than 5 fryers ... wow, you really must like deep fried food. Unlike putting up a wind turbine, solar panels, etc. the VegaWatt not only provides you with clean power, but it also saves you money in other areas. The VegaWatt's coling system pumps water throught the contraption and then back out to your water heater, lightening the load on your water heater. Even better, you don't have to pay a service to come pump your grease trap. In a lot of ways, it's similar to that trash gobbling dumpster.

[via Inhabitat]

One of the most frustrating things about a lot of solar powered gadgets is the fact that it's so hard to get them into the sun often enough, and for long enough periods of time, to be sure they're always fully charged when you need them to be. This solar Venetian blind concept, called "Blight" by Vincent Gerkens, solves not only that problem but it also helps save energy. It works by saving up solar energy during the day and then replacing a lamp or two during the night when it uses that energy to light up.

Not the most attractive light fixture (a little 'rave party' or something), but definitely a cool idea.

[via DVICE]

Here at Green Daily, we've run across quite a few inventions recently designed to two-wheeling power to the next level, the bike generator, the Green Wheel, etc. -- but the Wind Helmet may just take the prize for originality. This sleek concept, conceived by Malaysian designer Wai Hoong Leng, helps turn your passive safety gear into a renewable energy generator.

By channeling the wind current through the top of the helmet and across a small turbine, the Wind Helmet can generate enough power to recharge you mobile devices as you cruise. While the design may be best suited for those on a scooter -- since it looks a little on the bulky side -- it's definitely stylish enough to have cross over appeal for cyclists; especially if they're cruising on a power-assisted ebike. I'm hoping that Leng has done the safety research necessary to determine whether this hefty helmet won't break our necks at high speeds. That would be thoughtful.

[via AutoblogGreen]