Green Daily

Need to relax at a new celebrity-endorsed eco-spa? How does looking at boobs help PETA fight animal testing? Would you rather get a living plant or cut flowers? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all the latest green news and tips.

Construction Underway on Brando's Eco-Resort You're one step closer to getting that hot stone massage at the eco-friendly resort that Marlon Brando envisioned many moons ago. Located in the French Polynesian atoll of Tetiaroa, "The Brando" will be loaded with innovative features like a sea water air-conditioning system.

PETA Unleashes Addictive Online Boob Game Doing their part to educate the public on the difference between lab animals and human breasts (who doesn't need that?), they've created a game to help you waste time at work. The message is a teeny bit muddled, but there are plenty of boobs to make up for that.

Give Potted Plants Not Flowers When you want to present a friend/date/etc. with a leafy gift, avoid cut flowers and go for something living. Not only will this reduce your dating-print, but your gift will last a lot longer, usually. I recommend something very east to take care of, like a cactus, but that's just me.

Protecting Your Plants Naturally Now that you received a nice houseplant from your friend/date/etc., what's the greenest way to make sure ants don't munch it to death? Spreading coffee grounds, egg shells and cayenne pepper around the base of your plant will both fertilize and deter pesky insects.

Ranting to Stop Alcohol Wastage at Parties How many thousands of gallons of beer and liquor are wasted each year because people set down their drinks and forget about them. Come on people, it took lots of energy to produce that martini, let's all try to remember where our drinks are before we go pour another one.

Green in a Flash:

• GM may try to sell the Volt on eBay. Seriously.
• It's hard to build wind turbines at really windy locations, go figure.
• Learn how to preserve some of you tomato garden's bounty this year.

You may have already seen a few of these funky bottles lurking around your local grocery store. Anheuser-Busch has been using them for a couple of years now as well as some of the other beer giants. A few months ago, Coca-Cola announced plans to start rolling these babies out in limited venues across the country. Now, Rexam, a huge consumer packaging company, has jumped into the aluminum bottle market. So, I'm guessing that we're destined to see a lot more of them.

The good news is that, in terms of sustainability, aluminum bottles look like a clear winner over glass. For starters, one of these new aluminum bottles weighs in at about 20 grams, whereas a comparable glass bottle weighs about 180-200 grams. Obviously, weight plays a huge factor in an item's carbon footprint, so we're talking about some serious reductions in shipping emissions. Not bad, eh?

Are you worried about your Cinco de Mayo's impact on the environment? Why is Google getting into the goat business? Is your mayor fighting the good fight for the environment? Today's Eco-Beat has the scoop on all of the latest green news and tips.

How to Verde Your Cinco de Mayo It's Cinco de Mayo and, quite obviously, the number one question on everybody's mind today is: Can I recycle a beer bottle with a lime wedge stuck inside?

Google Harnesses Goat Power No, Google's powerful servers aren't being powered by goats on treadmills. The livestock is actually a part of Google lawn maintenance plan. They've hired 200 goats to clear the brush around their Mountain View HQ.

Is Your Mayor in the Green 15? To lead a city down a path of sustainability, you've got to have a seriously green-leaning captain. Grist put together a list of the 15 most eco-conscious mayors in the country. Did yours make the list?

Anderson Cooper Wins Hero Award Conservation International is honoring Coops and the rest of CNN's Green team the with Global Conservation Hero Award for their work on the awesome series Planet in Peril. Way to go, guys!

Honda Chips Away at Prius Domination Look out Prius, the new Honda Insight is coming at you like a spider monkey. The Insight's first month in the US saw sales of 2,096, while Prius sales were down 61.5% from last April. I'm going to ahead and assume that those figures are somewhat linked.

Green in a Flash:

• Broadway's got its first ever LEED-certified theater!
• The grey wolf has officially come off of the endangered species list.
• GM wants to sell Saturn and all of its awesome upcoming hybrid models before 2010.

Are you looking for some sustainable beer choices for this, the greenest holiday? Look no further. Below is a gallery of tasty brews to enhance your celebrations wherever they may be. Of course, if you want to be especially kind to the environment you can always brew your own.

Don't forget that just how green your beverage ends up being has a lot to do with you. There's the obvious, like making an attempt to recycle your cans and bottles but people often overlook the fact that their compost piles would benefit from any excess beer lying around before or after its been filtered through their kidneys. Give the neighbors a show this St. Patty's Day they will not soon get over.

This is my own, non-scientific opinion, but I think brewing your own beer can be eco-friendly. Let's think about the process.

You can collect glass beer bottles at home and from friends, or even pick up a few at the recycling center, sterilize them and reuse them over and over, getting much more than just one use from them before they are recycled.

Beer, like wine, in glass bottles, is heavy and is transported across the country and around the world on a regular basis. If you make it at home, it is transported from the fridge to the couch - not a very big carbon footprint there!

If you really get into it, you can grow some of your own hops and grain to produce your beer, making it even more eco-friendly since the ingredients are being produced very locally.

So, it seems like making beer at home could be a relatively eco-friendly option. Even if you regularly buy beer in cans, you are still saving the transportation miles involved in shopping those cans all over the place.

There a nice beer-making tutorial over at The Simple Dollar that shows how home-brewing can be very cost effective as well. So, start collecting those beer bottles and look for some beer recipes.

With the proper application of coffee and beer (2 out of my 3 favorite beverages, the other being whiskey) it seems that there are few world problems that we can't fix. Coffee can fuel your car and beer can fuel your car. Coffee grounds can replace printer ink, beer can be used as fish food. No joke, Colorado's New Belgium Brewery has teamed up with a company called the Oberon FMR (fish meal replacement), founded by none other than two beer-loving grad students, to share resources.

After pouring beer in their fish tanks and observing their behavior -- just kidding, I'm sure they did formal research -- the two founders of Oberon discovered that fish love beer. Well, it's not beer exactly, it's the thick brown dregs that occur as a byproduct of brewing -- like the stuff Sierra Nevada is using to make ethanol. An operation the size of New Belgium's produces a pretty healthy level of the sludge, about 40,000-50,000lbs a day. Oberon believes that it can convert 30,000-35,000lbs of the stuff into bacterial protein. Being that it's a somewhat unconventional method, it will be tested by the University of Idaho. If successful, Oberon may have found an abundant new source of food for the world's struggling fisheries.

[via Treehugger]

When Willie Nelson sang that the "nightlife ain't no good life" he obviously was unfamiliar with GustOrganics (another theory being that the song was written decades before GustOrganics was conceived -- we may never know for sure).

As Chris mentioned back in November, GustOrganics is the first organic-certified bar in America (and possibly the world!). It is also the only restaurant to be certified organic in New York, which is a bit surprising.

GustOrganics, according to Trend Hunter, only uses food that has been sourced locally, "supports fair trade practices and is certified by the Green Restaurant Association." That's the food stuff.

In the bar they "use only organic spirits, mixers, fruit, cocktails, beer, wine, and liquor."

That means that you most likely won't find your favorite brands there, but you'll find some darn good stuff -- and you may regret it less the next morning. The nightlife just became the good life.

Willie Nelson may have to change his lyrics.

[via Trend Hunter]

Could it be that Leonardo DiCaprio has the most amazing greening influence? His ex-girlfriend, supermodel Gisele is a vocal supporter of the Brazilian rainforest, posing nude to raise money for conservation efforts.

Now his current lady love, swimsuit model Bar Refaeli, has her own green cause: saving the beaches of the world from pollution.

Bar has always personally cleaned up beaches, even taking home litter to recycle it -- you have to love her dedication. Now she's partnering with Corona beer on the Corona Save the Beach Project. Their goal is to "recover" one beach from pollution every year.

Love the idea, but it seems a bit small. With a company as big as Corona, and a spokesperson as well known as Refaeli, it seems like they could aim a bit higher, maybe one beach a month. Of course, every bit counts, and maybe they'll inspire people to do more on their own.

On the Save the Beach site you can nominate a beach to be saved, and vote for other beaches. It looks like this is their big campaign for 2009, so we'll probably see a lot more of this through the summer.

Get your green party on!

The are few things better during the holidays than the delicious taste of seasonal beer. This is a fact and not open to discussion. Thank you for understanding.

Bison Brewing Company understands, too. They are the makers of many fine beer products, but their seasonal offering of Gingerbread Ale is especially tasty.

If you happen to drink beer at your house and occasionally enjoy a little lime wedge in the beer bottle, what can you do when it's time to recycle?

Try and dig the lime out with your fingers or various utensils, break the bottle, throw it into the recycling wedge and all? If this is a burning question in your mind, the ask Umbra feature on Grist has an interesting (and entertaining) video to watch.

The video has tips on twisting the lime just right so it goes into (and comes out of) the bottle more easily and important thoughts on the recycling process. Basically, glass is heated to such a high temperature that the lime doesn't stand a chance. Of course, the smell in the recycling bin might not be so pretty after a few days.

Ok, so these solar powered lights are not exactly cheap but, it could be fun project and neat little upcycling thing to have out on the deck.

Popular Science gives instructions on how to turn a beer bottle - or any glass container for that matter - in to a solar powered LED light. Wine bottle lights, mason jar lights, pickle jar lights, whatever clear glass you have around would work for this.

The project does take a considerable amount of small electrical parts, which drives the cost up. The example, using one beer bottle, cost $23.17. A cheaper alternative would be preferable of course, but you have to admit, its a pretty cool concept.

It gives a whole new meaning to the name light beer.

In a very unscientific study, Sean Evans of the New York Daily News proves that massive consumption of organic beverages is much easier to tolerate the morning after than conventional spirits. The theory being that organic beer and spirits are additive free as they are created without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. It's similar to the firmly held belief that one should stay away from cheap tequila as it is much harsher than the expensive stuff.

Just reading the list of beverages that Evans consumed was enough to start making me queasy. Over the course of three house he consumed eleven drinks including scotch, rum, tequila, gin, wine, beer and champagne. Ugh. Head spinning, he went home to sleep it off and then went out the next night to a conventional bar.

The difference between the two mornings was substantial. After an evening of organic drinking, Evans had few ill effects the next day that a shower couldn't cure. Conventional drinks, on the other hand, left him with a well-earned hangover.

Again, this was a very subjective study but certainly something to think about the next time you go out on the town. Organic drinks will cost a bit more but offer better taste and few ill effects -- other than those that alcohol usually presents like stumbling, boisterous behavior and regrettable hookups.

You've sent out the invites and have vowed to eschew paper plates for washable ones. You've bought several pounds of grain fed, pasture raised beef and organic fruit salad. Your summer bash is bound to be a hit but have you thought about the drinks? What your guests imbibe is just as important as what they have on their plates. Here are a few tips to help you through:

1. Josh wrote about a collection of environmentally friendly beers in his Operation Greenbrew. Within these posts there are several ideas for beer purchases like Wolaver's, Butte Creek Brewing, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.. Remember that you don't have to deal with recycling all of those bottles if you order a reusable keg.
2. Summer brunch parties are well paired with mimosas. A good organic champagne is Serge Faust. Mix that will a little orange juice and you've got yourself a sparkly morning cocktail (pace yourself).
3. Another drink that you can get away with imbibing before noon is the Bloody Mary (especially if you are recovering from last night's excess). Planet Green offers up a great organic Bloody Mary recipe using Square One vodka.
4. When it comes to playing bartender, don't neglect your mixes. Plenty of organic options can be found at Nature's Flavors including grenadine. This resource is something to keep in mind when whipping up non-alcoholic drinks for you guests. For recipes without the booze, check out Hints and Things.
5. Rose Geranium Sangria will cool your guests off well into the evening. Organic Authority recommends Silver Mountain Vineyards Rose of Pinot Noir for the wine.
   
6. One last tip is about bottled water. We all know it's wasteful so if you are having a party with access to a water line, fill a couple of pitchers with ice water for your guests. This is a better option than keeping coolers full of plastic bottles. It's classier looking and cheaper too!

Being a appreciator of the cold brew myself, I like to keep up to date on all the ways beer-drinkers can reduce their carbon beerprint while still being able to pursue their passion. Some of the methods -- like home brewing -- are a bit on the labor-intensive side of tings. So, it's nice when a major beer company decides to makes it easier for all of us to drink a little greener.

Anheuser-Busch, the US' largest beer producer, announced yesterday that it's going to draw 15% of its brewing power from renewable sources by 2010. Most of the breweries, like the one in Houston, will use a wastewater setup nicknamed BERS (bio-energy recovery system). Others, like the one in Fairfield, CA will get solar panels and a BERS.

While it's not exactly going to top the New Belgium Brewery, spread across its 12 mega-breweries -- it might actually produce more energy savings. Plus, with the Houston brewery running on 70% renewable power by the year's end, it sets a nice precedent.

[via CleanTechnica]