Category Archives: Ecotality Life Twitterstream

Real Trees: The Difference Between Naughty or Nice Continued

The second part to our Eco-comparison of real and fake Christmas trees.

By Sharif Virani  
December 5, 2007 – 11:19 am

Our last article looked at the viability of real Christmas trees, in this one we will conversely take a brief look at some fake tree facts.

The first commercial sale and production of Christmas trees was by a toilet brush company during the 1930s, ironic? I think so.

Fake trees are generally attractive because they don’t dry out, die and you don’t have to cut them down. But like most artificial products these days, fake trees are generally made in China. and the fabrication of fake trees is a process that commonly incorporates the use of PVC and or polyethylene. For those of you that spent the majority of high school chemistry asleep, PVC is also known as the “Poison Plastic” and consumes reasonably high quantities of lead during its fabrication. Throughout its life cycle it also releases chemicals “such as mercury, dioxins, and phthalates, which” can “pose irreversible life-long health threats”.

If you are like me this probably conjures up images of a giant poison pine air freshener for your living room and I think it is safe to say that the winner of the more sustainable Christmas tradition rests with the one that just feels right, a real tree!

But wait!

We aren’t done yet, they are probably many of you out there thinking “What do we do with this giant thing after Christmas is done?”

Ignoring the most of obvious fact that a real Christmas tree is 100% biodegradable and can be turned into mulch and/or composted in your very own backyard, there are various companies around that are more than willing to take a real tree of your hands.

Biolyse Pharma Corp, is one of these such companies and use the needles of Christmas trees to manufacture flu prevention and treatment medication.

The following site by the CFTO, Christmas Tree Farms Of Ontario, has a ton of other ideas on how you can recycle your Christmas tree in your very own backyard.

If you are really opposed to having a tree cut down for the holiday season you can also by a live tree and either have it replanted in a nursery or replant it yourself, The Original Living Christmas Tree Company is just one of said companies that can help you do just that.

Happy Holidays Readers!

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Going Green with BullFrog Power

Hassle-free conversion to clean power: going green couldn’t be easier.

By Sharif Virani  
November 30, 2007 – 3:57 pm

Founded in 2005, Bullfrog Power makes use of only low impact water power and wind power generations stations: an approx 80/20 split. They have thus far been offering their services to both homeowners and businesses in a few of the larger provinces of Canada, mainly Alberta and Ontario, and are rapidly expanding as consumption and support for clean power grows.

The key to the innovative, simple and easy process of signing up for Bullfrog Power all lies within their method of power distribution. When a user subscribes to Bullfrog Power nothing changes in terms of power consumption or physical set up, what does change however, is that Bullfrog begins pumping an equivalent amount of clean power into the grid. Consequently by signing up for Bullfrog Power you are effectively “ensuring that your electricity dollars are supporting 100% clean, renewable power production instead of nuclear, gas, oil and coal”.

While it might not be that apparent, in many parts of the world green clean power generation is slowly taking hold and growing faster than ever. In Canada alone Bullfrog Power support and use by consumers has already had a notably large effect on the grid with newly commissioned wind turbines in Canada as a direct result of increased power demands . The conversion to Bullfrog Power costs homeowners in Ontario and Alberta about a dollar a day more and fifty cents a day more respectively. This might add a bit to your monthly bill, but it is definitely a small price to pay if you consider how far your contribution goes towards the support of sustainable green power generation and the “production of carbon-free power” across the grid.

A company committed to bettering the environment, they are also an active supporter of sustainable technology on the whole:

“At Bullfrog Power, we believe businesses can serve a vital function as community leaders in promoting and fostering responsible environmental action. We are a “double bottom line” company that maintains a dual focus on environmental responsibility and profitability. The company has pledged to donate 10% of profits to organizations that support sustainability.”

It is definitely great to finally see such growth and support within the green technology community, I know I am definitely going to look into converting to Bullfrog Power when it is available to my grid.

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Real Trees: The Difference Between Naughty or Nice?

The age old debate of a real versus fake Christmas tree.

By Sharif Virani  
November 21, 2007 – 5:06 pm

While Christmas without a real tree might seem crazy to some, you can’t help but stop and wonder as a “treehugger” how sustainable of a tradition is it?

Before revealing which practice is greener for wear, I am going to outline a few true tree facts.

For the most part Christmas trees are grown are specialized tree farms, these trees are generally allowed to grow for about 10-15 years before being cut and in that time provide a valuable service to outlying and nearby communities by providing oxygen and processing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

It is estimated that approximately one acre of Christmas trees provides enough oxygen for 18 people every day. If you consider how many acres of these trees there are in the United States alone, which is around 500 000 acres, they could probably supply enough oxygen for around 9-10 million people everyday!

Now back to the carbon dioxide, forests and oceans are two of our major carbon sinks in the world and pretty much critical to our existence. In the case of forests the growth rate of a tree is directly related to the amount of carbon dioxide in its surrounding atmosphere; the more a tree is pruned and cut, Christmas trees are trimmed quite frequently, the more it grows and consequently processes excess carbon in the atmosphere.

Now you if you’ll excuse me I have to go help with the decoration of our _______ Christmas tree and if you want to know what kind it is check back for part two of this series!

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Deck the Halls with LED!

Green your holiday cheer with this energy-efficient, long-lasting alternative

By Daniel Gurvich  
November 21, 2007 – 12:25 pm

Strawberry LEDWell, my pants feel tighter every morning and every visit to a public space seems to be punctuated with the festive strains of Mannheim Steamroller.  Yes, my friends, that can only mean one thing - the holiday season is once again upon us.  Family, food and fun, to be sure, but also a veritable orgy of consumption and waste.  It casts a shadow to realize that our culture’s celebration habits are destroying the very things we’re celebrating.  Bummer.

Fortunately, the Nature conservancy has prepared an excellent guide to a “Green Christmas“.  Now let’s face it, not every one of us is going to run out to purchase carbon offsets against our holiday travel.  But #5 on the list seems simple and practical –

Though they cost a bit more than traditional holiday lights, LED lights last much longer and consume a fraction of the energy, which leads to greater savings for years to come.

The US Department of Energy reports that if all conventional incandescent Christmas lights in the country were replaced with LED lights this season, annual energy savings would total two billion kilowatt-hours—enough energy to power nearly 200,000 homes for an entire year.

 Holiday LEDs offers a particularly wide selection of LED holiday lighting.  According to their Web site, these lights come with a lifetime warrany, consume just 1/10th of the power of traditional lights, and last 50,000 hours.  That’s long enough for at least 30 holiday seasons!  In my opinion, they look pretty cool, too.

A growing list of cities, including D.C, Toronto, London, and Denver has jumped on the LED bandwagon for their holiday lighting to realize significant energy savings.
Here in upstate New York, where the world has gone greyscale for the next 6 months, we can use all the holiday cheer we can get.  I’m getting myself some LED holiday lights to put around our house.

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Green Your Media Consumption: Part 2 of 2

Greening your consumption of media can be as easy as 1-2-3

By Sharif Virani  
November 20, 2007 – 12:17 pm

The second half of a series on how to make your media watching/listening/reading a whole lot more green.

Last on the list of media that will soon be obsolete is physical media, we are talking about DVDs/CDs (if you even still have any) and anything else that you may find in the media section of your local electronics store- at this point I’d like to take the opportunity to tell all you working teens out there that I am sorry because it looks as if this is the end of video rental stores as we know them; at least for anything other than video games.

While being more convenient, having a larger variety and being always in stock, purchasing media online using services such as the Xbox Live Marketplace, AppleTV/ iTunes or through the DVR box of your local cable service provider could not be easier. As an added bonus the best part about downloading a TV show or movie is that using your Ipod, Zune or Zen that you can ‘take it to go’ and on the road with you; all this can even be done with the click of a few buttons.

Some skeptics may complain that playback is not instantaneous (there is a 5-10 minute delay between what is being downloaded to your system and what you are viewing) and that there are no extra features or hidden scenes. There is on the other hand also no need to return the movie, no waiting in line, no being disappointed by a movie not in stock, no scratched discs and even more importantly no WASTE.

In the end this series covered really only a few of the suggestions out there about how you can go about ‘greening your media consumption’ and they definitely go a long way in showing us how a bit of change, often even a step up, can go a long way towards cutting down our waste production and accumulation around the globe.

-Credit to Steve Rubel over at Micropursuasion for coming up with these ideas.

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Green Your Media Consumption: Part 1 of 2

Greening your consumption of media can be as easy as 1-2-3

By Sharif Virani  
November 19, 2007 – 9:15 am

In this day and age everything from office documents to Mom’s recipes for homemade apple pie are moving towards a digitalization and a virtual format; presents signs indicate that the next thing to follow along this path will be most forms of media.

First on that list, as much as I hate to admit it, is books. Yes, I know what you are all thinking, e-books suck and so do most e-book readers. However, I am talking about audio books; easily purchased, easily downloaded and even more easily played. Who doesn’t want to hear the latest Harry Potter novel read to us on the bus by a guy in a British accent?

I can’t even count the number of times throughout the week when waiting in line, traffic or even for the bus where I wished I had brought my own reading material. Well, now it is possible with the click of a few buttons and the best part is that it is great for the environment!

With mp3 players built into everything from GPS units in our cars to cell phones, it is hard to resist being able to purchase and download our favorite music and books all in one fall swoop using something like iTunes.com.

Nothing makes me more happy then seeing the second item on this list going out the door; there is nothing I hate more than getting ready for work in the morning, having breakfast, reading the paper and then discovering ten minutes after I’ve left the house that I have ink all over me. Even worse than these floppy newsprint novels are magazines; lately seeming to be nothing more than over glorified glossy commercials with tidbits of information stuck between the cologne samples and subscription renewal forms. While being great for sites like ours this is horrible for the environment in terms of waste production.

The growing ability to take email newsletters, RSS feeds and sync it all to go; catching up on the latest soap opera gossip while in line at the grocery store- honestly we all do it, don’t even pretend like you don’t- is most definitely the pastime next to go.

The most popular tool for news and tech gadget information gathering is a simple combination of RSS feeds, Gmail’s IMAP feature and/or whatever other client you’d like to use: Outlook, Thunderbird, or even the mail client on your phone.

Stay tuned for the next half!

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The Latest Headlines and Links from the Ecotality Life Twitterstream

Post #22 for the 2007 Green Blogathon

By Shea Gunther  
November 17, 2007 – 10:33 am

Here are the latest headlines from Ecotality Life’s Twittersteam which I update daily with headlines and links to the latest green business, technology, gadgets, and investing news found around the web. You can join Twitter and follow us or get the stream as an RSS feed. Enjoy!

Solar roofing tiles from DRI Energy

US Military guzzling 340,000 barrels of oil daily

Major Oil Companies are heavily invested in Burma

Lamb born as Mother Nature confuses autumn for spring

In Drought, Upscale Homeowners Dig for Water for Lawn

Don’t buy Gingrich’s view of environmentalism, or his new book

How Many Miles Per Gallon Does Your Car Get?

The Green “ZeroHouse of the Future”

Ga. governor prays for rain amid drought

Is FreeRice making $150k each day in profits?

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Winemaking Leftovers Generating Electricity For Communities

Post #4 for the 2007 Green Blogathon

By Michael d'Estries  
November 16, 2007 – 8:49 pm

A Canadian winemaker named Inniskillin has teamed up with alternative energy firm StormFisher Biogas to use grapes leftover from wine production to make electricity. Previously, used grape skins and seeds were sent to landfills — but the StormFisher has perfected a process to capture methane from the decomposing materials and use it as energy for communities. From the article,

“The companies will use Inniskillin’s grape pomace, a mixture of grape skin and seeds that previously was shipped to a landfill, to produce methane gas that will be used as fuel. The companies said Wednesday they believe that the project to reuse about 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of grape byproducts demonstrates sustainable business practices. ‘This partnership is a win for residential power consumers, a win for Inniskillin, a win for StormFisher and a win for the environment,’ Bruce Nicholson, senior winemaker at Inniskillin, said in a release.”

I think we can all “Cheers!” to that.

trendhunter via ecofriend

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Green Gifts for the Bachelor/Bachelorette

Post #3 for the 2007 Green Blogathon

By Sharif Virani  
November 16, 2007 – 8:36 pm

Seeing as the holiday season is fast approaching I am going to attempt to end every week with one article offering a couple “green gift” suggestions for a particular member of the family. This week’s victim..I mean family member is the jetset bachelor/bachelorette- be honest we all have one in our family/close friends. They are the single, trendy, expensive-hair-product-using, loft-living, sports car driving guy or gal that just seem to have all the latest gadgets and toys; it is always a challenge thinking of what you could possibly buy them that they don’t already have or that their new cellphone/PDA can’t already do!

Well I am not even gonna lie I think I did a pretty good job in finding these two items and if used properly you might not be shopping for a bachelor next year!

The first of this week’s “green gift” suggestions is the Book of lights by Takeshi Ishiguro. This trendy little number, designed for Artecnica, not only provides you with an interesting cool conversation starter but as well as some pretty slick mood lighting. At first glance it appears to be nothing more than a regular coffee table book made of paper and fabric, but further investigation leads to the discovery that it actually folds out into the perfect coffee table lamp!

Coming in two options, Streetlamp and Lampshade, this hardcover coffee table book is also energy efficient, making use of a low-voltage power adapter and providing light via LEDs.

The second item on our list of trendy “green gifts” for our bachelor/bachelorette friends and family members is a bit less traditional. Little Pearl Caviar adds that small touch of class and luxury to entertaining a male or female guest while still being environmentally sustainable and contaminant free.

The Little Pearl Caviar company buys their caviar directly from “environmentally sustainable and pollution free” fisheries; stored properly their caviar has a 28 day shelf-life, although they recommend you consume it one week after you receive your order which you can purchase online from the comfort of your own home.

Offering everything from King Salmon to Uruguayan Baerii, they purchase their stock only from farms in pollution free regions making it consequently much better for your health.

Hope these suggestions were a help in the ever puzzling battle of what to get the bachelor/bachelorette of the family. Stay tuned for next week’s roundup of “green gifts” where we will take a look at gift options for the ‘I want to travel for a bit before going back to school’ daughter/son.

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Zero House Has Plenty Of Green Pluses

Post #1 for the 2007 Green Blogathon

By Michael d'Estries  
November 16, 2007 – 7:31 pm

At first glance the Zero House from architect Scott Specht looks a bit like those refrigerator-box forts you built as a kid. Get around its unorthodox style, however, and you’ll find a home worthy of the most discriminating modern treehugger.

As indicated by the title, beyond the building materials this home has practically zero impact on the planet. High efficiency solar panels store energy in batteries to provide power for more than a week in case of poor sunlight. All plumbing fixtures are gravity fed (bypassing the need for electrical pumps) and a massive 2700 gallon cistern collects rainwater. Beneath the home, a digester collects waste and churns out twice-yearly rich compost for gardening. Everything above is controlled by an array of sensors that can be monitored from any computer.

As with many cool green projects, this one is still on the drawing board. However, if you like what you see you can contact Scott Specht and help turn this concept into a reality. Just remember us at the housewarming bash.

:: zeroHouse

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