Algal bloom? Not a problem.

While others are complaining about algal bloom, researchers at the University of Michigan managed to pressure cook algae to extract its oil.  So, instead of millennia, we could create fuel in minutes. However, to cultivate algae on an industrial scale, in an open pond system, will require lots of land.

MasseReaction Inc.’s ViPARtm (Vertically integrated Photo Array Reactor) technology is going to change that.  The photobioreactor allows algae to be grown in vertically stacked reactor tubes. Going upwards, it will be taking up less space to cultivate.  As these reactor tubes will be stored in a greenhouse like structure it means that it can be operated in even cold or hot places where algae cannot survive.  This means that ViPARtm farm can be located anywhere in the world.

The idea is to have ViPARtm farm installed near electric power plant, as it will also clean up its exhaust before it is dumped into the atmosphere. This is because algae require CO2 for photosynthesis to produce their own supply of sugar, which is converted to oil.

Surprisingly, MasseReaction Inc. is looking for a "Strategic Partner” through Indiegogo Crowdfunding.  I would think that a project like this will be able to apply for grants from the US government to start. 

Looking at the concept, this is something that I would love to see happening in the near future.  I wish MasseReaction Inc. all the best in this venture.

Party's over. Now what?

When the party is over, start picking up those drink bottles to keep before they get discarded in the bin.  Find time to watch this video and decide what you want to do with your own collection of bottles.



There are definitely lots of stuff that you and your children can create so that they can have lots of fun during the weekends, even when they are spending them at home.

You can find the full "how to" instruction posted on Instructables at the following link:

10 Fun Things to do with a 2 Liter Bottle

Bone dry, rich.

Have you heard of Mahjong?  It is a game that originated in China played by 3 to 4 players to gain points or win some money.  

Do you know that the handmade tiles can be made from bones that are laid on top of bamboo without glue?  I have never thought of it as a sustainable game of chance until I watched this video.

Flying 24/7 possible? Yes! With Solar Impulse.

Have you heard of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg and their flying machine, Solar Impulse? As their plane runs on solar power, it means that they can fly day and night without a need to refuel!

In fact, they are going to attempt the first round-the-world solar flight in 2015.



The possibility of flying 24/7 is definitely in the air.

Have you heard of Neighborhood Fruit?

Have you heard of Neighborhood Fruit? It helps people find and share fruits in USA growing wild or in your backyard.  All you need to do is register the information at the following link:

http://neighborhoodfruit.com/about

That way when the trees are fruiting, they will be picked up by those who are interested instead of leaving them to rot on the trees when there is a bumper crop.  If this application is available around the world, it would make life better for those living in poverty. 

Fruits can be eaten fresh, cooked, squeezed out for juices or drinks or baked in cakes. Find ways to use them on Pinterest and see if a business can be developed:
http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=fruit&rs=ac&len=5

For example, do you know that you can use some fruits for making dye?


Find more of such free tutorial from Pinterest:
http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=fruit%20dye

It is common to see restaurant food served in banana leaves.  These can be collected to be sold if you know where you can find them: 

Even some product from Ikea are made from banana fiber?

Someone I know in Malaysia manufacture paper out of banana tree stump

Others I found by doing a search for "find free fruit in your area":
"Falling Fruit," pinpoints all sorts of tasty trees in public parks, lining city streets and even hanging over fences from the U.K. to New Zealand.
http://fallingfruit.org/

Wild Edibles

http://wildmanstevebrill.com/

You see, you can even make a living sharing information about Wild Edible Plants in Columbia, SC

http://www.theforagingfamily.com/

The Hyperloop

Elon Musk's electric Hyperloop can travel at 700mph.  Will that be the transport of the future?  How much fuel will it consume to run?

None according to this video because it is designed to be powered by solar.



If this idea materialize, we will have to option to fly or loop from one point to another.

When there is a need, think green.

I am taking a free online course, “Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations”, through Coursera, conducted by instructor David A. Owens of Vanderbilt University.

The project I am working on is "Stand On your Own", in which I hope to encourage single parents to create to sell Eco-friendly product.  This presentation is what it is all about.

Stand on your own (soyo) from Nancy Poh

I like it that I am able to include what I have shared on this blog to complete my course project.  So, never let others tell you that what you are doing is not useful if you think it is meaningful.  You never know where the future will lead you to when you are willing to share what you know.

Don't kill! Think green.

What do you think it will take to save livestock on a farm in Kenya from lions?  Bows and arrows or guns?

None of the above.  Pick this up from 13 years old, Richard Turere.  All you need are:

1) five flashlight bulbs
2) a car battery
3) a solar panel

Don't believe me?  Watch this video.



And for his environmentally friendly effort, Richard was offered a scholarship to study at The Brookhouse International School.  How great is that?

It just shows that you don't have to kill your enemies in order to survive.  Just think green.

Hot! It's so hot in Malaysia!

Yes, it's hot in Malaysia!  What do you expect, we are located near the equator.  But instead of complaining, what can we do about it?

How about MAKING FULL USE OF THE HEAT?

That's what Julie and Scott Brusaw in USA are doing with their invention of Solar Roadways in their efforts to combat "Global Warming".  Watch this video and you will get an idea of how they are harvesting energy from the sun .

This concept should work very well in Malaysia too, don't you agree?

When a piece of cloth will do.

Do we really need more clothes?  Maybe a piece of cloth with holes cut in the right spots will do.



I hope that the "Vestido Multi Look" will inspire more fashion designers to work in this direction.

Need more inspiration?  Here it goes.

Bags? Make your own!

Do you need to buy more bags to match what you wear?

How about getting yourself a multicolored one that would match most of what you have?  You think that is too gaudy?  Watch this and you may decide to make your own.



Now you know what to do with scarves and stuff made out of fabric in your home that you have intended to scrap.

Strong weaving material? Found in plastic bottles.

If you need strong weaving material, what you should be looking out for are plastic bottles.



I hope this innovative idea will catch on.

Re-use plastic bottles the Coca-Cola way

Plastic bottles can be an issue if left to litter the environment.  Coca-Cola in doing their part gives you a reason to take their bottles out of the bins to re-use them.

Ford and Heinz?

Ford and Heinz?  What do they have in common?

They can use the same ingredient in their products.

Ford is working on making use of tomato peels that go to waste when the Heinz turns tomatoes into ketchup.

You can read more about the processes at Gizmag.

Plastic Bag? Why keep them?

If you have read my posting about how you can store your grocery plastic bags and wondering why you should do that, it is obvious that you have not read my past postings :(

Anyway, if you are one of the Malaysians who have been annoyed by pet owners who do not pick up after their pets during their walks in public areas, you can give them your thoughts and a reason for them to keep their plastic bags and their 1.5L soda bottles.

Why?  Because you can share with them how they can make their own Eco-friendly poo scoop and this is how it looks and works.

So, the next question is...

Will you share this with your friends and start the ball rolling for poo free parks? 

Plastic bags? Stored in bottles.

What are you doing with all the grocery plastic bags you have been receiving?  Are they messing up your storage space? 

If they are, this is how you can store them so that it will be easier for you to re-use them.

Rail too short? Hang more.

When the rail is too short...




Make it look good by wrapping the hanger up in strips cut out from plastic bag.

Plastic bottles? Light for some!

Every problem has a solution.  Sometimes you find them in the most unlikely way.

Illac Diaz, created a way for poor people, living in windowless, closely built homes in slum areas to light up their homes with plastic bottles.

The plastic bottles are filled up with water with bleach added to prevent any formation of bacteria.  The idea is that water inside the bottle refracts the sunlight during the daytime and creates the same intensity of light as that given out by a 55 watt light bulb.

Light from a bottle of water?  Check out to see if it really works.



If you are interested to make yourself one, watch this video.



You can also find the free tutorials at instructables.com. 

Share this idea if you think it could help your community. 

No fund? Creativity will do.

I found a new site to pick up free tutorials.  It's Pinterest.

I followed the instruction shown on this image but decided to use a punctured tube found in my bicycle shop to work on instead of buying a strip of leather.


If I continue to make sections of this, I can sew them up and make myself a smart looking bag. 

I will definitely show it off if I have time to complete this project. Look out for it in my future postings.

Gift boxes? Handmade and eco-friendly.

If your children are sociable, they are bound to be invited to lots of parties.  If they are still schooling, think of the number of students each one of them have as classmates.  Add them up and you know that you will have to spend quite a bit on gifts for them to bring to parties they are invited to.

Other than storing up on gifts when sales are on, here is another way to save cost.  Make your own gift boxes.  You can start by keeping the empty plastic bottles.



The small gift boxes mean smaller and less costly gifts to look out for, right?

Plastic bottles? Great as broom.

If you are thinking of buying a broom, maybe you would like to check this video out to see if you could make yourself one.  After all you should not have any problems getting the material you need to start making it.


May your new broom sweeps clean.

Free cups? Need covering up.

Look into your cupboard and you are bound to find odd cups in a variety of shape, sizes and colours that you have received with some product you have bought.

If they are not something that you treasure because of the company logos printed on the cup, maybe it is time to get your crochet hook out and ...

...make a cozy to cover the logos up.

Why?

You can try to make some bucks while clearing them out that way by selling them on Etsy?

More crochet and kniting cozy designs can be found on Pinterest shared by Irmalulu.

Used chopsticks? Great art material.

What can one do with used chopsticks?  Ask artist-architect, Hong Yi, who use materials, that are commonly used in our daily activities, in her artwork.

She was requested by internationally known movie star, Jackie Chan, to create a portrait of himself for his 60th birthday and she came up with an idea to use disposable bamboo chopsticks to create it. Why chopsticks?

Jackie Chan is a Chinese and eating with chopsticks is so typically the Chinese way.  And who could forget his fighting skills with chopsticks in his movies?  Hong Yi likes the idea too that discarded materials can be reused and made into something meaningful and beautiful which reflects Jackie Chan, as an environmentalist.

So, armed with a collection of 64,000 chopsticks, this is what she has accomplished.



If you have it in you to create art, cost of material should no longer be a factor.  Be inspired by Hong Yi, the painter who don't pain with a brush..

Elevator? Very eco for treehouse!

Building a treehouse is green, espcially, the one built by Ethan Schlussler.

He utilizes sheets of metal reclaimed from an old barn as roofing material and wood from the trees in the area it is built on.  The treehouse is held in place by friction of five large cable clamps tightly encircled around the tree, so no nails, bolts or screws were knocked into the tree to secure it in place, 28 foot above the ground.

So, how does he gets up there?  See for yourself.



That's a bicycle powered tree house elevator you are looking at!

He modified his mom's old bicycle with used parts and old scrap materials but to ensure that it works safely, new pulleys and cable were added.

Source:
http://www.gizmag.com/human-powered-bicycle-elevator/29102/

Plastic waste? Best used as porus bricks?

There is a new cement-like material call Plastisoil being developed.  As the name implies, it is made up of plastic waste and soil.

The developer, Naji Khoury, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Temple University in Philadelphia used discarded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles which are pulverized and mixed with soil.  The blended mixture is heated with a coarse aggregate to create what he wants.  A porus substance, which when laid will hold rainwater instead of draining off the surface.

He would like to see Plastisoil used for sidewalks, jogging paths, driveways and parking lots in an effort to reduce plastic waste, road filth and oil from polluting the environment as it drains away into canals and rivers with the rainwater on the current surfacing material used, such as, cement or asphalt.

There is a concern though that toxin in the composition of PET could also leak into the environment which would defeat its prupose as a filter.  Moreover, a surface that could hold water would also encourage growth of weeds which could also make maintaining it a problem.

I hope that he will be able to find ways to overcome all these issues and make Plastisoil a reality as it will take 30,000 used PET bottles to make one ton of the material.  As it does not used as much energy to manufacture compard to standard surfacing material like cement or asphalt, this could result in lower cost for us as consumers.

 

Gizmag is my source of information on Plastisoil and you can read its full article at:
http://www.gizmag.com/palstisoil-pervious-concrete-made-from-bottles/17000/

Old toilets? The bricks for future homes.

There is now a reason to dig out old landfills in search for discarded toilet bowls and ceramic waste, such as, basins, stoneware and bricks.

In the past, old toilet bowls stripped of its rubber, plastics and metalic parts can be crushed and used as roadbed. But research conducted by Spain's Universitat Politècnica de València and Universitat Jaume I de Castellón, Imperial College of London, and the Universidade Estadual Paulista of Sao Paulo in Brazil have discovered a better use for the waste material.

They discovered that Sodium hydroxide or sodium silicate as an activator can be mixed to this grounded up waste material with water. The mixture is then poured into a mould and subjected to a high-temperature process.to harden it. The process make the waste material useful again as cement bricks which are tested to be stronger than the types that are commonly used.

Rice husk ash is also reported to be another possible reclaimed waste materials to use in the process.

I discovered this information reading the following article at New Atlas: 

Old toilets recycled into new "green" cement

Old stuff? Given new life.

Do you know that you can start a new hobby from stuff that have past their working capabilities?  Google ''gifts from bicycle parts'' and click link to "Images" and you will get the idea.

I think that the best way to keep things you once love is to give it a new life.  

Source: http://www.places-to-go.org.uk/burford2009_bicycle.htm

 

http://www.shaminir.com/photos.html

Don't you agree?

Message? Found in free image.

Discovered another site where I can find free images for my blogs.  It's Pixabay where I found this clip art.

Why share it here?

I see a message there.  It seems to be saying, "Give up your fuel guzzling car.  Let's cycle". That's a funny tall order to follow through for earth month.

I like it that I can freely use any image from PixaBay in digital and printed format, for personal and commercial use.  Share your photos there if you can but note that you will not be attributed for your effort if your work is used :(

It will be a good green effort though.  We can help one another save on draining battery life shooting with our digital cameras.

Leftover treats? Wear them.

Have you noticed this too?

There are bound to be some candies that are close to their expiry date packaged in hampers received during the festive season.  Instead of gouging them up with your kids, you can do what Hoyan Ip is doing with her stock of leftovers candies.

In her efforts to reduce food waste she started the Bio-Trimmings project by converting them into fashion accessories that you will be proud to be seen wearing.

Leftover pasta works just as well as working material for her creations once she has them cooked, dried, crushed, blended and molded to shape.

And yes! She sells her creations and you can view them on her facebook page.

One less in the bin!

Here is a project that is worth starting on for earth month.

Try to throw one less waste in the bin by looking at your discards in a different light.  Here is a video to help you along the way.



So, before you start digging into your pocket, the next time your children ask for money to buy gifts for their freinds, direct them to the stock of "working material" you have managed to salvage from your bin.

Highlight that their friends will value gifts with a personal touch more and allow them to explore their creativity and see what they can come out with.  This may become a hobby that will allow them to gain a side income if their creations become popular amongst their freinds.

This is definitely a great video to share with teachers to encourage them to use plastic bottles in craft projects for their schools.  There are 300 ideas shared on how these can be re-used and help us reduce our yearning to spend on getting more stuff.

Let's get our creativity juices running and go for one less waste in the bin to save the environment.  

Wall for the garden? Spring mattress will do.

What can you do with old mattresses?

Before you discard your used mattresses, take out the inner spring cores and put them to work in your garden as trellis.

They will be a lovely sight to look forward to once your climbing plants start to grow over them.

You can find more "DIY Garden Trellis Projects" at The Garden Glove.

Earth friendly with less

If your batteries are all mingled up and you do not know which are still good to use, there are battery testers in the market to help salvage them from the lot.  This is what I have.

Here is another way for you to test your battery life without any gadgets.  See if it works for you too.

Can we find ways that will help us reduce our reliance on "gadgets" and be more earth friendly?  A great activity to start working on for earth month, don't you agree?

April is Earth Month

While we look forward to Earth Day on April 22 to connect with others worldwide to do something that will reduce our carbon footprint, residents in the City of Oceanside in California is doing a month long campaign.

Are you ready to join them on the road to zero waste?

Music? Discovered in weapons!

Watch how Artist, Pedro Reyes, turned instruments of hate into useful instruments that could help provide life and music, rather than take it away.

 

Reyes was inspired when government officials in Mexico turn seized weapons and melt them for the "Shovels for Guns" project. He decided to use weapons seized and destroyed by the Mexican army from drug cartels and use them as materials to create music.

You can view more photos of these musical instruments at the following link: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/from-guns-to-drums-pedro-reyes

Happy Clean Year

What do you do with all those bottles of hair conditioner that you received with the shampoo you bought?
 

If you are getting them free, you are more likely to keep it aside.  Look through your drawers and you may likely find some that have past their expiry date. 

Before you head off to the dustbin with them, hear me out.  Hair conditioner can be used to polish your mirrors and stainless steel product and it does not matter if it is past their "use by" date. It can also clean up your basin and tiled surfaces.

I know it works because I tried.   All I did was spread some on a clean cloth and wiped over the surfaces I want to clean. Then I used another clean cloth to wipe the conditioner off.

So, it's not a mistake.   I would like to wish you a happy clean year for 2014.  And if you are wondering what has happy got to do with clean?  Well, being able to clean easily with hair conditioner means that you no longer have to be upset that your better half is not helping you out.

He just have to get used to missing hearing you nag him while he watches his football.  Another happy event to look forward to.