While nothing beats reusable dishware for your festive events, these biodegradable plates from VerTerra are a great alternative to yucky paper or plastic dishes. VerTerra (true to the Earth) plates are made from organically-grown palm tree leaves from India. The fallen leaves, which would traditionally have been burned on the roadside, are collected, sterilized, steamed and pressed into plates. The process uses no chemicals, glues or bonding agents, and over 80% of the water used during the steaming and pressing process is recaptured and recycled. Best of all, VerTerra’s plates are 100% natural and biodegradable!

Award-winning Norwegian design house TRØKK16 will be exhibiting their latest designs at this year’s Milan International Furniture Fair , but before we unveil their latest works, we’d like to highlight a few of their outstanding past projects. The Loop LED Lamp puts traditional desk lamps to shame. This stylish desk light uses LEDs and needs only 5 watts to light up your work space and, perhaps, inspire your own eco-creations.

The Nut Bench is fun, colorful and made from pineapple paper to boot! Bangkok-based Yothaka International creates hand-woven, modern Asian designs using local natural fibrous materials available in Thailand. The firm that pioneered the use of water hyacinth and Yan Lipao (a fern-like vine found in the South of Thailand) in furniture making has introduced a Pineapple Paper collection made from locally produced pineapple paper fiber. Pineapple leaf fibers are pressed, dyed and made into eco-friendly chairs, stools and benches.

Here’s a breakfast that’s capable of not only fueling your body but also powering the entire factory that makes it. Scott’s Porage Oats, a Quaker Oats Factory at Uthrogle Mills in Scotland is installing a combined heat and power biomass boiler that will enable the factory to become carbon-neutral, running entirely on waste oat husks. The husks, removed from the oats during the milling process, will provide 9,709 MWhrs of electricity and 10,902 MWhrs of steam a year, reducing its emissions by 9,000 tonnes a year—equivalent to the annual emissions of 3,000 cars. Now none of the energy stored in the oats will go to waste.

Furniture designer Cliff Spencer couldn’t resist when he heard about a Napa winery discarding wine-stained oak. An avid user of reclaimed materials, Spencer now regularly reclaims oak staves from California wineries and transforms them into these stunning one-of-a-kind pieces for residential and commercial use. (p.s., you don’t have to be a wine aficionado to enjoy them).

A human-powered energy-generating gym like Hong Kong’s is now taking shape in Seattle, turning human sweat into usable electric energy. By connecting spinning bikes to wind-generator motors, clients at Adam Boesel’s green microgym can generate enough electricity to power the gym’s music system or run their own personal DVD player.

We love designers who get their inspiration from the unexpected, and we love transforming, 2-for-1 furniture even more! Check out the Caterpillar, a flexible piece of furniture inspired by bicycle chains. Why settle for just one position, when Anna Bullus’s Caterpillar lounge chair can be maneuvered into at least 14 different positions. With such flexibility, its easy to find a position that fits your comfort.

Here’s a sweet treat that may leave you a little sticky. Anna Bullus’s gives new meaning to term ‘biodegradeable’ with a vanishing cup made entirely of sugar. With ‘One Cup or Two’ not only is there no leftover plastic or paper cup headed for landfill, but there is also no need to add sugar to your tea or coffee — as you can just add your tea or coffee to the sugar cup and enjoy. One Cup or Two can be used up to four times and come in an assortment of flavors including plain, almond and Irish Whiskey. Hey Starbucks…. can you smell a fun eco idea brewing here?

Solar Cynergy’s new line of solar LED lights is an eco-friendly, reliable and smart alternative to traditional street lights and home garden lights. Run entirely on solar energy, there’s no battery or complicated wiring involved, simply place the unit in a sunlit area and you can use the sun’s rays to light up anything from your front yard and drive way to dangerous intersections and crosswalks.

Our streets our littered with used chewing gum, but next time your bubble loses its pop, don’t drop it—recycle it! Anna Bullus’s Bubble Gum Bin is made from Gumnetic, a new biodegradable material she developed made from sterilized used chewing gum and bio resin. The bin keeps chewing gum litter from our sidewalks and shoes and when full, the entire container is recycled to make even more bins. How’s that for cradle-to-cradle?

Say goodbye to plastic cutlery and hello to SpudWare—cutlery made from 80% potato starch and 20% soy oil that’s just as heat resistant and every bit as strong as plastic cutlery. The kicker? It biodegrades in just 180 days! SpudWare can even be washed and reused, so you can eat your potatoes with potatoes for months to come.

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Last year we highlighted HansaCanyon bathroom fixtures, sleekly designed faucets whose “canyons” are lined with LEDs that change color according to the temperature of the water (blue=cold, pink=warm and red=hot). It’s a pretty neat functional feature, and a safety measure as well- the colors can help prevent you from scalding yourself while washing your hands or stepping into a really cold bath. And now, the German-made Hansa Canyon is available in the U.S.! Until now, despite the Hansa hype, many American buyers were left to settle for alternatives like Equa’s Light Delight or ThinkGeek’s budget LED faucet. But now, just check out the Hansa U.S. website’s Where To Buy” page for further details.

Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have invented a new method of magnetic cooling technology that brings a whole new meeting to refrigerator magnets. Scientists have been able to drop the temperature of a room from 20° C to 11° C by taking the heat energy from opposing magnetic fields and thermodynamically reversing it to a cooler temperature. DTU researchers will use this technology to create a prototype refrigerator that cools itself using only magnets. According to research from Risø National Laboratory, magnetic refrigerators would be silent and their cooling cycles could be up to 60% more efficient than traditional refrigerators!

September 22nd marks the first annual “No Car Day” in China, a national campaign hoping to reduce exhaust emissions and ease traffic congestion by limiting the number of private vehicles on the roads. Over 100 cities in China will participate, leaving residents to travel by foot, bike or public transportation. In Shanghai, a third of the city’s vehicles will be ordered off the roads and private cars will be banned from driving through areas of downtown.

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Wondering what to do with all those old floppy disks, scratched CDs and random computer parts you can’t get yourself to throw away? Check out the clocks, notebooks and jewelry the clever folks at Acorn Studios have fashioned from old keyboard keys, circuit boards and floppy disks for a little inspiration. Acorn Studios transforms electronic waste into fun gifts perfect for computer geeks and eco-friendly consumers.

The Olympics are less than one year away and construction on Beijing’s Olympic Green and Forest Park is stepping into high gear. The Olympic Green, a massive 1,135 hectares along the historic north-south central axis of Beijing, will be the heart of the Olympic games and the site of thirteen venues, including the stunning Olympic Stadium and National Swim Center. U.S. design firm Sasaki has emphasized sustainability and post-Olympic use in their design—a problem many hosting cities find themselves faced with once the events are over.

Building Asia Brick by Brick is an architectural exhibition currently touring China put together by ArtAsiaPacific magazine, People’s Architecture Foundation and LEGO to raise the awareness of architectural preservation in Asia. The exhibition features the architectural designs of some of Asia’s leading architects, but you won’t find any traditional model building materials here, each original architectural model is built entirely out of LEGOs. The models will tour the urban hubs of Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu before being auctioned off in New York in 2008. Inhabitat brings you highlights of the Shanghai event.

If you want to see a beautiful example of environmentally-minded public art, hoof it down to Arlington County in Virginia before September 1st. In this stunning public-art installation, five-hundred twenty-two solar-powered LEDs on rods, each topped with a reused plastic bottle, light up the Rosslyn traffic island between North Lynn Street and Ft. Myer Drive in Arlington County – looking a bit like luminescent reeds. This temporary environmental public artwork, aptly named CO2LED by artists Jack Sanders, Robert Gay and Butch Anthony, was designed with Arlington’s environmental initiative FreshAIRE (Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions) in mind.

Discovery’s new eco-lifestyle channel Planet Green is partnering with actor and avid environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio to help launch the channel early next year with a touching environmentally-friendly project. DiCaprio is set to executive produce “Eco-Town,” a 13-part reality series which will follow state and local officials in their quest to build an ecologically—and economically—sustainable town in Kansas, aptly named Greensburg.

One of the most eye-catching designs we spotted at ICFF this year was Mixko’s 100% wool felt butterfly lamps called “Delight”. Inspired by nature, these truly delightful lamps are soft, playful, beautiful, and sustainable to boot due to their smart and efficient use of felt. When lit, the cut-out butterfly silhouettes cast playful shadows on the walls and ceiling.

Singapore’s Housing and Development Board has unveiled designs for what will be the first eco-friendly residential project on the island. While this is not the greenest residential project we’ve seen to date, it is a step in the right direction, as over 80% of Singaporean households live in HDB apartments and they will soon have a more environmentally friendly living option. Treetops@Punggol embraces nature and utilizes green technologies including solar panels, roof gardens and grey water recycling systems for effective energy, water and waste management.

We’ve seen wind turbines fit for backyards, balconies, even oceans- and now pioneering wind-power engineers are looking to take wind turbines to new heights—15,000-30,000 feet in the air! Harvesting just 1% of the energy from jet-stream winds could produce enough power for everybody on the planet. Sky WindPower and Magenn Power are just two of the companies in the race to develop flying generators for high-altitude winds.

Red lights in Taiwan will soon be much greener. By 2011, all traffic lights on the small island republic will be fitted with efficient LED lights thanks to a NT $229 million (US $7 million) project set to begin next year. Almost half of all traffic lights in Taiwan already use LEDs; the remaining 420,000 traffic lights will be converted over three years, providing an estimated savings of 85% in power consumption.

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These Envirosax eco-chic totes simultaneously rescue shoppers from the mundanity of unfashionable choices, and the planet from the dangers of unconscionable choices. The reusable carry-all polyester bags are lightweight (1.4 oz each), waterproof, extremely sturdy, and cute to boot – coming in a wide variety of designs to fit your personal style.

For the (green) kid in all of us, check out Droog designer Marcel Wanders’ latest creation- ‘Swing With The Plants’ combines flora and the nostalgia of childhood days spent on a swingset. The seat of Swing with the Plants serves as a planter, AND comes packed with soil and the seeds of a climbing plant that will grow upwards along the ropes.

Lawmakers are closer to passing an environmental levy to cut plastic bag use in Hong Kong. “No Plastic Bag Day” campaigns may become permanent. According to a report released recently by Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department, Hong Kong throws out over 8 billion plastic shopping bags every year (that’s more than 3 bags per person a day).

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What if architecture was designed to work for you to keep you healthy? Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin, architects at The Living have come up with a new material called “Living Glass” that will look out for your health by monitoring CO2 levels in the air. The new smart material is a thin, transparent, non-mechanical surface which automatically opens and closes “gills” in response to human presence to control the air quality in the room.

Ross Lovegrove’s System X, which he designed for Yamagiwa, is a modular lighting system composed of flexible fluorescent X’s that can be linked with other X modules to create a modern and sculptural lighting system for any interior space. Imagine the possibilities, you can link as many or as few X modules you want both horizontally and vertically to cover entire walls, ceilings, even connect the X’s together to form circles of different sizes.

We’ve long been fans Iannone:Sanderson’s amazingly creative and cute sustainable furniture designs. Every year at ICFF we count on seeing several new organic designs in kirei and bamboo from Iannone, and this year didn’t disappoint. Although he appears to have lost partner Sanderson somewhere in the past year, Iannone showed again this year at ICFF with a whole host of gorgeous new pieces, including the eco-fabulous Elk Mod Lodge Sideboard shown above.

Hi-Tech Wealth, Inc., a telecommunications supplier in China has unveiled the world’s first commercial solar-powered cellular phone. The S116 retails in China around $510 and is packed with features including a microSD memory card slot, MP3 player and a 1.3 megapixel camera. The phone’s battery lasts 2.5 times longer than a traditional battery and can be recharged outdoors, indoors, even by candle light! Just one hour of direct sunlight will provide enough juice to power 40 minutes of talk-time.

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The sky is no longer the limit in Shanghai. With heavy metro construction planned for the next few years, Shanghai is looking to expand its current urban underground network immensely (10 million sq m/107 million sq ft by 2010). Shu Yu, deputy director of the Shanghai Urban Underground Space Development Institute, has revealed that local architects are working on developing China’s first underground park. Architects will landscape one of Shanghai’s existing underground shopping malls or pedestrian walkthroughs and complete the park in three years. The park is set to cover hundreds of square meters and eventually look like a small forest with winding streams.

Here’s a brilliant idea that functions as both environmental pollution monitor and thought-provoking urban art installation: a floating LED light system embedded in bodies of water to warn of water pollution (in addition to creating an ethereal glow at nighttime). A great way to be more green is simply to be more aware, like in the case of DIY Kyoto’s Wattson energy meter, or Natalie Jeremijenko’s pollution-sniffing dogs, and this project, architects Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin’s ingenious WaterGlow project does just that – making us aware of environmental problems in a beautiful way.

Rizhao 日照 means “sunshine” in Chinese, which is quite an appropriate moniker… Since 2001, Rizhao City (Shandong Province, China) officials have been educating the public and initiating new building regulations to promote the use of solar panels in their city. Traffic lights, street lamps and over 60,000 greenhouses are solar powered. Today, the city of nearly three million has over a half-million square meters of solar water heating panels—99% of households in the central districts use solar water heaters and more than 30% do so in the outlying villages.

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The green building movement in Asia may be lagging behind the U.S. and Europe, but it is slowly gaining momentum. Today’s Wall Street Journal features a piece that highlights eco-architecture projects taking shape in Asian cities across Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. One project is Ocean One, a 91-story beachfront residential high-rise in the Thai resort town of Pattaya.

Shanghai may become the world’s first city to build an infrastructure to support the use of hydrogen fuel cells. According to the Detroit Free Press, a hydrogen fueling system could be ready in as little as three years. Although less than 1% of Chinese citizens currently own vehicles, auto sales are expected to grow to 10.4 million by 2010 and reach 20 million by 2020. According to Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of research and development and strategic planning, “Shanghai could accommodate 200,000 fuel cell vehicles with just 124 stations.” GM plans to have a fuel cell vehicle available for commercial sale, priced no more than traditional internal-combustion vehicles by 2010. GM revealed the Chevrolet fuel cell Volt (pictured above) at the Shanghai Auto Show this past April.

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