How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you’re also chomping on a sticker label? The small yet wasteful labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels!

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Post tags: fda, grapefruit, laser etching, sticker labels, usda

The Reclaim – Samsung and service partner Sprint’s newest green phone – has innovative features that go beyond the bare bones that similar products like Motorola’s W233 Renew phone offers. This eco-conscious smart-phone is 80 percent recyclable and made mostly of corn-based bio-plastics, but that’s not all this compact phone has up its green sleeves.

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Post tags: bioplastic, Cooper Hewitt, corn-based bio-plastics, eco cell phone, eco-phone, green cell phone, green gadget, green phone, phone packaging, reclaim, recyclable cell phone, recyclable materials, samsung, samsung reclaim, smartphone, soy ink, sprint

By now you have probably heard that recycled paper and soy inks contribute to greener graphic design, but it turns out that in the realm of sustainability, all fonts are not equal. In their work, “Measuring Type,” Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth seek to evaluate the ink efficiency of popular fonts. Using ball-point pens to write the word “sample” in the style of Times New Roman, Helvetica and others, Robinson and Wrigglesworth were able to deduce just how much ink each font uses. So what can an eco-minded graphic designer learn? Use light, serif-based Garamond instead of bold and compact Impact.

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Post tags: eco-friendly graphic design, eco-friendly topography, eco-frienldy fonts, fonts, green graphic design, measuring ink efficiency, typeface, typography

Welcome back to Inhabitat’s Green Wedding Guide! So far in this summer series we’ve covered eco-friendly jewelry, locations, invitations and now we’re bringing you our tips and suggestions for eco-friendly gift giving. Favors, gifts and registries are sometimes thought of as the bane of a green wedding. It can get overwhelming to plan details of sustainability into an eco-friendly wedding — let alone find meaningful gifts that aren’t a load of eco-guilt. Some fight the gift giving, but giving and receiving is fun, and there are many easy ways to make wedding gift exchanges more environmentally friendly.

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Post tags: eco wedding, favors, gifts, green wedding, green wedding guide, invitations, recycled paper, registry, wedding, wedding planning

Wondering how to turn all of those plastic bottle caps running rampant in your household into a green, planet saving endeavor? Well, lucky for you, and for marine life everywhere, Aveda has come up with an alternative solution for all of the un-recyclable rigid plastic caps that invade your medicine cabinets, refrigerators and kitchen drawers. The very same ubiquitous bottle-toppers pose a dangerous threat to oceans, birds and marine life when they are improperly disposed of and wind up in landfills or sent down storm drains. Aveda’s Caps Recycling Program will re-purpose these toxic plastics as a base for new packaging, in an effort to eliminate them from our oceans before it’s too late.

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Post tags: aveda, beauty, cap recycling, caps, caps recycling, recycling

Only 14% of plastic water bottles are recycled, and Americans add 30 million PET water bottles to landfills every day! Aiming to provide an alternative to this alarming trend, Michigan-based Boxed Water Is Better is filling FSC-certified Tetra Pak boxes with Minnesota water and in doing so, giving us a new way to tote H20. But is boxed water truly the best option, or are there more ecologically-sound alternatives at hand?

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Post tags: boxed beverages, boxed water, green design, is boxed water better michigan, product packaging, Products, Recycled Materials, sustainable design, water packaging

Fast food packaging takes up a hefty chunk of our landfill space while effectively clear-cutting our forests. The golden arch proprietors dole out over 2 billion burgers a year, each individually wrapped in plastic coated paper and thrown into a paper bag with a few paper napkins–that’s about 75 per second, worldwide. Toss in a dozen other fast food conglomerates and we’re up to our ears in greasy garbage. What’s worse is that most of this paper makes its way into a trashcan after only about 5 minutes of use. Seeking to counter this consumptive cycle, University of the Arts grad student, Andrew Millar, designed biodegradable packaging for McDonald’s from grass paper, which has naturally grease-resistant properties.

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Post tags: andrew millar, biodegradable materials, compostable materials, green design, green golden arches, green mcdonald's, mcdonald's packaing, product design, product packaging, sustainable design, university of the arts student

A new West Elm store opened up in Manhattan last week, and the opening gala featured an incredible collection of one-of-a-kind cardboard furnishings crafted by acclaimed designer and event producer David Stark. Constructed from recycled West Elm packaging materials and catalogs, the objects were auctioned off in a silent auction with all the proceeds going to the Cooper Hewitt Museum, a museum devoted to historic and contemporary design.

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Post tags: Art, cardboard furniture, green design, green furnishings, interior design, packaging reuse, Recycled Materials, sustainable design, west elm

Wondering what to do with all those old greeting cards and thank you notes? Now you can stick them in the ground and sprout wildflowers with Botanical Paperworks plantable greeting cards.. We’ve written about sprouting stamps and blooming business cards before, so it was only a matter of time before someone came up with plantable greeting cards. Available as thank-you cards, wedding invitations, baby announcements and customizable cards for any occasion, each card is handmade from 100% post-consumer waste fiber and is embedded with wildflower seeds. Simply plant them in a pot of soil and a few spring showers will start them on their way to a beautiful bouquet.

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Post tags: botanical paperworks, green design, green gardening, Recycled Materials, recycled paper, seed cards, sustainable design

Recently the Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant was announced as the winner of the Environmental Award at the 2008 British Book Design and Production Awards. Designed and delivered by sustainable innovation practice More Associates, the hardback book reflects its content by reducing its embodied carbon and waste impact through its production methods.

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Post tags: Book Design, environmental, Green Marketing Manifesto, John Grant, More Associates, Publishing

Reducing waste by reusing beverage cartons, Swiss-born Tanja Burgdorfer’s “Recycled Magic Wallets” creatively makes use of what would normally be discarded. With a little bit of elastic and a few staples, Tanja turns old beverage cartons into contemporary and useful wallets for the environmentally-conscious consumer. Current selection in her etsy shop shows luscious fruit prints. Each wallet is entirely hand-crafted and is available ready-made or bespoke upon request.

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Post tags: Mayari, recycled beverage cartons, Recycled Magic Wallets, Tanja Burgdorfer, upcycled magic wallets

With Christmas just around the corner (a mere 4 days away!), it has probably crossed your mind that wrapping presents is not the eco-friendliest practice. That’s why we’d like to share a couple of ways you can eco-ify your wrapping technique this holiday season. The first is presented by London-based design recruitment agency, Represent, who shares with us twenty different tape-free ways to wrap your gifts, through their project Future Present.

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Post tags: bobo wrap, eco chic wrapping, eco christmas, eco friendly christmas, eco friendly wrapping, eco wrapping, Future Present, patricia lee bobo, represent design agency

When creativity, ecology and innovation collide, packaging becomes the product. This sleek wine box by Ciclus converts into a table lamp with no extra parts required. The packaging is made with wood from local, managed forests and recycled cardboard. Inside is a locally and ecologically produced bottle of Cava, Spanish sparkling wine.

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Post tags: ciclus wine box packaging, eco-friendly packaging, green lamp design, green packaging, sustainable design, sustainable lighting, wine box lamp

The folks at Apple recently debuted their latest line of sleek notebooks, and we were excited to hear that they’re the greenest Macs ever! They’ve removed many of the harmful toxins found in computers including mercury, arsenic and PVC and made the remaining parts nearly all recyclable. The software has also been redesigned to run on 30% less power than previous models, earning them Energy Star certification. And finally, Apple cut out nearly half of the bulky packaging to streamline their distribution and create less trash to bring home.

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Post tags: "energy star", apple green macbook, energy efficient, Green Laptop, green notebook computer, led display, recyclable materials, sustainable design

A former North Carolina mailman was recently fined $3,000 and ordered to do 500 hours of community service for cutting out the junk mail. For over seven years, no one on Steven Padgett’s route received a single pizza flyer, ‘Current Resident’ catalog or sweepstakes entry – now that’s something to be thankful for. Unfortunately, this mailman couldn’t put an end to the production of junk mail, leaving much of it in his backyard or garage, but you can. 100 million trees are chopped, processed, glossed and stuffed into US mailboxes every year. Fight back with one of the many opt out services below!

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Post tags: advertisement, catalog, junk mail, junk mail elimination service, mail carrier refuses junk mail, opt out service, Waste reduction