Inhabitat

Phone Book Coffee Table

When we kicked off our Spring Greening DIY Design Contest we didn’t expect our intrepid innovators to take the call literally! We’re thoroughly impressed that Rodrigo Jaroseski of Porto Alegre, Brazil did just that and fashioned a remarkable corrugated coffee table out of several old phone books. Everyone seems to have a couple …

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SPRING GREENING CONTEST: 1 Day Left!!

Calling all crafty Inhabitat readers!
Win $200 in our DIY Spring Greening Contest!
Our Spring Greening Contest is almost over, and there is just ONE DAY LEFT to enter our fabulous competition! To enter, simply send in your best example of refurbished, recycled, or reclaimed design. We’ll be featuring our favorite entries in an online voting competition next week, and the winner will receive all of the fortune and fame of being showcased on Inhabitat in addition to a $200 gift certificate to the Inhabitat Shop! So break out that dusty dresser or busted chair, give it a brand new life, slap on a fresh coat of (eco-friendly) paint, and let it shine for a chance to win!

The deadline for submissions is TOMORROW, March 27th at 11:59 pm EST

All you have to do to enter the contest is:
1. Sign up for the inhabitat newsletter
2. Send a photo and description of your project to editor at inhabitat.com

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SPRING GREENING CONTEST: 2 Days Left!!

Calling all crafty Inhabitat readers!
Win $200 in our DIY Spring Greening Contest!
Our Spring Greening Contest is running strong after a refreshing weekend of creative submissions, and there’s still time left to submit your DIY designs! To enter, simply clean out your closets and remake your dusty old furnishings, appliances, and household items into inspired examples of found design. We’ll be featuring our favorite entries in an online voting competition next week, and the winner will receive all of the fortune and fame of being showcased on Inhabitat in addition to a $200 gift certificate to the Inhabitat Shop! So break out that dusty dresser or busted chair, give it a brand new life, slap on a fresh coat of (eco-friendly) paint, and let it shine for a chance to win!

The deadline for submissions is this Friday March 27th at 11:59 pm EST

All you have to do to enter the contest is:
1. Sign up for the inhabitat newsletter
2. Send a photo and description of your project to editor at inhabitat.com

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SPRING GREENING CONTEST: 4 Days Left to Enter!

Calling all crafty Inhabitat readers!
Win $200 in our DIY Spring Greening Contest!
Our Spring Greening Contest is running strong after a refreshing weekend of creative submissions, and there’s still time left to submit your DIY designs! To enter, simply clean out your closets and remake your dusty old furnishings, appliances, and household items into inspired examples of found design. We’ll be featuring our favorite entries in an online voting competition next week, and the winner will receive all of the fortune and fame of being showcased on Inhabitat in addition to a $200 gift certificate to the Inhabitat Shop! So break out that dusty dresser or busted chair, give it a brand new life, slap on a fresh coat of (eco-friendly) paint, and let it shine for a chance to win!

The deadline for submissions is this Friday March 27th at 11:59 pm EST

All you have to do to enter the contest is:
1. Sign up for the inhabitat newsletter
2. Send a photo and description of your project to editor at inhabitat.com

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Inhabitat Spring Greening Contest!

THIS FRIDAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!!
Can you tell we’re excited? We’re midway through March, the birds are chirping and we want to encourage you all to green your spring cleaning with our first ever Spring Greening Contest! We all have a few derelict furnishings, defunct appliances, and otherwise unused items collecting dust in the closet – rather than tossing them in the trash we want you to re-furbish, re-purpose, and re-think them into functional examples of DIY design. Send us a picture of your project and we’ll select our favorites for a round of online voting and chance to win some great prizes including a $200 gift certificate to the Inhabitat shop in addition to all of the fame and fortune of being showcased on Inhabitat. So break out that dusty dresser or busted chair, give it a brand new life, slap on a fresh coat of (eco-friendly) paint, and let it shine for a chance to win!
The deadline for submissions is Friday March 27th
All you have to do to enter is:
1. Sign up for the inhabitat newsletter
2. Send a photo and description of your project to editor at inhabitat.com

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FRY POWER: How to Convert Your Car to Run on Vegetable Oil

What if you could refuel your car at a restaurant instead of a gas station? Some enterprising environmentalists have discovered that restaurants will gladly give away their used fryer oil, since they usually have to pay to dispose of it. This oil can be filtered and used to run cars and trucks that have been converted to run on vegetable oil. Your exhaust might smell like fries (no joke), but you’ll be recycling, emitting up to 70% less CO2, and saving yourself some money.

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The Recycled Cardboard Computer Case Eliminates E-Waste

One of our favorite entries from this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition is Francesco Biasci’s Cardboard Computer Case, which aims to ameliorate the perpetual problem of consumer e-waste. Built from the ground up with recycled cardboard, the case offers a simple, chic and customizable alternative to metal computer cases that must be disposed of every two to five years.

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RITI Coffee Printer Uses Your Coffee Grounds for Eco Ink!

For those of you who enjoy a cup of joe with your morning paper, the RITI Coffee printer offers an ingenious way to green your morning ritual: by turning your old coffee grounds into a sustainable source of ink for your printer! One of fifty top entries in this year’s Greener Gadgets Competition, the RITI printer takes the leftover grounds from your morning roast and plugs them into an ink cartridge to create an eco-friendly source of ink. Who would have ever guessed coffee stains could be be so useful!

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IS IT GREEN?: Maker’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey

These days it’s important to consider the environmental impact of our actions when we buy certain things – gasoline, for example. There will come a time when people realize that everything we consume has an environmental impact, but for now, certain goods fly under the radar. Who knew, for example, that Maker’s Mark is blazing the trail for ecologically friendly distilleries? We caught up with Master Distiller Kevin Smith to get the scoop on the company’s sustainable initiatives.

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CES 2009: Energizer Debuts a Solar Battery Charger

Energizer has worked hard to brand and market itself as the go-to battery for rechargeable reuse by offering many nifty little recharging gadgets to power up your AA and AAA batteries. At CES this week, Energizer debuted its latest green gadget, the Solar Battery Recharger. While we all love our Solios, if you wanted to charge batteries you still had to buy a battery charger that drains energy from the grid. This solar charger removes the step, allowing you to charge both AA and AAA batteries with renewable energy.

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Christmas Tree Recycling Ideas at Inhabitots

We love the holidays for their wealth of wonderful traditions and decor designed to spread cheer, however we can’t help but feel sorry for all of those living christmas trees that are abandoned after the holiday season. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of resources that offer great eco-friendly ways to recycle your Christmas tree once its needles start to shed. From landscape restoration to making toys for children and …

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Mailman Cuts Out Junk Mail, You Can Too!

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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Green Home 101: Talking Trash

Considering the fact that the average person produces 4.5 pounds of waste per day according to the EPA, we would be remiss not to address the question of household waste in our exploration of what it takes to make a green home. Thanks to more widespread public and private recycling programs and increased consumer awareness, Americans are definitely learning to tighten their ‘waste-line,’ but we still produce a phenomenal amount of garbage on a daily basis. Before we can talk about reducing, re-using and re-cycling, Green Home 101 needs to talk trash.

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Plasma Plants Vaporize Trash While Generating Energy

Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States’ first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity – enough to power 50,000 homes! Cutting down on landfill waste while generating energy is a pretty win-win proposition, and the plant will also be able to melt down inorganic materials to be reused for other applications, such as in roadbed and heavy construction.

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7 Bad Habits of Eco-Design Driven Consumers

Inhabitat is proud to present our readers with the world’s most exciting developments in future-forward design. Still, the stunning array of beautiful green furnishings and stylish products available today presents certain questions about the responsible consumption of green goods. The time has come address these challenges and take an in-depth look at our collective green habits. Read on for a list of seven bad habits of Eco-Design driven consumers, and the first steps that begin the road to recovery.

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HOW TO: Green Your Work Place

Its 9am on a Wednesday morning and you find yourself preparing for your day with a cup of coffee in hand and your daily Inhabitat Digest open on your desktop. But today is no ordinary day. Today when your boss catches you in the act of reading our blog instead of working, you can tell him or her “Don’t worry, I’m researching a new green office strategy, which will save us money and create a better working environment,” or something to that effect. While this may seem like a convenient excuse, we know our suggestions for creating a greener workspace will help you do just that: to take your love of environmental issues and infuse them into your work routine, those of your colleagues and the practices of your company.

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The World’s First Sustainable Dance Club opens in Rotterdam

The world’s very first Sustainable Dance Club recently let partygoers loose on its energy-generating dance floor to the sound of Iggy Pop & The Stooges! Originally rumored to be opened by Amy Winehouse, club Watt, features a LED-laden dance floor that is lit up solely by the kinetic energy generated by dancers. The new nightclub will also feature a variety of efficiency standards established by the Sustainable Dance Club group that allow it to save 30% on energy consumption, 50% on water use, cut CO2 emissions by 30%, and reduce waste by 50%.

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London Design Festival 2008: Print and Paper Workshop

Did you know that recycling a single ton of paper can save 7000 gallons of water, 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4000 kilowatts of energy!? Statistics like these were key points at a sustainable print and paper workshop at the London Design Festival’s sustainability hub, Greengaged. The workshop, hosted by UK-based nonprofit enterprise Three Trees Don’t Make a Forest, set out to explore how different print processes affect the paper’s recyclability, and how you can reduce the impact through the design process.

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Acorn House: London’s First Sustainable Restaurant

In the mood for a night out in the UK capital? Why not try out one of the premiere sustainable restaurants in London! Acorn House is pitched as London’s first truly eco-friendly training restaurant and describes itself as “set to alter the image of the restaurant industry as well as transform the way in which people eat out.” The innovative restaurant employs an excellent set of sustainable strategies including composting and recycling all of its waste, sourcing local and seasonal ingredients, and training generations of young chefs in the finer points of eco-friendly cuisine. These features have led UK Newspaper The Times to describe Acorn House as “the most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years.”

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COVER POUF: No-Waste Furniture by Alain Bertreau

Designer Alain Bertreau creates simple furniture that cuts out excess materials and effort, leaves an overall serene and minimalistic impression, and packs light. We’ve covered Bertreau’s Instant Chair and his Modular Fence Chair but we only just glanced at his latest project, the Cover pouf, and it deserves a second look. Cover challenges our notion of package design by turning a cardboard box into the base of a waste-free pouf that is fun, functional and easily recyclable.

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NAUTILUS Eco-Friendly Flat-Pack Hanging Lamp

This eco-chic hanging lamp is more than an expression of good taste. Aptly named the Nautilus, the design recently emerged from the hands of Rebecca Asquith of the sustainability-driven New Zealand outlet Unless. This whimsical fixture illuminates interiors with style and an awareness of how good design can coexist with principles of good environmental stewardship.

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