Green Brier Place

Now while some tree huggers might equate electronics to pollutants, some technologies are actually eco friendly.

TVs

The big CRT TVs are electricity hogs, not eco friendly at all but thanks to advancement in technology we have LCD TVs which consume less electricity. But by buying an LED TV you can reduce your electric usage more and LED TVs are more economical to produce.

Mobile Phones

Another bane to the environment. Mobile phones are a pain to recycle especially te batteries. However, there are a few models that tickle a tree huggers’ fancy. Some mobile phones now have solar powered batteries and some are evenade from recycled materials.

Washing Machines

Looking for an eco-friendly washing machine? The feature that you should be looking for is that the washer should be able to do the job quickly to save on energy as well as use just the right amount of water. Luckily, because of advancements in technology, there are washers that can do that as well.

There are a lot of consumer electronics that cater to the environmentally conscious. Companies are now doing their share in the environment. So whichever consumer electronics you use there will always be a model that’s eco friendly, you just have to know which features to look for.

If you’re in the UK, a treehugger, and looking for an eco-friendly mobile phone then head on over to Vodafone and pick the Sony Ericsson ELM mobile phone, a phone part of Sony Ericsson’s Greenheart portfolio.

Sony Ericsson’s Greenheart mobile phones are made of recycled materials and uses minimal and recycled packaging as well as e-manuals to reduce any impact the phone will have on the environment. You can read the Sony Ericsson Elm Review to see the phone yourself. Even though its a green phone, Sony didn’t scrimp on its features.

Here’s your chance to win an environmentally all-in-one PC and spread the word about the importance of green living through MSI’s Get the Green Touch Contest.

MSI Get the Green Touch is a Facebook paged campaign that aims to donate 10 MSI Wind Top All-in-one PC to one of five environmentally focused organizations. Plus those who will vote will also get a chance to win the same PC. The contest will run from April 12th to Earth Day 2010 (April 22nd).

Granted that both devices are no Samsung Reclaim in terms of their environmentally friendliness but just between these two, which ones do you think will have less impact to the environment? The HTC Desire is made up of high quality plastic materials, or so some reviews claim while the HTC Legend is the first phone to make use of an aluminum unibody.

If you’re trying to go green, as with any other materials, aluminum (or any other metal) is better than plastic. On the onset, making plastic takes less energy as compared to aluminum but if we’re going to take a look at the long term impact, recylcing metal such as aluminum takes less energy compared with plastic. Plastic products also can only be recycled in a limited number of times while metals can be recycled without any degradation to the materials.

Of course, specs-wise, the HTC Legend is a bit inferior to the Desire and it seems that the Legend is matching the price of the HTC Desire in some countries. There’s no word yet as to the availability date of the HTC Desire and Legend in the US but in the UK, the Desire is already being shipped by T-Mobile. HTC desire deals in the UK are available in all networks while the Legend will be exclusive to Vodafone and will be available starting April 2 so don’t expect to find HTC Legend mobile phone with free gifts in other UK wireless carriers.

So, SUVs doesn’t necessarily equal environment friendly. I mean, most SUVs in the market are gas guzzlers but it’s nice to know that the company Pirelli is trying to make SUVs a little more earth friendly by introducing the Scorpion Verde.

So what makes the Pirelli Scorpion Verde earth friendly? First it’s made of aromatic oil-free materials, and according to Pirelli, it can lower fuel consumption to 3.4-3.9%. Another ec0-friendly feature is the Scorpion Verde is designed to use 10% lower raw materials, thus decreasing its environmental impact.

Well, it’s not much but it’s a start. Now if we can only get electric SUVs in the market.

Source

I’ve been toying with the idea of changing my wordpress theme. My current wordpress theme is my second one. The first one also has something to do with green technology though I had to change that because I couldn’t find it anymore when I upgraded to the latest version of wordpress. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology though there are some bits that confuse me, like making a wordpress theme. I wanted to make my own wordpress theme, I thought that would be simple but making a wordpress theme is a bit complicated. First you have to make a mock-up using photoshop then convert the output psd to wordpress template. You convert it by slicing and then coding it. I tell you, it’s a lot of hard work. Of course, there are a lot of readily available wordpress themes but none of them really matches my blogs’ theme.

Someone suggested that I just hire someone to make my own wordpress theme for me. That seems reasonable but the really professional ones charge a lot that it’s like hiring a software development Eastern Europe company. Yeah, it’s THAT high. I mean, it’s not like I’m actually making money out of this thing, right? So I guess I’ll be sticking to browsing through the thousands of free wordpress templates to find my next theme.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all businessmen would have a green phone? I mean, I’m not saying they carry a solar powered phone but something like the Sony Ericsson Aspen.

The Sony Ericsson Aspen has a Blackberry-like look, has a touchscreen (which is really popular these days) and the most important: it’s made from environmentally friendly materials and waterborne painting. There’s no manual, just an electronic one so a lot of trees are saved.

Best of all, it’s not a bad looking phone at all. There’s no word as to when the Sony Ericsson Aspen will be available state side.

Well, here’s something that would make speed bumps less annoying. The Motion Powered Speed Bump isn’t your ordinary cement speed bump found near schools, it’s a flat metal plate with long thin pedals on top. As a car passes over it, the pedals turns gears and generates 2,000W of electricity per car.

So, what uses can there be for these speed bumps? Well, a little more research and this speed bumps could be powering street lights. Just imagine how much energy that would save if street lights on a freeway no longer comes from the grid.

Via: Envirogadget

Want an eco-friendly activity for your kids so that they won’t waste their time (and your electricity bills) playing video games at home? Well, you can get them to skate outdoors. Skating is good for their health and what better way to be more green than buy the K2 Eco inline skates which are made from sustainable and biodegradeable bamboo. The Liners and lacers are also made from eco friendly materials, specifically, 100% recycled PET.

These skates are priced around $189.95.

Via: EnviroGadget

So I’ve recently talked about a green mobile phone like the Samsung Reclaim, right? So I thought that this was a REALLY green phone considering that its made of almost all recycled materials. Apparently, EISA thinks that the greenest phone out there is the LG Arena.

Now I’ve heard of the LG Arena and I don’t think there’s any mention about the phone being made from recycled materials or if its solar powered or any of the green stuff but EISA has given it their stamp of approval. Okay, so maybe the Samsung Reclaim can’t enter because it’s not yet released but didn’t Motorola have a phone that’s made of recycled water bottles? Now that has to count for something.

Oh well, I better get a look at this LG Arena and see if it truly fits the “green” bill.