Tidy recycling with the Mode All-in-One

Typical order of operations for gathering recyclables: Place empty paper grocery bag next to trash can. Fill bag with paper, bottles, and cans, but procrastinate on carrying it to the building's recycling bin. Accidentally kick the overstuffed bag, spewing bottles and cans across the kitchen floor. Run through a full vocabulary of profanities while cleaning up the mess and grumpily taking recyclables downstairs. Repeat.

Typical order of operations with the Mode All-in-One Recycling System: Crush cans and plastic bottles in the mechanical compactor, which drops them into the 8-gallon bin. Add glass, metal, and other non-crushables via a bypass lid; place newspapers, magazines, and junk mail in the separate 5-gallon paper bin. When alerted by the Recycle Day Reminder, take the recyclables down to the building bin. Consult the Eco-Track system to see how much you've recycled. Feel smug.

I know which one I'd prefer. The Mode All-in-One Recycling System is made of stainless steel, includes a charcoal filter to reduce odors, and stands 30 inches tall. Priced from US$250 to US$300, it'll be available at the end of the month from Frontgate, Amazon, and other retailers.

Via CNET Blogs

"Green" gadgets need better labeling, report says

Unclear product labeling prevents many consumers from buying affordable, energy-efficient electronics, and companies making "greener" goods aren't getting proper credit, according to a recent report.

HDTVs, desktop computers, laptops, and printers are among the electronics that online-survey respondents seek the most for green qualities. Green cred is less of an issue, in their eyes, for GPS devices, digital cameras, and other small, low-power devices.

More than half of those polled said their lack of awareness interferes with buying gadgets that consume modest amounts of energy, use recycled packaging and low-toxic materials, and offer recycling options. Forty-five percent named price as the biggest turn-off to purchasing such products.


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Illuminate your blinds

Feeling a little blasé about how ordinary your blinds look from day to night? OK. Fine, so you don't care. How about if they did something more than just open and close?

Designed by Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim, the Solar Vertical Lamp takes an average vertical blind and embeds it with special mini photovoltaics and LED pixels. Close the blinds during the day and the miniature solar pads on the back of the blinds start to soak up the sun's energy. Once the sun goes down, artfully placed lighting pixels illuminate in certain parts of the blinds.

The two-dimensional lamps come in table lamp, floor lamp, and chandelier forms. Besides being completely energy-efficient and saving you tons of money on your monthly bill, they create a sexy and dramatic ambiance for any part of the home.

Via Crave CNET

Zinc fuel cell maker readies portable power pack

A California startup says next year it will introduce a BlackBerry-size box that uses zinc as a fuel to charge electronic gadgets, a move that some people hope is a small step toward a broad zinc-based energy industry.

Three-year-old Power Air was formed to commercialize zinc-air fuel cell technology developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The core technology--an alternative to lithium-ion batteries or hydrogen fuel cells--creates an electrical current by exposing a zinc solution to the oxygen in air.

The long-term plan for Power Air is to build backup generators and mobile power sources for boats or vehicles.

Its first commercial product, though, is portable power supplies for cell phones, iPhones, and other consumer electronics. It plans to introduce the product line, called ZAFC Powerpacks, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, according to Power Air CEO Don Ceci.

The power packs are aimed at people who need auxiliary power, such as the businessperson or student who wants to extend power of a cell phone for another hour at the end of the day.

There are other options for portable power, based on alternative fuels.
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WattzOn asks: How much power are you using?

At the Web 2.0 Summit, Saul Griffith of Makani Power pointed out that a person's carbon footprint is just part of the issue when it comes to living a green life. It comes down to energy consumed, he says. Thus, WattzOn, a site that helps you visualize your total load on the planet (actually, technically speaking, the sun).

The service lets you enter in your energy-consuming behaviors, from transit to food to goods purchased. It calculates not just energy taken up by a device (like a washing machine) but the energy it takes to build it, amortized over its projected life.
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