Vertical Green

Forget about finding that perfect painting to cover the space above your couch, why not just plant a garden. Living walls are easy to imagine outdoors like an ivy covered building or a topiary maze, but with all the new solutions for modular green roofing, it’s now possible to bring a little of that lush garden inside. A number of companies have started making living wall units that are a much more manageable size. Most of the planters are made of recyclable materials like plastic or metal and come either as a kit for smaller units or pre-planted and installed for larger wall spaces.

The unit seen here is available through the Gardener’s Supply Company online, but other companies like Motherplants, Green Living Technologies, and ELT Living Walls also provide larger scale solutions for homes, offices, restaurants and just about any building.

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Blog da Fibra

The Brazilian group Fibra Design Sustentável (manufacturers of green materials, Compensado de Pupuhna and BananaPlac among others) has recently launched their new blog on sustainability Blog da Fibra (initially in Portuguese) celebrating 2009 as the International Year of Natural Fibbers.

In their own words:
“Here we are, in 2009 and this is the International Year of Natural Fibres. Fibra Design Sustentável decided to seize this moment and release the Fibra’s Blog. Our intention is to create a knowledge sharing network and spread information about sustainability. Politics, environment, design, ecological materials, innovation or art. All of these matters are welcome. We hope to be able to create an interesting source of discussion and network formation.”
This should be a great resource for the Portuguese speaking community and for the design community in general.

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Humboldt Squids Inspire New, Environmentally Friendly Composite Materials

All squid species have protein-based teeth which are lightweight and tough. Scientists are looking to use this material to make products which are environmentally friendly as it’s an organic compound. They anticipate it being somewhat inexpensive to manufacture as the reactions involved in making squid teeth don’t require temperature extremes, exotic ingredients or harsh chemicals. The shells of clams and oysters, squid beaks, and exoskeletons of shrimp and lobsters are made of proteins and minerals in crystallized form. In the structures of shells and exoskeletons, crystals are the strength provider while the proteins acts as shock absorbers. It turns out that the circular teeth which are found in Humboldt Squids, don’t contain any crystals which was a big surprise to many scientists.

Through Biomimicry, biological adaptations have been playing an increasing role in helping designers, engineers, architects, and business leaders solve sustainable design and engineering challenges (see AskNature.org). In this case, scientists were intrigued by the architecture of the squids teeth, realizing the potential to use the same design in environmentally friendly composites. The basic principal is that the teeth are made from a mono-material with variations in the density and spacing of the pores at points in the structure of the teeth. At and near the base of the tooth, scientists found the pores to be closer together, making for a material which was softer and able to absorb the thrashing of the prey without breaking.

Via Discovery.com

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Recycled Hangers: A Step In The Right Direction

The ubiquitous wire hanger has been around for ever. In fact, 3.5 billion hangers are used every year. One marketing company decided to take a step in the right direction by creating a more intelligent design which also functions as a platform for advertising. No new trees are used in making “EcoHangers”. The hanger itself is constructed from 100% recycled paper and the hook is made from recycled plastic bottle caps. If business have the local resources to do so, they can recycle the entire hanger at the end of it’s life. The hanger is also durable and can be reused. EcoHangers are made from renewable resources and made in the USA. According to them, the demand for their product is helping recyclers to create new programs to reclaim even more post-consumer papers and plastics.

For more information see, hangernetwork.com

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Seattle Is Styrofoam Free!

Along with cities like Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA, Seattle is making the jump to eliminating EPS (expanded polystyrene) from all food service facilities effective January 1, 2009. Mayor Nickels and Council President Conlin have proposed a complete conversion from EPS products to compostable and recyclable replacements by July 1, 2010. This is an important difference from previous attempts to get rid of Styrofoam because often, the alternatives used were not any better. With more compostable products coming on to the market today the conversion may be much quicker than expected.

To help identify what products fall into this category, they are directing citizens to a list of compostable products from the Cedar Grove Composting site in Washington. Many of the products on the list include corn based PLA plastics and recycled paper containers. Perhaps these kinds of mandates will also help increase the production of other solutions that could help us think outside the box (pun intended) like the banana leaf wrapper.

We’ve been keeping our own list of compostable and sustainable packaging that could help Seattle reach it’s goal, take a look!

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Melissa Plastic Dreams of Sustainability

The Melissa Plastic Dreams Fall 2009 collection is slowly trickling into stores. This season, Brazil-based shoe company Melissa (whose identity is difficult to come across, even after hours of scouring the internet) has collaborated with top fashion designer, Vivenne Westwood and is offering a line of shoes made from her patented plastic known as Melflex– a patented 100% recyclable, hypo-allergenic monomaterial that easily molds to your foot, providing a comfortable custom fit. The footwear is manufactured by Grendene, who is also based in Brazil. Grendene is one of the largest shoe manufacturers and recycles 99% of the excess material left over from manufacturing. The Melissa company was founded in 1979 and became hugely popular in the 1980’s with their signature jelly shoes. Not until recently has the company veered toward more eco-friendly and socially responsible manufacturing processes. To find out more, please visit Melissa Plastic Dreams.

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Advances in Plastic Recycling

Most of us fail to recognize many of the environmentally unfriendly consequences of recycling. Some may argue that recycling actually does more bad than good to the environment due to the amount of energy it takes to transform it into something new. SABIC Innovative Plastics has recently developed a resin in which the manufacturing process gives a 50-80% lower carbon footprint. The resin, known as Valox iQ is made from roughly 65% post-consumer waste and has earned the company a Silver tier Cradle to Cradle certificate from McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, LLC. Application uses include furniture, consumer electronics, automotive components, and more!
To learn more about Valox iQ, please visit Plastemart- News from the Plastics industry.

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Making Negative Space Positive

Being environmentally minded can sometimes lead you to unexpected solutions. Dutch creative communications house SPRANQ developed the ecofont in an attempt to help reduce the amount of ink used when printing materials for everyday use. The image above shows how ecofont is successful. By omitting certain parts of a basic sans-serif font, the designers saw a 20% reduction in their ink usage. Although it might look distracting at this font size, when used at a smaller text size such as 9 or 10, the holes are not noticeable. It’s a simple solution and the Dutch creator says he was inspired in part by the many holes found in the local cheese.

The ecofont is based on the Vera Sans, an Open Source letter, and is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. It is available as a free download from their web site.

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