The Green Garmento Is 4 Eco Friendly Bags In One.

The Green Garmento is a smart and chic reusable drycleaning bag created to reduce the 300,000,000 pounds of single use plastic bags that fill our landfills and waterways each year.


above right image by Ann Johansson for the New York Times

The eco-friendly 4-in-1 reusable garment bag that helps simplify and “green” your drycleaning routine, is the brainchild of Los Angeles-based couple Rick Siegel and Jennie Nigrosh, shown above.

Lightweight, durable and colorful, the Green Garmento is made from a recyclable, breathable, water-resistant material, making it an eco-friendly, stylish, practical and affordable alternative to single-use plastic garment bags.




4-Bags-in-1
Here’s how it works: at home it serves as a hanging laundry bag or standard hamper, on your trip to the drycleaner it functions as a duffel bag, and at pick-up your drycleaned clothes will be hanging and protected inside your Green Garmento for the trip home – without a single-use plastic bag in sight!

Features:


* Made from breathable, water-resistant material.
* Wide gussets and a side zipper help to keep everything safely in placeand allow you easy access.
* Available in multiple sizes from 40 to 72 inches, and a variety of colors, there’s a Green Garmento to suit every need and lifestyle.
* Like a reusable grocery tote for your clothes that is eco-friendly, stylish, practical, and affordable ($9.99 retail).



The Green Garmento comes in six colors; Green Grass, Black Night, Burgundy Bliss, Blue Water, Red Buttons and Orange Sunshine.

It's a simple and simplifying lifestyle change that's practical, eco-friendly, stylish, and affordable ($9.99 retail).... not to mention helping to cut down on the 300 million pounds of plastic drycleaning bags that end up in our landfills each year!

Buy them here.

Edible Drinking Glasses That Encourage You To Litter. Jelloware.

The folks at The Way We See The World have designed edible, flavored and naturally biodegradable gelatinous drinking cups, that when tossed on the surface of the planet, actually contain organisms that nurture the growth of grasses and plants.



Jelloware re-imagines the concept of drinking, and imparts a new experience in the way it feels, tastes, smells, moves, and is even disposed of.



The cups are made entirely out of agar agar (a gelatinous substance made from red algae) and cast in different flavors, such as lemon-basil, ginger-mint, or rosemary-beet, each specifically designed to compliment a corresponding drink.



Jelloware is meant to be thrown into the grass after it is used, as agar agar* is a seaweed extract and actually nurtures the growth of plants.



*Agar (agar agar) is used in laxatives, as vegetarian gelatin substitutes, as a thickener for soups, jellies, ice cream and other desserts, and as a clarifying agent in brewing, and for paper sizing fabrics. Chemically, agar is a polymer made up of subunits of the sugar galactose. Agar polysaccharides serve as the primary structural support for the algae's cell walls.(source: wikipedia)


above: The concept and design won them the honor of Runner Up for Structural/Sculptural Integrity in the GSS Jell-O mold competition.




THE WAY WE SEE THE WORLD is a product design consultancy comprised of Monica Bhatia, Chelsea Briganti, Ingrid Zweifel, and Leigh Ann Tucker, that pulls its lens back to take in the edges, where contexts take shape and boundaries form. We believe that design is fundamentally a creative response to the evolving challenges of the present. We are keen eyes in a world that changes with each blink, locating innovation in the space created by emerging realities.

Thanks to PSFK for bringing this to my attention and to Yanko Design for some of the additional images.

The Peepoo, A Lean Green Latrine.

The Peepoo is a single use, self-sanitizing, hygienic, biodegradable human waste container (i.e. toilet) that can be even used as fertilizer after use. A smart, affordable innovation that can revolutionize sanitary waste management needs amongst millions of homeless, ill-housed or disaster affected venues.

The Problem?


In the world today, more than 2.6 billion people have no access to basic sanitation. That means that 40 out of every 100 people lack even the most simple latrine to perform their needs. The lack of toilets affects both society and the individual through the contamination of fresh water and ground water. Human feces contain viruses, bacteria, worms and parasites which kill and infect people. As a matter of fact, one child in the world dies every 15 seconds due to contaminated water.

The Solution:


The Peepoo is in the form of a slim elongated bag measuring 14 x 38 centimeters. Within the bag there is a thin gauze layer measuring 26 x 24 cm. The gauze is coated with a thin film of urea, the most common fertilizer in the world and a non-hazardous chemical. As the urea is broken down, the pH value of the material increases and hygienization begins.

The Peepoo is designed to be used once, sitting, squatting or standing. If one uses the bag by holding it with only the hand, the thin gauze prevents all contact with the excrement. It doesn't need any supporting structure, but, for convenience, a cut PET-bottle or a bucket in which to place the bag, can help:



Easy To Use, Easy To Handle
The Peepoo is a toilet which is not fixed to a particular place. It is simple to carry since it is small and weighs less than 10 grams. The only thing one needs to do is find a secluded spot where one can use it as a toilet.

Peepoos are odor free for at least 24 hours after use and can thus be stored in the immediate environment. It is one of few sanitation solutions which require no water. The only water required is to wash the hands after use. The Peepoos cuts the traditional link between water and sanitation. A used Peepoo bag is clean to handle. It has become a waste product that neither smells nor is dirty to take care of and collect.



Without sacrificing ergonomic function, the bag’s design is adapted in every way so that it might be manufactured at as low a price as possible and sold to groups with the weakest purchasing power in the world.

Use As Fertilizer
Two to four weeks after use, the treated feces constitute a high value fertilizer with a considerable market value. The fertilizer will mainly be a nitrogen fertilizer due to the added urea for sanitation. Other nutrients are also available for the plants and thereby improve the soil fertility. Additionally, the organic matter in the feces will improve the soil’s structure, buffering capacity, and water holding capacity which, in the long term, will improve the potential harvest from the fields.

Since fertilizers are an expensive and scarce commodity in developing countries, it is possible for simple economic systems to develop informally through the collection and distribution of used Peepoos. Consequently, the used bags represent a local resource instead of a contaminant.



The Materials
The Peepoo is made of a high performance degradable bioplastic which meets EU standard EN13432. The plastic not only disintegrates but the molecules are also broken down into carbon dioxide, water and bio-mass. 45% of the plastic is produced using renewable materials. Peepoople intends, within the near future, to find a solution which is 100% renewable. The bioplastic comprises a mixture of aromatic co-polyesters and polylactone acid (PLA), with small additives of wax and lime. PHB represents alternative bioplastics.



How It Began
The Peepoo project was initiated by Anders Wilhelmson in September 2005. During the spring of 2006, a group comprised of researchers and other interested persons was formed and the company, based in Stockholm, Sweden was founded. Initial tests and development of a prototypical Peepoo toilet were completed later that year, followed by the formation of Peepoople AB in December. Following positive test results, a Swedish patent was initially assigned in March 2007 and granted in December and a world patent PCT was assigned in March 2008. In October 2009, Karin Ruiz was brought on board as CEO and now, the Peepoo toilet is scheduled to be available for delivery in the third trimester of 2010.



About Peepoople
Peepoople AB was created to develop, produce and distribute the Peepoo (pat.pend) sanitation solution. The mission of Peepoople is to provide universal access to dignified and hygienic sanitation. Research has been conducted in co-operation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU) and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

You can learn more at Peepoople.com

Something Green For You Today: Cleaning Cloths Made From Corn Cobs & Peach Pits

Since it's St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd share something really cool and 'green' with you today.

When it comes to green cleaning products, it seems there are new ones hitting the market daily. But these fabulous Japanese scrubbing cloths by PLUS ONE, made of all-natural abrasives (peach pits and corn cobs) have been awarded the 2009 Wallpaper design award for best cleaning product and NY York Magazine names them a best bet.


above left photo by Hannah Whitaker for NY mag, above right photo from Wallpaper magazine

They last for months, have need no detergent, and fit in tight little hard to clean spots.



Green Depot sells them two to a pack; the yellow for metalware like pots and pans, kettles, sinks and grills (they even work to peel the skin off of veggies!) and the pink one for more delicate surfaces like glass, wood, and teflon coated or non stick pans.


buy them here.


all images and info of the Japanese scrubbing cloths are courtesy of the company and its President, PLUS One and Taka Aoki (shown above)

Branson Offers Green for Green

From BBC.co.uk

Branson launches $25m climate bid

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London alongside former US vice-president Al Gore.

A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock and Nasa scientist James Hansen.

Sir Richard said humankind must realise the scale of the crisis it faced.

"The Earth cannot wait 60 years," he said at the news conference. "I want a future for my children and my children's children. The clock is ticking."

He said if the planet was to survive, it was vital to find a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

He said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution.

Moral challenge

Overseeing the innovations are James Hansen, the noted climate scientist and head of the Nasa Institute for Space Studies; the inventor of Gaia theory James Lovelock; UK environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell; and Australian mammalogist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery.

They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.

Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned environmental campaigner, is also on the judging panel.

He said: "It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind to actually accept the reality of the situation we are now facing.

"We're not used to thinking of a planetary emergency, and there's nothing in our prior history as a species that equips us to imagine that we, as human beings, could actually be in the process of destroying the habitability of the planet for ourselves."

His recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, focused on global warming.

Stuart Haszeldine, professor of geology at the University of Edinburgh, commented: "Richard Branson is ahead of the pack in getting to grips with CO2 in the atmosphere.

"His decisive action places shame on the dithering of the UK Treasury, who will not let British power companies build CO2 capture plants, in case they are too expensive.

"I hope all other businesses, large and small, follow his lead. Yes, it's true Branson's company may benefit eventually, but we will all benefit, by a cleaner, greener planet. We all share the same atmosphere."

Carbon capture and storage is already a key area of research.

Scientists have been looking into removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and storing it in oil and gas fields, injecting it deep into the ocean, or chemically transforming it into solids or liquids that are thermodynamically stable.

However, these methods have raised concerns, notably because of the possibility of leakage from the storage sites and fears that C02 dissolved in large quantities in the ocean might harm marine ecosystems.

Other scientists are also looking at schemes that might "scrub" the air of CO2, collecting the gas for safe storage; but many critics say the energy required to achieve this would make such an approach self-defeating.

Sir Richard Branson has already pledged to invest $3bn (£1.6bn) in profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, towards research into renewable energy technologies.