green living

We've seen vertical farming concepts before, but the Clepsydra merges an entirely new building type with an urban greenhouse. We know the benefits of vertical farms include the ability to produce great amounts of food in a small land area.

Also the food is closest to the people who eat it, minimizing the need for transportation, refrigeration, packaging and other energy-intensive activities. Bruno Vigano and Florencia Costa have designed the Clepsydra with these thoughts in mind, and created what they call an accessory building, which can be added to existing structures.

Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) seem destined to be a clean, eco-friendly solution to lighting in the very near future. OLEDs are basically LEDs whose electroluminescent surface layer is composed of organic compounds. The compounds can easily be laid down in rows and columns on a polymer substance that holds them in place. OLEDs can be used for television and computer screens as well as lighting. The OLEDs' advantage over LCDs lies in the fact that they require no backlight, allowing them to operate on far less power, and thus far longer on a single charge. They can also be made much thinner than LCDs and manufactured more effectively than both LCDs and plasmas.

That being said, GE has been working on some innovative lighting designs that use OLEDs. Due to their paper thin design

The Nature Mill composter really looks like a great product that efficiently turns your organic waste into nutrient filled compost that can be used for a garden.

The Nature Mill works at any time, day or night, and can convert up to 120 pounds of waste into compost every month. Simply throw your organic waste - waste food, rotten vegetables or fruit, coffee grounds, etc. - into it and the Mill does the rest. The waste remains in the upper chamber in "hot composting" conditions that include mixing, air flow, heat and moisture. The energy released

Developed by The Laundry Alternative Inc., the Spin Dryer could be up to 100 times more energy efficient than a conventional dryer and could reduce total household energy usage in the U.S. by 6 - 10 percent.

The typical tumble dryer uses about 5,000 watts and run for close to an hour per cycle. The Spin Dryer has short 2 - 3 minute cycle and only uses a maximum of 300 watts. The Spin Dryer works by spinning at a whopping rate of 3200 revolutions per minute, compared to the much slower 500 rpm conventional dryer. This high speed allows the Spin Dryer to extract much more water than a typical washing machine

The Toronto based company, Softchoice, has unveiled a searchable database that will allow consumers to compare various computing products and identify the most eco-friendly among them. The database contains over 350,000 products from various computing categories.

Softchoice gathered the data from CNET Networks and the Green Electronics Council's database of products that have met EPEAT standards. The Council uses EPEAT (Electronic Products Environmental Assesment Tool)to evaluate computing equipment on 23 mandatory criteria and 28 optional criteria that measure a products environmental sustainability, which includes packaging, materials selection, longevity and end of life design. Products that meet 23 criteria are awarded a bronze certificate while those that

Remember the old saying? If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. Well now you can save water AND keep your crapper clean. The Brondell Ecoflow fits on your existing toilet and provides separate flush options for number one and number two.

According to Brondell, 40 percent of household water usage goes down the toilet, with only one out of ten trips to the head requiring a full flush. The product installs in half an hour and requires no maintenance after setup. The initial $129 cost of the system

Ten hours of charging your small electronic devices on one cartridge of methanol and water? This is now possible with the Antig A5 Blade portable fuel cell. The device fits in your hand and outputs up to 10 watts of clean

electric power. The A5 is based on Antig's Triton H2PowerChip module, and allows for multiple lightweight configuration options. Corporate customers can have a power solution tailored to their needs, using refillable or replaceable

For those of us who are city dwellers with little inside and less outside space for an herb garden, or for those with simply not enough time or effort to devote to one, the Herbi offers an efficient, low maintenance solution.

The Herbi is basically an adjustable hydroponic herb garden. You just need to place it in a well lit place. It comes with one to six "plant silos" and a control unit. You plant your herbs in the silos and connect them to the control unit. Fill the control unit with water and nutrients and ph balancers, and you're on your

Phantom power jacking up your utility bill? Sure, you can turn off your power strip. But what if you need your digital video recorder to catch Rock of Love when you're out of town? Belkin's solution hits the shelves this summer in North America and the UK.

The Belkin Conserve is an eight outlet surge protector designed to eliminate standby power and hassle. The unit features two outlets that never turn off, for devices that must remain powered. The rest of the outlets are easily switched off using the included

For $1400 buy the greenest 42 inch flat screen LCD television on the market. Philips full HD set consumes less power than a 100 watt bulb when properly configured. Automatic sensors dim the screen when

the ambient room lighting goes down. In addition, the low-mercury lamp can reduce energy consumption by lowering backlight in dark areas of the screen. The set is assembled with many recyclable components and is lead-free. With all the buzz about standby power consumption these days, this television