Shrewd shopping online

Mikki Halpin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:59:31 PDT

Isn’t it the best when environmental ideals, thriftiness, and saving time all point to the same solution?

Take compact fluorescent light bulbs: Good for the planet, and they last so much longer than old-school bulbs, thereby saving money, trips to the store and time spent climbing up on chairs to change the ceiling fixtures.

Online shopping, done right, also serves both the environment and your busy schedule. It’s convenient—sneaky people can even do it at work! —and can be far more carbon-efficient than getting into your car and heading to the store.

Of course, online shopping isn’t going to replace the real deal for every purchase your family makes, but following these tips can help you green your family’s clothing buying style without putting a crimp in it. Follow these enviro-shopping tips to keep your clicking earth-friendly.

Don’t worry—You can do this without wearing tie-dye caftans and rope sandals

The fashion industry is realizing that consumers want chic, wearable apparel that has been produced sustainably and ethically. There are more choices out there than ever, and these items are often easier to find online. Sites like Adili, Stewart Brown, Cool Not Cruel, and Green Loop all have a wide variety of seriously wow-worthy pieces that you can feel good about wearing. Who wouldn’t feel good in this Sarah Zins dress, made from reused and remnant materials?

Use the Internet for what it does best: Search

No need to go from store to store, or even mall to mall, looking for what you need. Finding the products you want is easier online, it’s easier to compare prices and find deals, and you can even find products you didn’t already know about.

The search term “eco-friendly sneakers,” typed into Google, will return the information that Adidas has a line of shoes made with hemp and recycled materials.

Greenmaven, is a “green search engine” that uses Google technology to give you results pages full of sustainable, eco-friendly options. Searching “fashion” will give you 158 results, including Tdama, a company that makes incredibly modern, color-blocked hoodies from 89% recycled post-consumer recycled plastic.

Ship wisely

Online shopping saves you the time you’d spend driving or taking the bus to the store, but when it comes to shipping, taking the slow road is a more eco-friendly choice. Picking 3-day or overnight delivery means your package is coming on a big gas-guzzling airplane. Opt for ground shipping instead.

Also, look for information about how your purchase will be packaged. You want a retailer who uses recycled products, and skips Styrofoam peanuts in favor of creative solutions like biodegradable air-filled pillows.

If the site where you are shopping doesn’t inform you about the packaging practices, ask. One eco-clothing site, nau.com has four pages explaining their carefully thoughtout shipping and packaging choices—and cute clothes to boot.

If you buy clothes on Amazon, check out the Facebook application ShipTogether. It allows you to pool your purchases with others who live near you to save on shipping costs and reduces the number of times delivery trucks need to drive to your neighborhood. Once again, saving money and saving the world coincide!

You Can Shop Online and Still Support Local Businesses

Online shopping isn’t just for the big chain stores; many locally-owned businesses have websites too. Use the site to see if what you want is in stock and plan your trips accordingly. Even the superhip clothing store down the street from you likely has an online shop.

If you’re looking for a black dress and there isn’t one on the site, you’ve saved yourself a trip—and the danger of buying something you don’t need just because you saw it in the store. You can also use the web to find local businesses with green inventory.

Try a directory like CitySearch or Yahoo! Local to seek out local stores that carry organic clothing. Try Treehugger.com’s green buying guides. (The denim guide has a lot of brands, including some you probably aren’t familiar with.)

Other good browsing spots: Green America’s Greenpages, the blog Greenzer.com (use the “eco-friendly clothing” tag to drill down), and Big Green Purse’s listings of environmentally sound clothing options.

A recent British study found that consumers need to buy at least 19 items on a shopping trip in a car to match the carbon efficiency of shopping online. Be even greener and carpool with a few friends.

Buying vintage or used clothes on eBay is a no-brainer. Everything’s cheaper, and re-using something rather than buying something newly manufactured is the oldest green move in the book. REI has a handy eco-friendly clothing page on their site that gathers together all the recycled fleece gloves and organic cotton trail shorts in one place.

Remember, you don’t have to overhaul your whole wardrobe to be eco-chic—just using some of the tips above and being more thoughtful about your choices will make a big difference in terms of your environmental impact.

You can do your part for the planet, and consider the time and money savings to be your reward—that, and the cute clothes.

Big dreams for cars that reinvent internal combustion, run on air, even fly

Jim Motavalli — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:50:31 PDT

Sal Scuderi and his engine model
in Manhattan. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

Everyone wants to have the next big thing in auto technology, and when they think they have the tiger by the tail, they call me to come take a look.

Here are a few recent contenders:

I am in the ballroom of a Manhattan hotel near Grand Central Station looking at an engine. Well, not an engine exactly, but a cutaway working model of one. There are cool lights blinking, and pistons moving up and down. This is the Scuderi engine, the great hope of a family enterprise.

Sal Scuderi is the son of the late mechanical engineer Carmelo Scuderi, who designed this new type of low-emission, internal-combustion power plant, and he is endeavoring to explain the "split-cycle" technology to me as several other company folks, including Sal's brother, sit around the ballroom ordering lunch. The one-liter, turbocharged Scuderi engine, he said, takes the traditional four-cycle design and splits it over two paired cylinders, one for intake/compression and the other for power and exhaust.

On conventional engines, pistons fire at top dead center, but this one fires later to "produce highly efficient, cleaner combustion with one cylinder and compressed air in the other." The engines in every gas-powered car since the Duryea brothers take two crankcase revolutions to complete a combustion cycle, but Scuderi says his engine takes just one. "They waste energy and lose work because they compress the gas twice," Scuderi says. "Our process delivers very rapid atomization of the fuel."

Scuderi claims its revolutionary two-cylinder engine reduces nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 85%, and emissions overall by 80%. He also says overall fuel efficiency is much improved.

Is this a big breakthrough that will have automakers all over the world booking flights to Springfield, Massachusetts for licensing talks? It's kind of above my pay grade, but Scuderi did finally get the engine running yesterday.

Dan Kapp, the man behind Ford's new direct-injection EcoBoost engine as director for powertrain research and advanced engineering, told me Ford has "touched base" with Scuderi. "Flow loss and inefficient combustion on the expansion stroke are drawbacks," he said. "I don't want to be in a position of critiquing their work, but aren't you asking two cylinders to do the work of one? We'd need to see a lot more, to try and understand how they will meet some of the challenges."

***

I am on the phone last year talking to Shiva Vencat, who heads Zero Pollution Motors, the U.S. arm of a French company that thinks we'll all soon be running around in cars powered on compressed air. There is a sense of déjà vu, because I had a similar conversation with Vencat circa 2000, the first time they said French air cars were coming to the U.S.

The French company, Motor Development International (MDI), has entered its compressed-air cars in the Auto X Prize, and its U.S. web page says the latest start date is Spring 2009, for some very peculiar cars called the AIRPod Urban Transporter. They look like pastel-colored ladybugs. They claim 136 miles of range on compressed air, which would be quite a lot. I've seen MDI claim ranges of more than 800 miles using some form of heating to expand the air.

Experts I've talked to say the energy density of air does not favor this form of transportation, but people love the idea. "Have you heard about the air car?" they ask me. Yes, I have. I'm ready whenever MDI is to take a ride. I'd love to see it happen.

***

I am at the Concours d'Elegance in Greenwich, Connecticut last month, and in the center of the field, among the Duesenbergs and Packards, is what looks suspiciously like an airplane. But it's also ground transportation, heir to a rich history of flying cars. I wrote about the car after it made its maiden flight, but this is the first time I'm seeing it in the flesh. It's the Terrafugia Transition, and it's bigger than I thought.

The Terrafugia Transition car/plane in Greenwich. (Jim Motavalli photo)

At my request, the Terrafugia guy pushes a button and folds the wings up. On the road, the folded wings are vertical, which eats into visibility somewhat. But the carbon fiber car/plane is quite light (1,350 pounds), and supposedly gets 27 mpg on the road, and 30 in the air, where it cruises at 115 mph.

CEO Carl C. Dietrich tells me that one of the big selling points for this $194,000 device is that "it eliminates hangar fees -- you drive from airport to airport." Caught in bad weather? No problem: Just touch down, fold the wings and drive off. Windshield wipers are included. Some 60 people have put down $10,000 refundable deposits. The Terrafugia first flew last March, and since then the company says it has gone in the air 27 more times.

Will the Terrafugia succeed in the marketplace? I have no idea, but several others, including the fascinating Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. (the "Airphibian"), have tried and failed. Other contenders, from the late 40s to the mid-50s, have included Moulton Taylor (he built as many as five Aerocars), and Consolidated-Vultee, which made one working model.

Automotive dreams forever take wing and sometimes literally.

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Yahoo! data center will be powered by Niagara Falls

Megan Treacy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:35:00 PDT

Companies like Google and IBM are trying to lead the world in cutting-edge, efficient data centers. Not to be outdone, on Tuesday Yahoo! announced they're hoping to change to future of data centers as well. The company unveiled plans to build one of the world's most efficient data centers in Lockport, NY, and the details do sound pretty exciting.

The data center will be powered mainly by hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls, with 90 percent of that energy going towards powering the servers. The center itself will be built to resemble a chicken coop, using 100 percent outside air to cool the servers, a task which typically gobbles up 50 percent of a data center's energy supply. And the company expects the yearly PUE average to be 1.1 or better.

In addition to building this super-efficient data center, the company also committed to reducing the carbon footprint of all their data centers by 40 percent by 2014. They intend to accomplish this through using more renewable energy sources to power their data centers, implementing more efficient building designs and improving the efficiency of the servers themselves.

Another major commitment made in this announcement was that the company would cease purchasing carbon offsets and was aiming to reduce their carbon impact directly through decreasing energy consumption. We would love to hear of more companies relying less on offsets and more on energy-saving improvements.

via Yahoo! Blog

20 garden veggies that could each save you $25 or more

Dan Shapley — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:09:32 PDT

(Photo: Kitchen Gardeners Intl.)

If you shop at the grocery store for tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, salad greens, or strawberries -- and who doesn't? -- then you are the perfect candidate for becoming a kitchen gardener.

Growing your own will save you an incredible amount of money -- more than $1,200 if you plant all five, according to the analysis of one Maine gardener.

Roger Doiron, the founder of Kitchen Gardeners International (and a 2009 Heart of Green Award winner), undertook the painstaking process of determining how much his garden was worth. He weighed what he grew and compared it to the cost -- on a per pound basis -- of buying the same amount of conventional produce at the grocery store, local produce at the farmers market or organic produce at a nearby Whole Foods.

Doiron has a pretty big garden -- 1,600 square feet -- and he estimated spending $282 on seeds, supplies, a soil test, compost, and water during the year of his analysis. He grew 834 pounds of produce -- 35 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and herbs. All told, he saved between $1,914.50 (compared to conventional produce at the grocery store), $2,149.15 (compared to local produce at the farmers' market), and $2,266.93 (compared to organic produce from Whole Foods).

Try and find a better financial bet in this -- or any -- economy. His return on investment was a whopping 678% (assuming he'd have bought that much produce at a grocery store).

Will you save that much? That depends on how much you spend on planting and maintaining your garden, how successful your harvest is (Doiron's apple tree was a bust), and how much the same produce costs at your local markets. (The analysis also papers over one confounding factor: Few would purchase 72 pounds of zucchini or 47 pounds of winter squash in a year, but if you've ever had a garden you know that part of the pleasure is finding recipes to deal with the mixed blessing of high yields.) Regardless, his analysis is a good indicator that you can save a bundle with a little effort -- effort that is rewarded not only in dollars, but in flavor, nutrition, exercise, and time spent outdoors.

Here's a look at the 20 vegetables he grew that were worth $25 or more each, listed from most lucrative to least. For simplicity, we're listing only the value of the garden crop as compared to buying conventional produce at a grocery store. We've also rounded to the nearest pound and dollar. To see the comparison to farmers' market and Whole Foods prices for all 35 of Doiron's crops, and every decimal place, check out his raw data.

(Photo: Sue Wilson / Getty Images)

20 garden vegetables worth $25 or more

Crop	Pounds	Value
Tomatoes	158	$630
Potatoes	142	$211
Salad greens	26	$198
Zucchini	72	$136
Strawberries	35	$104
Onions	54	$81
Carrots	34	$68
Cucumbers	34	$68
Peas	12	$62
Nasturtiums	1	$53
Snap beans	21	$53
Winter squash	47	$46
Leeks	12	$46
Celery toot	10	$39
Eggplant	21	$38
Peaches	13	$38
Basil	4	$32
Cabbage	40	$31
Endive	6	$28
Asparagus	9	$27

Read Doiron's account of his garden accounting and find more tips and encouragement for growing your own garden at Kitchen Gardeners International.

Thanks to KGI for sharing the data and the cool money crop photo.

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Six great over-the-counter health foods

Andrea Moss — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:47:29 PDT

As a holistic health counselor, I am always trying to pre-pack my lunches or snacks when I know I’ll be on-the-go. It’s always healthier and generally cheaper than trying to find nutritious options in a local deli or grocery store.

But like most people, I’ll often find myself out and about without my pre-packed snacks by my side. And that’s when I turn to my go-to, tried-and-tested, over-the-counter health food products!

Here are some of my favorite foods that I grab when I find myself hungry and far from home:

1. Avocados: Avocados are filling, nutritious, and delicious. They have monounsaturated fat (the good kind) that actually helps lower cholesterol. And they contain beta-sitosterol, a natural substance shown to significantly lower blood cholesterol levels.

I like to halve them and spread their buttery flesh on crackers or sandwiches, chop some into my salad, or simply slice them and place on a plate with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of sea salt.

2. Trail mix: Generally available at almost any bodega, trail mix has been a life saver for me many times. Packed with protein and healthy fats, it can keep you satiated for hours. Be sure to pick up the “raw” unroasted kind with no sugar added.

3. Coconut water: When I’m craving a cool, sweet beverage and want a healthy treat, I turn to coconut water. It’s filled with potassium and electrolytes, making this drink a great choice for a post-workout pick-me-up or a morning-after hangover.

4. Canned fish: I’m obsessed with canned fish these days. Since tuna has mercury concerns (and is being over-fished in general), I now turn to canned mackerel, sardines, and wild salmon. All of those fish are delicious, eco-friendly, and packed with omega-3 fatty acids.

5. Canned beans: Cheap and chock full of tasty, plant-based protein, canned beans are one of the best easy health foods out there. Add them to salads, sprinkle some over your stir-fry, and mix them into your grains. Choose organic if available.

6. Healthy food bars: Not all food bars are created equal. In fact, most are candy bars in disguise! That being said, there are several companies producing healthy bars that are made with high-quality, real food. Look for ingredient lists that are short and pronounceable, with no added sugar. Some of my favorites: Lara Bars, Organic Food Bars, Organic Cliff Nectar, and Organic Greens Plus.

Can a solar airplane circle the globe?

Megan Treacy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:00:00 PDT

In earlier days of aviation, flying around the world was the ultimate test of pilots and new aircraft and now in the days of alternative-fueled aviation, it seems that test remains the ultimate challenge. Bertran Piccard, the pilot of the first nonstop, round-the-world balloon flight, hopes to achieve that goal in a solar-powered airplane called the Solar Impulse.

The Solar Impulse design was first unveiled in late 2007, but now a working prototype has been developed. The plane will get a chance to take its first test flight at the end of the year. The test flight will consist of flight sequences over two days and one night. If successful, the team will start preparing for the round-the-world flight.

The Impulse is made of carbon fiber, has a wingspan of 63 meters and is covered in 12,000 solar PV cells. The power generated by the solar cells is stored in over 400 kg of batteries, which allow for flying at night. The plane is propelled by four ten-horsepower electric motors. It can't reach great speeds, meaning circling the globe will take a long time, but if it accomplishes such a feat, we'll know that solar-powered air travel (as well as other types of transportation) could have a real future.

via Inhabitat

Green your desk

Kastle Waserman — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:12:25 PDT

(Photo: Diego Cosenza / Wikimedia)

You may do all the right things to green your home, but what about the place you spend 40-50 hours a week -- your desk? Whether or not your company makes efforts to be environmentally friendly, there are ways you can green your time at the office.

Drink from reusable cups. Few companies realize that Styrofoam takes 100 years to break down and plastic cups take 450 years to fall apart in landfills. Why do that when it's much more comforting to drink your hot drinks from a big friendly cup you've brought from home?

This can also be a way to express your personality, even in the most conservative office. Or have some fun with the ceramic paper cup spoofer "I Am Not a Paper Cup" that looks like paper/plastic lid coffee-to-go model. For water and cold drinks, you can't go wrong with Sigg bottles or Kleen Kanteens, available in different colors and designs.

Bring your lunch. You'll never have to guess the source of the food in your office cafeteria or surrounding eateries if you bring yours from home. You can go as vegetarian and organic as you want to be, and you'll be surprised the money you save!

Instead of using plastic throwaway utensils, eat with your own reusable cutlery like this portable set made from bamboo. Dab away crumbs off your mouth with a cloth napkin instead of reaching for a paper towel, such as the cheeky set embroidered with "I Am Not a Paper Towel."

Breathe fresh. Purify the air around you and help avoid those nasty flu bugs by putting a plant or two on your desk. The Peace Lily is one of the best oxygen-producing plants and is the perfect size for the cubicle desktop. It features full green leaves and blooms a lovely white flower.

Dress the part. No matter how casual or business-like your office is, you can make a green fashion statement with what you wear. Shop at stores that give clothes a second life -- such as consignment shops where you can find suits for half the price as new and vintage stores for some unique accent pieces. You'll save some of that hard-earned money you're making too!

And don't forget that thing you use most on your desk -- learn how to enable power save on your computer.

Coffee: A healthy brew?

Andrea Moss — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:05:33 PDT

Coffee is a hot topic among health experts and java drinkers alike. Proponents of the brew claim it’s heart-healthy because coffee beans have antioxidants, can lower your risk of diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, and help with headaches (along with a slew of other random health benefits being touted online).

But others argue that it messes with hormonal levels, increases cortisol levels (the “stress hormone” that can lead to weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes), can worsen insomnia, and let’s not forget how addictive it is!

Whatever your thoughts on coffee are, no one can argue that too much of it is a good thing. In general, I recommend keeping to one cup a day or less.

One surprising fact is that espresso is arguably better for you, more than drip coffee!

For one thing, a shot of espresso contains less caffeine than an 8 ounce cup of drip coffee (and in my opinion, it tastes a lot better, too!). A 2 ounce shot of espresso has 50 mg of caffeine, while an 8 ounce cup contains 135 mg -- almost 3 times as much.

Another health benefit over drip coffee is that a shot of espresso still contains some of the natural oils found on the bean. Since espresso is made using a quick-extraction method, it still retains a lot of oils that get broken down during the drip method. That means that it’s less acidic to your body and more easily digested.

If you’re looking to decrease your caffeine consumption, try switching to espresso and keeping it to one shot a day. And don’t forget that milk and sweeteners can bring your cup of joe down a notch in healthiness, too.

Stick to organic milk or organic dairy-free options (such as almond or soy milk) and use natural sweeteners like maple syrup, agave, and honey in place of cane sugar.

Four cancers that a vegetarian diet prevents

Dan Shapley — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:05:00 PDT

Want to avoid blood, bone marrow, bladder, and stomach cancer? (Um, yes.) Try a vegetarian diet.

A new study published by the British Journal of Cancer and detailed by the BBC said there was a clear correlation between vegetarianism and a reduced cancer risk for those four cancers. Blood and lymph cancers were half as common, bone marrow cancer was 75% less common and stomach cancer 66% less common.

Vegetarianism isn't a cure-all, though: Despite the roughage, a vegetarian diet does nothing to protect from bowel cancer, according to the study. Other interesting facts: While 33% of meat-eaters developed cancer, just 29% of those who avoid meat develop cancer.

Vegetarians who eat fish were also less likely than meat eaters, but less likely than strict vegetarians to develop cancer.

Previously, eating red and processed meats has been linked to increased stomach cancer risk -- and increased risk of death overall, and a vegetable based diet that includes less meat helped with weight loss and decreased cardiovascular disease risk (though a strictly vegetarian diet only helped people lose weight, not improve their cardiovascular health).

Eating more vegetables and other plant-based foods and less meat is also the single biggest thing we can do in the dining room to help the environment. Raising meat requires much more land, water, chemicals and time than does growing plants.

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10 ways to get more wear, and less tear, out of your clothing

Jeff Yeager — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:58:01 PDT

(Photo: manfredxy / iStockPhoto)

With the average American family of four spending almost $4,000 per year on clothing, think of the money you can save by extending the life of your clothes and hanging onto them longer.

Here are some practical ways to do just that...

1. Zip up before you wash:
Metal zippers on jeans, jackets, and other apparel items are like tiny chainsaws in the washer and dryer, ripping away at other clothes the whole time unless you zip them up first.

2. Launder less often and only in cold water:
Many of us are guilty of over-laundering our clothes, which costs time and money and is usually unnecessary. Washing and drying is often actually harder on clothing fabric than wearing it! Consider wearing apparel items more than once between laundering (if it doesn't look or smell dirty, a garment doesn't need washing yet).

Then wash most clothing in cold water; this is hygienic and fine for everyday use. More and more detergents are labeled as working well in cold wash these days. Cold water costs less, is gentler on fabrics, and will get most clothes just as clean.

3. Hold the bleach:
Bleach can cause clothing to disintegrate more quickly. If you need to brighten white clothes, try using baking soda and hot water instead. Line-drying (see below) also helps keep whites whiter.

4. It pays to get hung out to dry:
Electric- and gas-powered clothes dryers not only cost a pretty penny to own and operate, but they cook and beat the life out of your clothing too. Drying your clothes on a good old-fashioned clothesline can increase the lifespan of some garments by as much as 50 percent ... plus your clothes will smell terrific.

5. Don't let small problems become big ones:
Most rips and tears start out small, so check your clothes carefully after every washing to catch and mend snags while they're still small and easy to fix.

6. Avoid soggy shoes:
The lifespan of footwear is often cut short by the effects of moisture, even more so than by pounding the pavement. To make your shoes last longer, don't wear the same pair every day. Give each pair at least a day in between to dry out from the moisture they absorb from your body and the environment.

In humid or rainy weather, crumple up a couple of pieces of newspaper and stuff them in your shoes before you go to bed at night. By morning, the paper will have wicked-up the excess moisture. Frequently shining or sealing shoe leather helps protect it from moisture as well.

7. Remodel instead of throwing away:
Even if you're challenged when it comes to needle and thread, there are a lot of simple, fun things you can do to customize and update clothes that you're bored with or that are out of fashion.

Check out the book (from the library, of course) Sew Subversive (Taunton 2006) for some easy and creative clothes remodeling ideas. [Editor's note: Get more refashioning tips from Green Picks.]

8. Think "vintage" not "used":
We're getting rid of a lot of our threads before they're threadbare. Only a small percentage of the clothing we throw away in the U.S. is truly "worn out." Fortunately, some of those duds make an encore appearance at thrift stores, yard sales, and resale/consignment shops, where you'll usually pay only 10 or 20 cents on the dollar compared to new/retail.

Also, form a clothes swapping club with friends and family members who wear similar sizes, so that when you get tired of a garment you can pass it along to someone who will wear it.

9. Organize and store what you have:
"I forgot I even had that in my closet!" How many times have we all said that? Store off-season clothes in plastic totes and add a couple cedar blocks for extra protection.

Keep a written inventory of your clothes, and make a "progressive shopping list" of new things you'll need to buy in the near future. That way you can pick them up the next time you see them on sale.

10. Buy classics, not fads:
Build a wardrobe around just a few colors that look good on you and that combine well with one another, giving you diversity without needing to buy so many clothes. Look for classic styles, well-made garments, and durable fabrics, and don't get suckered into trendy fashions and colors that will become outdated before you even get out of the store.

When it comes to paying top dollar for the latest designer fashions, remember what billionaire Warren Buffet once said: "I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me."

Learn more about how to save money and still dress green.

Jeff Yeager is the author of the book The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches. His website is www.UltimateCheapskate.com.

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