Turning Trash Into Toys

At school we used to make rocket ships from toilet paper rolls and washing up liquid bottles. Make Do from Australia have turned this into a business and taken it one step further with their product that enables people to make fun stuff out of waste materials such as cardboard, plastic and fabric.

A Make Do “Kit for One” (US$25) consists of a reusable construction tool that cuts and perforates new or old materials safely. It also comes with 8 hinges and 30 connectors, which use a ziptag-style mechanism to fasten pieces together.

“Packaged in a recycled cardboard tube, the components are designed to last, and are made from materials that can be recycled.”

“Make Do adds value in the form of community workshops, educational resources for teachers, a newsletter/blog for inspiration and … downloadable construction plans.”

You can read about their environmental credentials here and watch a video on how it all works below:

[Via: Springwise]

Recycle Your Old Vibrator – And Get A New One Half Price

Adult retailer Love Honey has a new scheme where you can send them your old rabbit vibrator and get a new one from them at half-price.

Electrical recycling may be on the increase but whether people feel comfortable taking their sex toys to a recycling centre is another matter altogther. The Rabbit Amnesty is the perfect solution, just send it to them after filling in the online form and you’ll be able to get a new one for half price. LoveHoney also donates £1 to The World Land Trust for each vibrator that gets sent back.

Quick Recycling and Reusing Roundup

Ther have been a few stories around recently about my favourite form or being environmentally-conscious – turning old things into something new. Buying new eco-goods is a great step but I always prefer bringing something already made back to life.

A British company called Specialbike is offering customers the opportunity to turn their old, rusted and broken bike into something brand-spanking new. And if you don’t have your own bike, they do it anyway with found or bought bikes and revitalise them.
 
 

Old cast iron radiators might not be very energy efficient but a Candanian company can turn them into something better – an electric radiator. EcoRad uses 99% recycled materials in its conversion process and restores the lustre of the old radiator as well as giving it its own thermostat so you can control its heat output directly.
 

Teddylux actually changes the use of an old garment into something new – cashmere sweaters into cuddly toys. Based in Georgia, Teddylux takes sweaters from donations and uses them to make animal toys.
 
 
 
 

Boston-based Reknit turns old sweaters into something different every month – it was scarves in January and is gloves this month. You can send your own sweater in, or for a bit more money, can just ask the ‘mom’ to knit you a pair anyway. The site creator’s mom does the knitting and sister takes the photos. You can even vote for what mom should knit next month.

Finding A Place For Lost Gloves

Walking around London and to work in the winter can mean rain and wind blowing straight into your face. Looking down at the pavement is often the best way to minimise the weather’s effects. And when you look down a lot, in winter at least, you’ll notice the odd single glove that’s fallen out of the pocket of it’s owner.

I say ‘odd’ I actually notice a lot and often thought of collecting them and putting them on a website to reunite them with their owners. Well environmental group Green Thing has gone one better and launched a website called Glove Love that pairs up single gloves and sells them.

What’s unusual is that it doesn’t try and match up the gloves by colour, but only by size so you’ll get a unique pair of gloves for only £5. It gets its gloves from museums, Transport For London and other place where people leave gloves. Green Thing is asking people to send in unpartnered gloves to keep its online store stocked and profits go to Green Thing Trust, which is a registered charity.

So it’s creative, fun and environmentally friendly. Forget buying gloves in the January sales, I reckon Glove Love is the best way to do it.

Spotted via: Springwise.

Making Sportswear From Recycled Bottles

Joel wrote about how they’re making graduation gowns out of trash, well now they’re doing the same with sports gear.

‘They’ in this sense are a Virginia-based company called Atayne which is making athletic gear from trash. After an encounter with a performance shirt’s red dye covering one of the founders, the company turned itself to making sportswear from environmentally-sensitive material.

Atayne uses recycled polyester from post-consumer plastic bottles and also recycled cotton. There is even a naturally-derived odour control treatment added to the clothes.

If they perform well than why wouldn’t you buy them? They’ve reasonably priced to – take a look here.

Spotted via Springwise.

70% of Us Want an Opt-In System for Phonebook Delivery

The “us” in this case is British people who were the target of the survey. 192.com backed by environmental charity Global Action Plan have launched an e-petition to go alongside the ‘Say No To Phonebooks’ campaign to demand that the UK government give people a choice about whether we have phonebooks dumped on their doorsteps every year.

A quick 1 minute video gives some interesting stats about the production of phonebooks:

You can sign the e-petition on the Downing St website and visit www.saynotophonebooks.org.

Turning Trash Into Gas

Or “Turning Rubbish Into Petrol” for those in the UK. Recently, Coskata Inc., a leading developer of alternative bio-fuels, announced the successful start-up of its semi-commercial flex-ethanol facility.

Unlike other technologies and facilities that often rely on one primary source of feedstock, the company’s flex ethanol facility will be producing ethanol from numerous sources, including wood biomass, agricultural waste, construction waste and even household garbage. In addition, their patented microorganisms and bioreactor designs will produce ethanol for the same as, and in some cases less than, the cost of producing a gallon of gasoline. This new technology also reduces CO2 emissions up to 96 percent compared to gasoline.

Flex Fuel vehicles that can run on gas, E85 or a combination of both, are already available from Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and GMC. GM has built 5 million of these vehicles to date, watch the video below to learn more.

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