I don’t have much to say about this, except that if I was a girl, I would be wearing one all the time.

Triumph International Japan has finally done it; our world’s environmental problems are as good as solved now, for they have done the un-possible — invented a solar powered bra. I haven’t seen a “green” invention this innovative since the new milk jug design came out and confused some people.

The bra is green (in color and philosophy), and has a solar panel attached to it that can be worn around the stomach. It generates enough energy to charge small electronics, like a mobile cellular phone or mp3 player or what have you.

Not only does this bra collect solar power, but it also has plastic pouches that can be filled with water in case you get thirsty. So I guess it might save some water bottles?

But alas, this ingenious invention has some downsides. It can get messed up if it rains on the solar panel, and also, it doesn’t work if it’s covered up with actual clothes. To me, it looks like someone just glued a flexible solar panel to a tanktop. We will be closely monitoring Triumph International’s continuing work on this creation…

Way back in the day, I wrote something about how to stop getting phone books. Welp, it turns out that what I wrote only works for some people. But what to do about the hundreds of millions of unwanted phone books that are made, delivered, and immediately recycled (or thrown away) each year?

It turns out that a student in Missouri started a website with the aim of mimicking the Do Not Call list, only instead of Do Not Call, it’d be Do Not Deliver Phonebooks. So if you want to help save energy, time, trees, and cut down on unwanted phone books, just

SIGN UP ON THIS SITE.

If you don’t think that phone books are all that bad, then por favor consider these “fun facts,” brought to you by YellowPagesGoesGreen:

To produce 500 million books [annually]:

* 19 million trees need to be harvested
* 1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
* 7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
* 268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
* 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered

Gadzooks, that’s a lot o’ resources! Do your part to help out good ol’ Mother Earth (and yourself), and sign up to stop getting unwanted phone books today.

Gracias to Tony for telling me about this site.

FREE CALCULATOR CONTEST! IT’S WORTH IT, TRUST ME.
Way back in the day, I remember my mom would sometimes make homemade strawberry jam. We would spread it on our week-old bread, crying with happiness as the sweet fruit preserves covered up the normal moldy taste of our bread. An added bonus is that when it’s homemade strawberry jam, you can use organic, local strawberries and also reuse some old glass jars, instead of getting strawberries from who-knows-where and a brand new glass jar.

After much Internet (and soul) searching, I decided to share this secret homemade strawberry jam recipe. Unlike my recipe for homemade protein bars, this actually requires using the stove, so get an adult’s supervision!!!!!

Get a Glass Jar

READ MORE »

Dag, I haven’t updated this site in TOO long. I’ve been busy as heck at work, plus at home. Anyhoo, let’s get down to business.

Econo-Chem makes a very cheap (pennies a bottle), all-purpose, eco-friendly cleaning product. Part of their secret is that they sell you the cleaner in concentrated form, so it weighs less (lower transportation costs and less air pollution) and so you can dilute it to the strength you need. Let’s hear what Econo-Chem has to say about Econo-Clean, shall we?

Econo-Clean contains no phosphates, bleaching agents, acids or solvents. It works on a sodium-based lifting agent, which gets into the pores of a material, to lift and remove anything which is not permanently bonded.

To get the free sample, SIMPLY CLICK YOUR MOUSE BUTTON ROTCH HUR and answer some quick questions. Make sure you say that you’ll consider buying their product, and that you already have an empty spray bottle.

When you’re done, you’ll be the proud owner of some good ol’ Econo-Clean.

Warning: Boring technical non-green mess
I learned an important lesson last night.  I’d been putting off upgrading WordPress for a few weeks, since I worried about losing all the articles and pictures I’ve ever put on this here site.  But finally, last night I bit the bullet and began the arduous task of backing up the database and upgrading all this mess.  By an amazing coincidence, I chose the absolute wrong time to do this, and learned this lesson…

Check Your Host’s Status

I started at about midnight, so by one o’ clock I had backed up the good ol’ database and deleted some important parts of WordPress.  I was just beginning to put in the new WordPress mess, when everything stopped.  So’s I head over to check Dreamhost’s status, and what do you know, everything is gonna be down for the next couple of hours. Whups.

So at that point there was nothing to do but wait ’til today to fix it. Luckily, it looks like everything is shipshape.  Next time, I will make sure to check if my host’s service will be going down right in the middle of upgrading WordPress.

Good ol’ Wal-Mart and Costco have started using a new design for their milk jugs, and I think they’ve come up with a real winner. The new design has a whole mess of environmental and cost advantages compared to the milk jug design that you’re probably used to, but there are some people that jes’ plain don’t care for it. Here’s a brief summary of its pros and cons.

New Milk Jug Design Pros

• Less shipping materials – The old jugs had to be packaged with heavy shipping crates. The new ones can be stacked with just a layer of cardboard between them.
• More efficient transport – Less shipping materials means more milk jugs can be transported in each truck, so companies save money on gas and cut down on air pollution.
• Shipping labor cut in half
• Water usage cut by 60-70% – The old shipping crates had to be sprayed off after each run, since milk would spill on them and birds would roost in them
• Lower milk cost! – “Sam’s Club said [there] was a savings of 10 to 20 cents a gallon compared with old jugs.“
• The new milk jugs fit better in your fridge.

The Bad Side of New Milk Jug Design

Amy Wise, a homemaker in Ohio, said the new-fangled gallon jug spilled milk everywhere. Judging from the picture, I’d say her main problem is that she’s trying to pour the milk into an imaginary cup in her left hand. No wonder she looks frustrated.

Many people say the new milk jugs are harder to pour. But I think with more practice, people will get used to them quickly. With all the benefits (less pollution, cheaper milk, easier transportation, and more efficient use o’ materials), methinks that the new milk jug may be here to stay.

* The bodacious picture of Amy Wise was taken by David Maxwell of The New York Times.

 
UPS has 93,637 vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, and tractor-trailers) that drive over 2 billion miles a year, so they have had a lot of practice in finding ways to save gas, save money, and reduce air pollution.  Here are three of Brown’s gas saving tips for any of y’all driving this holiday weekend.

1.  Avoid left turns – UPS plans its routes to minimize left turns.  This reduces gas usage because left turns generally mean you car has to sit and idle while waiting to turn.  This helped UPS save $12 million last year!
2. Reduce idling – I did not know this, but UPS has a “no idling” policy, so no matter how short of a stop a UPS driver makes, they turn off their engine.  This reduces idling time by 24 minutes per driver a day, which saves them $188 per driver per year!
3. Plan your route – UPS plans out its routes to be as efficient and direct as possible.  Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

If you can’t read that good, here are some gas saving tips from UPS… IN VIDEO FORM.