Daily Archives: January 5, 2009

Honda Accord Runs on Trash
We’ve got excited about waste gasification before, especially at news of the first US waste gasification facility. We’ve even got excited about <a href=”http://www.treehugger.com/files

Photo: Flickr

The Good Ol’ Book is Back in Vogue
When green advocates talk about product service systems (PSS), many might be left scratching their heads (if that’s you, check out the linked Wikipedia page). Yet we’re all familiar with public libraries, a great example, and when times are harder economically, people increasingly turn to these alternatives to owning stuff. Read on for more

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Labels and standards are a touchy and confusing subject. Who sets them? What do they cover? TreeHugger readers have seen companies just calling themselves green, companies inventing their own labels (like SC Johnson), Companies going to third party labels-for-hire to certify what they think is important but may not be, (Like LG Eden and SCS) Labels that cover only one aspect (like Energy Star and Greenguard), and labels that let the manufacturer submit data for cl

photo: David Silver

You may have missed it over the holidays of the past ten days but the BBC ran an interesting piece on the sort of transformation that will be required in the 21st century to feed a projected world population of 9 billion by 2050, without continuing to simply pump more chemicals into fields to replace what has been lost by intensive industrial farming. Professor Tim Lang of the UK government’s Food Council described our current agriculture syste

Photo: Lotus Evora

Lotus Electric Car in the Cards
These words were recently spoken by Lotus CEO Michael Kimberley, making us think that being a supplier to Tesla Motors inspired the company to throw its hat in the ring. The concept EV is expected for the Geneva Motor Show in March. Read on for more

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Photo via Flickr

A few weeks before we even rang in the start of 2009, I was already thinking about my New Year’s resolutions. And then I started wondering what resolutions other people were making. I heard both the usual: eat better, exercise more

and the unusual: write more thank-you notes, focus on organics, for example. And that last one got me thinking: there are so many people who are still dwelling on the fringe of greener living. What better time to take the plunge than the start

photo: Dominic Alves

With the honeymoon phase of support for first generation biofuels (those derived from food crops such as corn, soybeans, etc) pretty much over, and research into second generation fuels (cellulosic fuels and those derived from non-food crops) ramping up, you’ll have to forgive me to jumping ahead to what may one day be termed third-generation biofuels: Ones using genetically engineered microbes to produce fuel. Yale Environment

Want to keep track of what’s happening money-wise in clean tech during 2009? A new website called TheFunded.com presents a way to get insider input and reviews on what’s shaking in clean tech investing.

Background photo via Martin Kingsley

Starting with the new year, Oregon and Washington are launching e-cycling programs to help keep electronics out of landfills.

As of January 1, it is free to drop off items like computers and TVs at permanent collection sites.

Read on to see where these are located, and how to find local sites across the US.

Obviously not on an apartment building in the Bronx, but at Logan airport in Boston, this is the sort of wind turbine to be installed by Blue Sea Development. Photo: AeroVironment

Though small scale wind turbines certainly have their drawbacks compared to their larger industrial-scale cousins, especially in urban areas (as the New York Times correctly points out), they can be put to good use. Witness an affordable housing project in the