Daily Archives: January 10, 2009

image via the Clayton i-house blog

When Warren Buffet bought Clayton Homes in 2003 I was still working in the prefab biz; Punching well above my weight, I sent him an email about the business case for a mobile home manufacturer doing well designed green housing. I don’t know if he got it; I never got an answer. While I was munching on my response to Preston’s post on Clayton’s new i-house, Brian posted about it on TreeHugger here; I will try and add some impressions about its implic

Photo via ohiobarns.com

Coca-Cola debuted a new compostable fountain drink cup last week at the University of Washington. A step in the right direction, correct? Well, sort of—while this seems to be the sort of progressive, environmentally sound sort of initiative that should be applauded, a closer look seems to reveal an opportunistic PR stunt, leading me to say, Big Woop. Here’s why

.

Photo via Future Feeder

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived—when we can finally do all of our writing exclusively on elephant feces. This is no joke—there’s a new line of eco-paper available, and for once, the term’s not an oxymoron. It’s from the Sri-Lankan based company Mr. Ellie Pooh, and yes, the paper really is made out of elephant poop. Even more amazing than the fact that <a href=”http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/02/wip_elep

Photos via Jetson Green

Okay, so no such deal exists, explicitly. Do not contact Apple regarding said offer. However, the prospect is very real: Clayton homes is reportedly about to start marketing its manufactured home the i-House (named because of its shape, not its affiliation with Apple) for a scant 100,000 dollars, according to Jetson Green. And with some current iPods retailing at $400, well, you do the math. Even better, the homes are slated to come with a slew of green feat

Photo via Kravciuk.com

Between all the clumsy ash spills due to corporate oversight and the midnight rulemaking by the exiting administration, it seemed the tide of bad news for the American wilderness was never going to relent. (Bush’s two head-scratching aqu

Image credit:Goodwill store in Los Angeles, Mark Boster /Los Angeles Times

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), under pressure to lessen childhood exposure to lead in toys and clothing, has set a deadline of early February 2009. That’s the date by which retailers and thrift stores must either test items likely to contain lead and take them off the shelf – most likely destined for the landfill – or assume the items have lead, and ‘remove’ them. There is talk of offering an exemption for clothing made of natural fibers; but, several critical environmental and safety issues are no

In the spirit of second chances, I stopped by Motorola’s booth to check out the Renew mobile phone and see if it might be worth a few kinder words than I gave it before.

This little renewably powered radio caught my eye. Called the Voyager, it’s a cool device for emergencies, and uses both hand crank and solar for charging.

Read on for features

.

If someone with no experience in the greener side of life were to stumble upon the Sustainable Planet zone for CES 2009, they would think that sustainable means solar powered junk, and very little else.

We’ve talked about the Smart Strip quite a bit before – the power strip that can put an end to vampire power. Mainly it’s used for cutting power to slave devices when one main device, like a computer, is shut off.

But there’s a new strip on its way out that can cut power to chargers once gadget batteries are full

.