Starter For Change Kit Eco Product Review

Working on Life Goggles I get to review some cool stuff. Some mundane, but useful stuff too, and then some really cool stuff. The Starter For Change Kit is definitely the latter and was a joy to look at, review, and use.

Essentially a box containing wonders, the kit is intended to educate, motivate and activate change. Containing eight “actions” the box is stunningly created and presented, setting a precedent for other “go green kits” to match.

Coming with a booklet explaining the actions the box contains, the eight are:

Plant
This is a seedling from the Arbor Day Foundation who try to help people enjoy and celebrate plants and trees. It will be planted in my new garden soon, though the Blue Spruce I got is only suitable for zones 2 - 8. I’m in 23, hmmm….

Give
Simply a nicely wrapped pre-paid envelope addressed and stamped to four star charity, in my case Action Against Hunger.

Think
It is a little pack of Sudokou puzzles, and a recycled pencil. Puzzling in itself at first, the point is regarding Alzheimer’s disease and how studies have shown that Sudoku triggers survival genes that make brain cells live longer ans resist disease, strokes and the effect of drugs.

Be Grateful
A couple of nice thank you (or gratitude) cards. it not only makes them feel good but you too!

Switch
What else? A compact fluorescent bulb that uses on third of the energy of a standard incandescent bulb and lasts 10 times longer.

Write
A wonderful little notebook handmade using shavings from the lokta bush so no trees are cut down. Intended as a journal to help you organize your thoughts and ideas, it looks cool too.

Be Fair
A tin of organic, fair trade cocoa mix to help you relax and think about where you buy your products from.

Re Use
Probably the nicest looking tote bag I’ve got. Made from recycled materials, no two are the same, very cool.

They took great care to not only present everything nicely but make sure the contents and packaging are eco-friendly, even the tags are made from lokta paper embedded with flower seeds and can actually be planted.

They sell a few of the contents separately as well, but the kit is $40 from Starter For Change and would make a fantastic gift, so please take a look.

Quick Tip Of The Day - Is Your Fridge / Freezer Running Well?

A reader (thanks Mathew! That’s not him pictured by the way.) sent us this little story a while back that I thought might be of interest to you all:

“Today my fridge/freezer packed up. Well, actually it is my landlord’s, so I did not get the back off of it straight away. I called the support line and they said that they could get the engineer out for £100. I told my landlord and he said he would handle it. I knew what this meant - a long time with warm beer! I decided to get the back off and see what was wrong. There was a huge ‘cat size’ quantity of fluff blocking the vent that had accrued over seven years or so. I removed this et voila! Fridge/freezer sprang back into life. Within minutes everything was tickety-boo. The only downside was that the compressor was no longer muffled as much as it used to be, hence more noise in the kitchen.

Lesson learned? Pull the fridge/freezer out and remove whatever fluff there is. The machine works more efficiently thereafter, therefore saving electricity. I advise you and all of your readers to do likewise, who knows it could be warm beer for you too if you don’t take the same precautions.”

And no-one likes warm beer do they? Another couple of tips he suggested were getting rid of any ice build-ups (sounds like a job for a quiet Sunday afternoon), and also checking the seal around the door is working properly. You shouldn’t be able to slid a piece of paper between the seal and the fridge or freezer.

How To Save Energy

Whilst we have hundreds of tips throughout this site on how to save energy, CBS News in the US recently had a series of articles about saving energy. I see more and more news articles on US television about going green, the benefits of going green and especially about how it can save you money. It’s what a lot of us have been saying for years and it’s great to see it becoming more and more widespread.

Click the titles to read more details, else you can just watch the videos.

Getting Paid to Drive Green - Some Companies Offer Incentives To Buy Hybrids, Carpool, Or Be Earth-Friendly.

Learning About Emissions From Business - What Does A Fishing Tournament Have To Do With Cows? One Helped The Other Be Carbon-Neutral

Calculating Your Carbon Footprint - With Easy Online Calculators, It Can Be Simple To Trim Your Own Emissions.

Turn Off Your Gadgets Easily

Having moved to the US I am still surprised by the lack of power switches on wall sockets. When the wall sockets have power strips attached, the strips usually have a power switch, but often they’re located on the floor or behind a set of drawers.

This Energy Saver Bar has a handy foot switch for turning off the power strip without that awkward bending down or hunting around. For around $30 (€19.95) it’s available from Proidee.

[Via: OhGizmo]

Save $100 Per Year with A New Fridge

I’m not one for throwing out products you already have for more eco-friendly ones (like a guy I knew who threw out a perfectly good table to buy a recycled one as he felt it made him look better). However sometimes it can be worth it, if the products you have are harmful, or they’re very energy inefficient.

Energy efficiency is sometimes a hard thing to achieve for a eco-minded person. Is it better to throw out an old refrigerator to buy an energy efficient one? What about the energy that is used to create the new fridge, will using it make up for the amount your old one wasted?

Well now you can have help to work this out, at least in part. The US Department of Energy has a calculator so you can determine how much energy your fridge consumes, and how much energy & money you can save by opting for a new Energy Star model (Energy Star fridges must adhere to even stricter criteria starting April 28).

The calculator allows you to input how much you pay for electricity and the model of your current fridge. If you don’t know this, don’t worry you can work it out based on approx year made, size and configuration. If you have an old fridge, why not give it a try?

If everyone who purchases a new refrigerator in 2008 in the US chooses a model that meets the new ENERGY STAR criteria instead of a non-qualified model, consumers will save enough energy each year to:

• Light every household in Washington, D.C. for over 20 months.
• Power an ENERGY STAR qualified 32” high definition LCD screen television for 640,000 years of non-stop viewing.
• Launch the space shuttle into orbit 298 times.
• Equal the amount of energy generated by burning 25million gallons of gasoline.

Recycling your old fridge:

• Buys you coffee for nearly 80 days!
• Saves enough energy to light ten 13-watt ENERGY STAR qualified light bulbs, one after another, for 70 years!
• Saves enough energy this year to freeze ice cubes in a new ENERGY STAR fridge for more than 2 years.

Solio Solar Charger Product Review

The Solio H1000 is a universal charger for electronic devices that stores power, either from an electrical socket or from solar energy - a “hybrid” charger. I was sent one on loan for a 3 month trial on behalf of the manufacturers, Better Energy Systems.

As you can see I was sent a lovely orange one, but other colours are available. The Solio is dubbed a “hybrid” device because it accepts power from either a standard wall socket or the sun. Unlike standard chargers it uses no energy when plugged into a wall socket and not attached to a device (once charged of course).

It can store this energy within its internal battery for up to one year, and can be used any time for on-the-go charging of most portable electronics devices. It comes with several plug attachments, one for Nokia phones, a mini USB connection, and a female USB connector (see the photo for more details). It also comes with a USB connector to charge the Solio if you have not charged it from the sun. There is no wall socket adaptor when you buy it, this can be purchased for additional cost (probably to encourage you to use the solar panel), as well as an iPod connector, 12V car charger adaptor, Gameboy, Motorola adaptor and so on.

 

My testing with the Solio didn’t get off to a perfect start, I was unable to charge it from the sun, I had to charge it through the USB connection to my PC. I don’t know why, but leaving it in the sun initially had no effect - it did of course later on.

Despite the device being simple and having only one button and two lights (one red and one green) it was at first a little confusing to wonder what all the light flashes meant. The instruction manual is in pictures rather than words which helps transcend the language barrier but doesn’t particularly help with other aspects of its operation. After the first use though it all became clear.

The device itself comes in several colours, and as you can see from the pictures it has a clip for attaching to backpacks etc, which came in handy once on a walk and in a coffee shop when my mp3 player battery died. It’s also a great conversation piece! Talking of mp3 players, I’ve tested it on two, an iRiver S10 and a Creative Zen:M.

The iRiver charged perfectly as you can see from the picture and the video above, I just used the female USB to connect this up. The Zen did not seem to charge up (via the mini USB), however it seemed to accept this as if it was a wall socket connection, and essentially powered the Zen during operation rather than charging the battery. In a way it achieved the same goal - using the device - however in this case I had to have to Solio connected if I wanted to use the device, rather than charging it for a while and using it separately. Maybe it was just me, I’m not sure if this is usual or deliberate, but it wasn’t a problem.

Overall I think it’s a useful product, it survived a trip to Europe and back, the auto show in Detroit and once again proved handy in airports and train stations where all the sockets were taken up by laptop users. Currently you can get 10% off a Solio by visiting the Life Goggles Reviews and Shop page.

If you’ve used the Solio, or a similar device, why not leave a comment below or drop us a line and let us know your thoughts?

Green Detroit Auto Show Just For Show?

As I first mentioned in my opening post about the Detroit Auto Show, this show was greener than any before it. This is, however, in terms of the cars and technologies that were displayed, not the show itself.

Whilst any show uses a huge amount of energy (even green trade shows!), the Auto Show was no exception. Huge plasma screens, projector screens, light shows, and enormous lighting rigs (see below) made the energy consumption seem off the chart. If it’s true that one evening major sports game uses the same amount of energy as a house uses in 60 years, then this show must use more in a day than does a town in 60 years.

Not only that, which in some ways is always going to be a result of a Auto Show (or most other shows), but there were no recycling facilities anywhere. None. Not one to be seen anywhere I looked and asked. Coupled with the huge amount of printed press material that was handed out (and often thrown away) and the empty water bottles, there was a huge opportunity to do something as simple as collect recycling. I ended up taking things back to the hotel (where they did recycle) as it began to frustrate me so much.

Finally, Chrysler launched their new Dodge Ram by staging a cattle drive down the street outside the show. It was very impressive (though cold), until I realised the cattle had been flown in especially for the event. Well, at least their waste could be used by GM to make ethanol….

My next post will be about the efforts car companies are going to to appeal to environmentally aware customers and the alternative fuel vehicle market.

Next Page »