The design is a rough map of the city’s neighbourhood as distinguished by “air boundaries”.
The data is collected from 27 air monitoring stations; every 15 minutes the map lights up in order of highest to lowest air quality. [Living Light via bldgblog]

Toyota, whose Prius is easy on the environment to drive but horrible on it to make, has engineered a new type of flower to help shoulder some of the damage their factories are spitting out.

The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).

Well, holy shit. That is pretty insane. [Drive via Treehugger]

Lame jokes aside, TerraCycle actually has a decent little business plan going on. Put simply, they recycle the world’s garbage into electronics, bags and other knick knacks, and sell them on the cheap.

These Frito-Lay Cheeto speakers, for example, sell at Radio Shack for $US20. They won’t melt your face, but I can see them finding a comfortable home on the desk of some undergrad. [TerraCycle CNET]

Former Microsoft Tech chief Nathan Myhrvold wants to dim the sun’s rays with liquid sulphur pumped from helium-filled balloons. But it’s not like he is sitting behind a desk, tapping his fingers together muttering “excellent” or anything.

In fact, the idea is intended to save the planet from the scourge of global warming. The “Stratoshield”, as he calls it, would spray what some would consider an environmentally acceptable amount of liquid sulphur into the air through a 24km long hose attached to a helium-filled balloon. Apparently, the sulphur would dim the sun’s rays, effectively cooling the earth in an emergency situation. Yes, it sounds crazy (much like the hurricane defence system he proposed with Bill Gates) but keep in mind that when filthy rich captains of industry have kooky ideas, lots of other people take them seriously. [TechFlash]

Why rabbits? The fuzzy critters have actually become a bit of a pest in Sweden; wild and stray pet rabbits alike have ravaged city parks in Stockholm, forcing hunters to think out the population. With all those bunny bodies piling up, it makes sense to put them to good use. So the bodies are shipped to Konvex, a company that turns animal and vegetable oils into automotive and heating oils. But even the reproductively prolific rabbits don’t provide sufficient power, so Stockholm supplements their bunny-based power with other animal corpses, including cats and horses.

Holy shit. Macabre? Yes. But also strangely sensible? Yes. I don’t know what to think anymore. [Scientific American via io9]

The ranking methodology utilised by Greenpeace and Newsweek are radically different; the Newsweek rankings are based on a holistic view of the companies including greenhouse emissions, water consumption and supply chain management. Greenpeace, however, analyses more focused benchmarks like the use of toxic chemicals.

Greenpeace’s biggest knock on HP is its continued polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardant (BFR) usage despite a commitment to discontinue their utilisation, and while Newsweek recognises their continued use, they give HP credit due to progressively diminished usage.

HP got especially high marks for its Green Policy and Performance from Newsweek, issues Greenpeace did not consider. While Newsweek’s ranking system is more comprehensive, there is good reason Greenpeace looks specifically at PVC and BFRs. Dioxin, an organic compound produced as a byproduct of PVC production, has been implicated in a broad range of health problems from acne to sarcoma.

Both rankings have valid rationales to justify their methodologies, HP most likely belongs somewhere in between #1 and #14. [Newsweek and Greenpeace]

Thanks Prof. Singaram for helping me work through organic chemistry.

He apparently laments all the trees and time that’s been killed by people having to type and print out “http://” instead of just “http:” and whatever the address is. I’m pretty sure, though, that typing out all those slashes isn’t quite the biggest waste of time on the internet, so I hope he doesn’t beat himself up too badly at night. [Bits]

The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells.

Dow is using CIGS cells that operate at higher than 10 percent efficiency, below the efficiencies for the top polysilicon cells — but would cost 10 to 15 percent less on a per watt basis.

As you can see, the panels look like standard asphalt shingles — and they can be installed without any specialised knowledge. In fact, they only take about 10 hours to install on average compared to the 22-30 hours for traditional panels. Since a basic roofer could handle the job in a short amount of time, installation costs should be more manageable. Plus, Dow claims that their Powerhouse will be 30-40% cheaper than other solar shingle designs.

This could finally be the innovation that gets homeowners on the solar bandwagon. It’s still not cheap of course, but the energy savings, boost in home values and government incentive programs might make the upgrades worth it. [Reuters via Treehugger via DVICE]

Supposedly, the ecoATM went live in the US on Friday, in an Omaha furniture store, of all places.

The process is pretty simple. The mobile phone is placed in the ecoATM, scanners judge how terrible you were to your phone over the years, and then you are presented with a quote that can be used as store credit or cash. Mobile phone beat up beyond repair? That’s OK too: ecoATM cheerfully informs you that the phone will be recycled and that a tree will be planted in your name.

More ecoATMs are slated to appear in other stores over the next few months. Might we suggest a store that happens to specialise in electronics? [CrunchGear]

This dishwasher concept from De Dietrich uses cavitation to clean your dishes. In layman’s terms that means tiny bubbles strike your dinnerware and scrub the surfaces clean. The process cuts out much of the water and energy waste associated with traditional dishwashers.

Sadly, this dishwasher can’t be used to steam a salmon, which, on second thought, may be a good thing. [De Dietrich via Appliancist via DVICE]