The Problem: America has a ravenous appetite for comfy toilet paper. The softer, the better. But whats good for the tush isnt good for the environment soft toilet paper doesnt contain any recycled material and is often made from old-growth forests.
The Solution: Europeans use toilet paper with a greater proportion of recycled fiber. But for the true eco-warrior, theres an even more environmentally friendly solution reusable toilet wipes. Made of cloth, reusable wipes offer all the comfort of the triple-ply, ultra-quilted toilet paper roll with none of the nasty tree-killing consequences. Instead, theres only the little matter of storing and washing dozens of waste-covered pieces of cloth. Every week. Its a tough sell, but one manufacturer promises they dont stink and sells wet bags to contain the dirty wipes.
Eco Craziness: 5/5. The cloth wipes are even sold in funky and fun combinations. Were willing to bet theyre funky, especially after a week in the wet bag. Fun Not so much.
Pig urine plates
The Problem: Many disposable plates and utensils are plastic, which is produced with fossil fuels and does not decompose easily.
The Solution: Produce them from pig urine, of course. A Denmark company called Agroplast can take urea compounds a key component of urine and use it to produce bioplastics that can be made into biodegradable plates and utensils. Other companies use less cringe-inducing starters like vegetable oil, but the Dutch company says pig urine, fraught with health hazards and high disposal costs unless processed, is a better environmental solution.
Eco Craziness: 5/5. Theres no surer way to make your next dinner party your last.
Urine batteries
The Problems: Batteries are difficult to dispose of and contain harmful heavy-metal compounds that may leach into the soil.
The Solution: Again with the urine. This time, at least its your own. Scientists in Singapore have figured out a way to harness human urine to create a chemical reaction that powers a rudimentary battery. Add a drop of pee to an assembly of copper chloride, magnesium and copper, and voila it produces as much power as a AA battery.
Eco Craziness：2/5. Human urine is certainly not in short supply, and this could eventually lead to cheap, ultra-portable medical tests ready at a moments notice as long as youre properly hydrated.
The Greenest Convention Ever
The Problem: Political conventions are a spectacle, and spectacles dont exactly lend themselves to environmental consciousness.
The Solution: Democrats promised their 2008 convention in Denver would be the greenest convention in history. Sponsors encouraged attendees to offset their convention travel with carbon credits, while meals were made of locally-grown ingredients, reducing the environmental impact. Denvers Pepsi Center also staffed the convention floor with nearly 950 volunteers to make sure attendees tossed their trash and recyclables responsibly. Less effective, however were the wooden keycards, that replaced the standard hotel-issue plastic cards, and which reportedly splintered easily; or the billboard near Denver that reportedly asked the public to save water by wearing their underwear for four days in a row: forwards one day, backwards the next, then inside out for two more.
Eco Craziness: 4/5. When it comes to underwear, change is something we ALL can believe in.
Doing the electric slide 蹦迪也环保
The Problem: All the flashing strobes and pounding speakers at your favorite dance club are massive consumers of electrical power.
The Solution: Harness the energy on the dance floor. Bar Surya in London re-outfitted its floor with springs that, when compressed by dancers, produce electrical current that is stored in batteries and used to offset some of the clubs electrical burden. The clubs owner, Andrew Charalambous, said the dance floor can power 60 percent of the clubs energy needs.
Eco Craziness: 1/5. Innovation and creativity earn this dance club a different kind of rave.
Resomation
The Problem: So much for dust to dust the modern American way of death isnt very environmentally friendly. A casket and embalming is clearly out the body, stuffed full of chemicals, will linger for years. You may as well forget ashes to ashes, too: cremation creates a mournfully large carbon footprint. Whats a felled eco-warrior to do
The Solution: Submerge the body in alkali and water. Add pressure and heat. Let simmer until liquefaction. The process, called resomation, reduces the body to a fluid of biological compounds and remnant calcium from the bones. The fluid can be used as a fertilizer and the calcium discarded without environmental harm, or even put in an urn like ashes. Practitioners say the process is energy efficient, with limited carbon emissions and no harmful mercury use like burial or cremation. Heaven for the eco-conscious.
Eco Craziness: 2/5. It may never catch on with the general public, but theres no more better way for an environmentalist to go out than in an eco-conscious ooze of glory.
Bra power 文胸的环保功用
The Problem: Apparently, the world has overlooked the bra as an environmental savior.
The Solution: Designers have come up with two separate proposals to harness the power of the common brassiere. The first, a Japanese proposal, is designed to cut down on the amount of chopstick waste in a country partial to the utensil. Triumph Japan has produced a bra built with a chopstick pocket. An added perk: the company says the chopsticks will help support the breasts and will accentuate cleavage.
The second proposal, dreamed up by San Francisco writer Adrienne So, would use the breasts themselves as a power source. The idea is apparently feasible: a bra made of fabric interwoven with tiny wires can produce electricity from the bosoms natural bouncing motion throughout the day, enough to power a cell phone or an iPod. The larger the cup size, the more energy produced.
Eco Craziness: 3/5. While the concepts are doable, neither bra will be for sale anytime soon. The eco-friendly bra will remain a figment of lonely engineers imaginations for a while yet.
