Change, change, almost every day we’re delivering new changes happened in the world. Today’s news comes from Japan, where scientists from Toray Industries have developed samples of the world’s first renewable, bio-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber, which is what polyester is made of. The new creation is durable, coming with all good features as common polyester does while is better and safer to the environment since it is constructed of renewable material.

Designer: Toray Industries

Based on their observations and researches of carol, scientists from Stanford University have developed a new technology to produce cement by mimicking carol’s action of taking in minerals and CO2 to build its hard exoskeleton. Therefore, during the construction process of the new cement, the material actually absorbs CO2 and dissolves it instead of releasing CO2 as common cements do, so as to benefit to the environments. The new cement is durable too, strong enough to last for a long time.

Designer: Brent Constanz

Though claimed “zero waste” or “no waste”, these earthCell batteries actually are not something decomposing completely in the earth and leaving no footprint to the environment. Instead, they’re introducing to us a new way of selling and using batteries: since the used earthCell batteries can be returned to the company where they may get re-used again, the company and consumers would cooperate to reduce the amount of throw-away batteries, and thus to ensure the environmental friendliness. On the other hand, the earthCell features a good performance of rechargeable, as each pre-charged LSD-NiMH battery can last 30-50% longer than alkalines, even in high-power devices.

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With the Christmas Day coming nearer, what’s now popular on the internet isn’t this year’s Christmas tree however, but next year’s Eiffel Tower Tree instead. From June, 2012, about 6,00,000 plants will cover the Eiffel Tower, costing an astonishing £65 million. If the plan goes smoothly, quite soon we’ll see the world’s tallest tree in Paris, which is also expected to absorb more greenhouse gases at that time.

How are we going to live the future? According to Philips, in the next few years we should be using wall-mounted vats of bioluminescent bacteria as night light. That sounds bit of weird? Not exactly. Good news is that you don’t need to pay for the electricity bills any more, but instead you have to feed the bacteria with some household waste (which has been digested by other bacteria to form methane gas) so that the bacteria will provide soft green light at night.

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Italy’s largest producer of brushes “Venice” now brings us with its biodegradable brushes and combs made from cellulose acetate that is derived from cotton. Free of dyes, these new brushes appear in a slightly milky transparency, making it nice and comfortable to see.  Moreover, the brushes and combs are durable too, featuring a good ability to server you for a long time.

Designer: Acca Kappa

Selling Price: $7-$40

We’re used to walking in cities every day, but have you ever realized that each step you make can produce electricity? The Pavegen Tiles are especially designed for streets, schools, squares that are full of people. The technology can convert the kinetic energy of your steps into electricity and then use it in a variety of applications, such as to power street lamps up, to keep advertisement lamp boxes on, etc. Currently the Pavegen Tiles have been built in some schools, and we hope it would soon appear in many other places of our cities.

Designer: Pavegen Systems

Green Mailbox is a wall-mounted mailbox that features a special roof to collect water and irrigate plants automatically. It is a really simple idea but indeed fantastic for those who cares about the environment.

Designer: Marcial Ahsayane

Nature is where we get most things used in daily life, and thus they’re expected to go back to the nature world once they’re not in use. The “To Be Nature Wood Chopstick” is just a good example that turns the waste into valuable things again. When you’re done with the chopsticks, stick its starch end into the ground, and a seed will come out to grow into a green plant gradually. Don’t believe that? Wait for the concept to turn into real product and you can then try it.

Designer: Gyeongwan Koo (Oliver)

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Dogs are naughty boys and girls. They run everywhere, rest everywhere and leave their feces everywhere. Thus we constantly see people pick up bags of poop and then discard them in the bin. So they never realized that the poop can be burned into ash instantly, without leaving any footprint to environment? Well, they should try to end up the trash with this AshPoopie Pet Waste Picker-Upper.

Created by scientist Oded Shoseyov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the device is built with a poop scooper on the bottom to pick up dog’s feces, and also a patented incineration facility to burn dog shit into ash.

More Information Here

Japanese-based TOTO is possibly the first toilet manufacturer that keeps their product on the move. Its main aim is to promote TOTO’s environmental efforts, by converting human waste into bio-gas fuel. Another good thing about this Toilet Motorcycle is, the TOTO toilet can play music or even communicate with the users. Though the idea is quite amazing, it is bit of crazy to take a toilet everywhere…

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Always eco-friendly. Being nice and kind to our earth is not merely the duty of everybody living there but also an important theme of modern designs. This Ready-to-Wear-Away Dress is made of kraft paper while feels soft and comfortable. Moreover, each dress comes with its secret. Due to your body heat and natural wear, the out skin of the dress will disintegrate to reveal a layer with hand-written quotes on it. So cool.

Designer: Sylvia Heisel

Solar Roadways will soon develop solar parking lots for testing, but their real dream is to build a road system with 12-foot-by-12-foot solar panels rather than traditional asphalt. The panels are embedded with LED lights that displays warnings to drivers, illuminates lanes in dark, and moreover with heating system to prevent snow and ice building up on the road. Of course there’re some problems and troubles, but to build a solar road system is still an awesome idea that makes us dream of a glorious future.

Congratulation that Jake Tyler has found cardboard’s new function and made a vacuum cleaner with the material. As most parts of this vacuum cleaner are finished with cardboard, it is quite convenient for the users to change its components with new ones. Besides, the device is coated with anti-fire material so that it is safe and durable for use.

Designer: Jake Tyler

Jon Salerno’s Habitat Micro Home provides a clever and practical way to expand the area of your living space. It uses a small car docked underneath a 100 square feet house to act as an extra room so that the total reconfigurable space inside the Habitat Micro Home would reach 132 square feet.

Moreover, with adjustable solar panels on the house’s roof, the Habitat Micro Home can produce and store electricity energy for daily use.

Designer: Jon Salerno

Buildings in Moscow used to have a long distance from others so you may easily find large space between offices if you’re wandering in that city. But such space between buildings would not exist too long after Za Bor Architects come up with the Parasite office concept. To be finalized in the future, the office building will be built between two buildings without a base on the ground. It is so interesting. More surprising is the office building will have three floors with an accessible roof area as well. Will that be safe enough? No certain answer is offered by now so we may need to wait to see.

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Designer: Za Bor Architects

Surprised, ordinary sugar can be used as a sustainable resource to make lamps? But of course you may need other materials when to make a Crystallized Sugar LED Lamp as that of Won Joon Lee’s.

After experimenting with sugar by burning, melting, freezing, Won Joon Lee finally created light-diffracting sugar crystals when he placed LEDs into concentrated sugar water. The unique sugar crystal lamp seems quite beautifully designed, giving out soft light to decorate your rooms. Besides, its modular design also allows the users to freely change its shape according to their different needs.

Designer: Won Joon Lee

Nordisk Cryobank is one of Europe’s leading sperm banks, and recently they’ve caught more attention than before for their CO2-friendly way to deliver their sperm samples using a bike- a custom designed bike that looks like a huge sperm!

It features a really big head, which is a cooler compartment to store sperm donations and keep them cold. Apart from its function as a CO2-friendly vehicle, the bike is also part of an awareness campaign that calls for sperm donation to help childless couples.

Designer: Nordisk Cryobank

Via: Copenhagenize

Disposable wooden chopsticks, although deemed to have destroyed a vast amount of trees, are still in great need nowadays. But fortunately we may have the hope to see our forests saved with Chung Ran Hee’s Re-Paper Chopsticks.

They’re made of recycled paper and glue, making them both user-friendly and eco-friendly. They’re smart enough for easy transportation, and you simply need to tear them down the middle and fold them if you need a pair of chopsticks.

Designer: Chung Ran Hee

Chew Leg Cover is something that can entertain both your dogs and your furniture. It is made of natural rubber, therefore safe enough for your dogs to bite and you needn’t worry about their teeth. Meanwhile, these gadgets would protect your tables and chairs and as a result ensure them always fine legs. Available in creme, fuchsia, purple, brown and turquoise.

Selling Price: 25Euro

Buy it here

Cellphone covers especially designed for iPhone 4 surely need to have their unique characteristics, and these ones are announced to be “the world’s first and only printed iPhone 4 covers made of plants”. Therefore they’re totally friendly, to both the users and the environment.

Selling Price: $34.95

Buy it here

Let’s start a green journey—never using any kinds of fuel, but simply relying on wind power. Sounds incredible? Not necessarily, because Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer have already completed a 5,000km journey with their electric vehicle powered by wind. They built their car with both electricity-generating wind turbines and a kite, which produced enough electricity power for use during their 18-day trip.

Designer: Dirk Gion & Stefan Simmerer

More Information Here

Can you believe this, these OAT shoes will biodegrade and sprout trees after you throw them away? If that could become a reality, our shoes would indeed leave no marks to the environment. Additionally, these shoes are packed with tree seed in the lining so that they can become trees when buried in the garden. Sounds really interesting, and there is only one question: will these shoes sprout too when they’re still worn on our feet?

Designer: OAT

Obviously a bridge could do more things than we would ever think of. According to Italian designers Francesco Colarossi, Giovanna Saracino and Luisa Saracino, a bridge is expected to offer electricity energy while still ensuring a convenient transportation.

It was said that the new bridge will generate 40 million kWh per year, by harnessing solar energy and wind energy. And all the generated energy is believed sufficient to power 15,000 homes. Isn’t that amazing?

Designer: Francesco Colarossi, Giovanna Saracino & Luisa Saracino

Waste Folder is a recyclable bin that you can take everywhere, as it usually keeps in a compact size as that of a notebook. But simply unfold it and then you can get a six-compartment garbage suited for any situations.

Designer: Akarchitectes

About 2000 years ago, the great mathematician Archimedes concluded that anything shaped to displace the same amount of water as that of its weight can float on the water. Inspired by that principle, Muzaffer Kocer and Ayca Guven have collaborated with the Water Scale, a measuring device that can read out the weight of the object placed onto the scale plate. It can weigh anything within 1000grams, and it doesn’t cost any energy or result in any pollution- really a green device for household use.

Designer: Muzaffer Kocer & Ayca Guven

It is reported that every year about 1.3 billion trees worldwide are used to make various types of paper products and nearly every minute a forest that has the size of a football field is destroyed. So what should we do to protect the trees? Recently a designer Sangbyum Kim has created these Melt Tags to take the place of common paper tags on clothes. It will disappear in water, and more importantly the tag can clean your new clothes too.

Designer: Sangbyum Kim

Creature Industry’s Soft Gang is a new series of toys that would satisfy both the kids and their parents. It is made of light foam, ensuring the kids safe while playing; it also features eco-friendly leatherette, which is easy to for moms to clean and wash. Plus, these toys are multifunctional and you can easily shift them between an animal, a storage device and a sleeping bag.

Designer: Creature Industry

We can use potatoes to make various dishes, but what about using them to make a rain poncho? The results seem still good. This biodegradable rain poncho here is rightly manufactured with bioplastic derived from over 20 varieties of French potatoes. As a result, it not only protects you users from rain, but also protects the world from pollution. So it is really an eco-friendly design, do you love it too?

Selling Price: 15Euro

Buy it here

The disposable BBQ is a clever alternative to aluminum trays and forks. All its components are combustible, minimizing the operation time and saving your energy. It is also chemical free, leaving no footprints to the environment. So when finished with the picnic, you can simply throw the devices into the fire and therefore to lighten your bags.

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Since people in Africa and southern Asia have to walk a long way to get clean water, we may also need to do some hard work before using water so that everybody would truly realize the importance of saving water.

Honestly the Furoshiki Bag 2 is neither a promotion nor a new design, but it does bring back the good tradition of using original cloth bag to carry things. Reusable and eco-friendly, these bags can also keep your things neatly for convenient packing.

Selling Price: $51

Buy it here

With such interesting leaf shirts on, can we humans become Adam and Eve again and then live in a new Garden of Eden? But that’s just what I thought as I saw these shirts. And designer Dave Rittinger actually aimed to embrace ecological consciousness with these “zero footprint shirts”. So do you have in mind? Share them with us.

Designer: Dave Rittinger

We’ll never suggest you go to a restaurant that is constructed from bamboo for dinner, because no buildings would be much solider and safer than one that is made from concrete. But the Indonesian Bamboo Restaurant is so extraordinary that we would really like you to have a try. Designed by DSA+s, the restaurant is mainly made from bamboo and coupled together with ijuk, which is a rope made from sugar palm fiber. Concrete is also used for  the stair, patio, and house base.

Everybody views the same thing from different angles and product designer Ilvy Jacobs has used unique materials such as crumpled paper and tyvek to create several bags that she believed the most perfect.

Designer: Ilvy Jacobs

Have you ever realized how much biomass energy you’re wasting when throwing rubbish away? Let the trash bag designed by Ahhaproject tell you something: a full bag of rubbish is sufficient enough to boil 100 cups of tea, recharge cellphones 300 times or drive your car 16 miles. You see, even the trash can still do so many things, isn’t that amazing? Something more amazing is that these new trash bags can not only visualize the amount of energy contained, but leave no prints to the environment as they’re completely biodegradable PLA material.

Designer: Ahhaproject

Apparently Geneva-based Altanus has resulted in a world-wide revolution of timepieces after they announced to own the world’s first biodegradable paper watch “Patch”. Available in 10 neon colors, the Patch features a simple LED ticker and it is degradable in nature, therefore leaving little prints to the environment when the timepiece is no longer needed.

More Information Here

This time we’ll firstly tell you that this is something made of black rubber and then it’s your turn to tell us what the item is used for?

It is in fact a stool, crafter from recycled rubber and comes in a flat knock-down state for the users to assemble by themselves: simply twist off the legs and lock them into place and then you’ll have a new stool!

Designer: Satoshi Itasaka

Will human’s living environment get improved in the future if we build more and more gardens on the buses?! Designed by Marco Castro Cosio, these roof gardens are expected to absorb exhaust gas as the buses move around the city. Whatever the results may follow, we still think that’s  a good try and welcome more and more cities adopting such Green Roofed Buses.

Designer: Marco Castro Cosio

You’ll never pick up any clean clothes from washing machines unless you take exercise. That’s what we may have to face when China based electronics company Haier launches its Pedal-Powered Washing Machines in the future. Shown at IFA 2010, the eco machine is really simple but practical: the charging battery will power the machine to wash clothes when a man pedals on the exercise bike. And you don’t have to spare too much time, as basically 20 minutes of work can wash one load of clothes on cold cycle. Since the human-powered washing machine would save your money and keep your figure, will it be taken back to your home?

Though flax fiber is widely used for suits, have you ever thought of making a bike with the same material? Actually, the world’s first bike has already won EuroBike Gold Award. Built from biodegradable flax fibers, the bike is durable and lightweight, and it performs well at absorbing and dampening road vibrations. It’s also built with a battery-free lighting system that is powered by a dynamo in the front hub, making it a stylish and eco ride.

More Information Here

Though what you’ve seen from the Seesaw Faucet is mainly fun elements and a distinctive design, Chanhee Han actually cares more about the environment and water energy. As the faucet acts up and down to dispense water from the left side and soap from the right, you’ll no longer have the water keep running when you’re using the soap. In other words, the Seesaw Faucet offers either water or soap at one time, but never both two.

Designer: Chanhee Han

No one needs water so much as the fish which would lose their lives without water. So we people are asked to save water for fish. Designed by Yan Lu, the “Poor Little Fish” basin consists of a fish bowl and a basin, and the fish may lose its water when you’re washing your hands. But when the water stops, the water level in the bowl then goes back to the same level. As a result, to keep the fish alive, you need to save water.

But actually, water in the fish bowl is not really changing as the designer has built another pipeline for the tap so that you’ll use clean and pure water rather than the water for raising fish.

Designer: Yan Lu

Unlike humans, birds cannot see transparent glass and they’re always in danger of flying towards such “open areas” at a high speed. So to reduce bird-strikes, glass specialists from Arnold Glas have invented a new type of glass that features reflective UV coating. Although practically transparent for humans, the UV reflective coating is clearly visible to birds and therefore helping them to avoid the obstacles.

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After about forty years of developing a perfect human-powered vehicle, engineer Charles Greenwood has finally come up with a hand-powered hybrid car that has a top speed of up to 60mph. It can seat up to four people: when there’re all four people on the travel, the car can run based on the human power; but when there’re fewer passengers, it can also use electric battery power for a better performance. So the car can be more eco-friendly when there’re more people driving it. Good news is that you’ll soon see this car on the road, as the HumanCar Imagine PS is expected to be on sale next year for £10,000 and the company has received 100 pre-orders. Till then, the Imagine PS will also has a touch-screen display with GPS and biometric data logging, computer, communications systems and other advanced equipment. So do you want one, too?

Designer: Charles Greenwood

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New Zealand businessman Peter Lewis has created an innovative machine that can transform discarded plastic like bottles and bags into building blocks. Believe it or not, such bricks can be used to build emergency houses or landscaping walls and they’re more durable than you can imagine, as each brick is comprised of an estimated 10kg (22lbs) of plastic. So you needn’t worry they’ll be blown away by the wind.

Designer: Peter Lewis

With the technology and design placing towards energy-saving and multiuse, Jia Dai makes the flashlight a new one in the league. The flashlight not only can split open to work as a ceiling lamp, and more importantly, its solar cells can still recharge when in the open lamp status. So whenever you use the MIA Electric Flashlight Lamp, you’re always saving both the energy and your money. Sounds like a good deal.

Designer: Jia Dai

Unless you’ve left home without your glasses, you’ll no doubt find the Poo-powered VW Beetle running through the streets of Bristol and get impressed with the eye-catching slogan on its smart body which says that “(The car is) Powered by your waste”! Powered by methane gas that is generated during the sewage treatment process, the new VW Beetle is announced as a “breakthrough in the drive to encourage sustainable power”, when many other automakers are also developing new sources of energy to take the place of regular motor petrol. But will the “Bio-Bug” perform as well as petrol-powered cars? Of course it can. It is reported that the new Beetle’s maximum speed is 114 m/h, and it would travel 10,000 miles every year if 70 homes in Bristol provide waste to power it.

More Information Here

Orbital Washing Machine, which takes the very name from the fact that it has a spherical drum spinning on two axes, is an eco-friendly home appliance that would save you great amounts of water and energy. When the machine works, its spherical drum will spin on the two axes to move the clothes in all directions so that they can get washed with little energy and water. Besides, the spherical drum can also be used as a laundry hamper for dirty clothes as it is removable.

Designer: Tiffany Roddis

Now I really envy you guys living in the Seattle area, not for the sweet-smelling coffee but the reusable tote bags provided by Amazon. According to Amazon.com, all the residents in Seattle can select to have their items sent in an Amazon Tote bag that asks for no subscriptions or fees from now on. The only bad part about the bags is that they’re only delivered once per week so you may have to wait for several days to see your orders on the doorstep. But what does that matter, as long as these bags can protect both your items and the environment? I love Amazon and I love the idea.

The flowing information is from Amazon.com.

“AmazonTote is a free weekly delivery service from Amazon.com. There are no subscriptions, minimum delivery sizes, or fees. Items delivered using AmazonTote will be brought to your doorstep in a reusable tote bag, free of charge.”