Weird Green Tech
With eco-friendly innovations so in demand, it’s no surprise that the green technology industry is booming. Intrepid inventors all over the world are putting their best efforts into creating the greenest gadgets, furniture, fuel, fashion and architecture, and some of the stuff they’ve dreamed up is downright weird. Here are 15 examples of bizarre green technology innovations, from solar powered ‘personal massagers’ to walking houses.
Speakers with Built-in Planters
(image via: AV Watch)
Electronics manufacturer JVC debuted a rather interesting new concept in home audio equipment at the 2008 Tokyo Designer’s Week. The speakers, made of eco-plastic (whatever that means – they didn’t explain) have little planters built into them for people who are really going for that organic look in their home décor. The modular speakers can be assembled into various shapes and are said to have a surprisingly high quality sound for the size and design. The conceptual series is called “Kirikabu”.
Grow Your Own Grass Furniture
(image via: Treehugger)
London-based contemporary design firm Purves & Purves offered a flat-pack DIY cardboard armchair frame along with a package of grass seeds in the summer of 2006, promising outdoor furniture that blends in perfectly with your lawn. You assemble the 14 pieces, fill it with soil, sprinkle the grass seeds over it and watch your new Chia Chair grow right before your eyes. Interesting idea, but mowing it could be a challenge.
Solar-Powered ‘Personal Massager’
(image via: Shop Libida)
Here’s a solar-powered gadget you might not want to leave in your front window: the world’s first solar-powered vibrator. It takes about 5 hours of natural sunlight to fully charge, and a single charge powers it for 2.5 hours. Those without a private sunny space can use a 100 watt light bulb to power the device, but that will add an extra 19 hours to the charge time. The good news is, you don’t have to use it outside for it to work.
Biodegradable Coffin Coffee Table
(image via: Halfway House Design)
You need a coffee table, and someday, you will also need a coffin. So, why not kill two birds with one stone with the biodegradable coffin coffee table from Halfway House Design? You can even use it to store wine, books and other items until the day comes when it’s needed to store your body. A little morbid, sure, but at least it’s made from sustainable materials.
Fuel from Slaughterhouse Waste
(image via: Discover Magazine)
At Changing World Technologies, a rotting pile of disgusting turkey offal – heads, feet, intestines, and lungs swollen with putrid gases – is transformed into over $12,000 worth of fuel through a thermal conversion process in about 20 minutes. The process is still being optimized for commercial viability and has great potential, but NIMBY protests against the smells emitted by the plant have proven to be a tough hurdle to overcome.
Wind-Powered Gadget Charger
(image via: Hymini)
The Hymini gadget charger is renewable energy on a (very) small scale – it powers small electronics like cell phones and mp3 players with a tiny wind turbine and solar panel array. The Good Human tested it out, and reports that both the solar panel and the wind turbine were separately able to power his wife’s cell phone in the same amount of time a plug-in charger takes, noting that attaching the turbine to the handlebars of your bicycle would be an especially efficient way to harness energy while out and about.
Coffee-Fueled Truck
(image via: Deborah Sherman)
A 1975 GMC pickup modified to run on spent coffee grounds proves that any biomass can be used for gasification. This truck hack, called the Café Racer, is powered by pyrolysis gas created by heating steel pipes full of coffee grounds in a wood gas generator. The Café Racer is said by its creators to be carbon-negative, but that hasn’t been substantiated. Still, this kind of technology could play a major role in finding alternatives to fossil fuels in the future.
Source: webecoist.com
[...] Original post by Joy Systems Blog [...]