These images are of decorative and environmentally fireplaces that burn potato-infused bio-ethanol. They’re beautiful and sustainable, no prior installations required and come in a large number of sleek and modern designs. Add to that they can be installed indoors as well as in the garden.
Continue reading “Flames for Any Space”
Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is about WATER. Why water?Because almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted.For this special post I would like to thank Maha Ghazale for helping me compile this information for the event, her much appreciated contribution was especially made towards the effect of lack of water on lives with related videos and names of charities we can support. Thank you Maha for your efforts!
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.
Did you know?
. The average person uses about 100 gallons of water each day
• It takes: 25 gallons of water to make one ear of corn
• 1300 gallons of water for one hamburger
• 2607 gallons of water for one pound of beef
• 815 gallons of water for one pound of chicken
• 65 gallons of water for a gallon of milk
• 100 gallons of water for a watermelon
• 120 gallons of water for one egg
Continue reading “What do you Know & Can do: Blog Action Day 2010”
SIGG have partnered with Vivienne Westwood to provide an eco-friendly alternative to plastic water bottles at fashion shows. Available only in a limited qty. in selected stores, the SIGG Webshop as well as in Vivienne Westwood stores. She designed the limited-edition reusable bottles with SIGG for her Fashion Week guests.
Unveiled at the Spring/Summer 2011 presentation of Vivienne Westwood Red Label at London Fashion Week, the bottle is the third and final design in the Westwood’s SIGG series
Emblazoned on the bottle is a call to stop climate change, one of Westwood’s pet causes.
McDonald’s is undergoing a process of redesign. What is more important than design itself is its study for exploring more sustainability in certain locations.The chain’s first self-proclaimed “green” restaurant, located in Chicago, is LEED Gold-certified, while a North Carolina location features Charge-Point electric vehicle charging stations. And in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, 270 McDonald’s restaurants deliver used oil to be converted into biodiesel.The packaging however still has a long way to go. Most McDonald’s packaging is paper-based and can be composted,yet still haven’t found biodegradable materials that don’t retain heat.McDonald’s can never truly claim to be green as long as it sells meat products–the average Holstein cow produces up to 180 kilos of methane each year. Ultimately, cows produce 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and the meat industry is one of the leading contributors to climate change.
The new ‘design’ concept is revolving around the idea of a community center, a place for young people to hang out especially since slow food is the trend now with more attention on the eating experience itself as opposed to gulfing food down. France was the first country to have a redesigned McDonald’s. All the plastic will be replaced with clean and modern lines, wood, brick and softer lighting from modern lamps. The signature mansard roof is being replaced by a flat roof topped and a newly designed golden sloping curve. The emblematic red and yellow colors will be revamped to terra cotta, olive and sage green.All this with the aim of attracting more adults and young professionals to their customers.
Continue reading “McDonald’s, Burger King, & Chili’s: Going green?”
The “Ground Zero Mosque” and community center has been one of the hottest topics lately to the extent of taking over the devastating news of the floods in Pakistan. This is a clear indication of the rise of hate and fear that has conquered over many Americans in particular after the propaganda against Islamists in the past few years. Putting this topic out of political context , the latest news is that the project developers are planning to go green and achieve LEED certification. This is remarkable news in many ways. For those not familiar with the term LEED, it is "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design", according to Wikipedia it is " an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts."
A report on the dailybeast.com by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin author of Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet, indicates that the developers of Park51 , the Islamic cultural and community center, are serious about going green and achieving the LEED certification. An architectural bureau has not been assigned for the mission yet, but if they abide by what they promise, this will be the first LEED certified mosque in the U.S.
