A Car Style We Wish They'd Bring Back: The Delivery Wagon
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 05. 2.09
Rambler American "Deliveryman Utility Wagon." Image credit:How Stuff Works
How many step vans and service trucks do you see every day driving around with far less than a full load? How many tradesmen could do their business comfortably with something less than a Mega-Truck? Delivering food to the farmers market, say?
What the service business market needs is a high efficiency, mid-capacity, easy-to-park, inexpensive, and easily secured, delivery vehicle. Long-defunct American Motors, of Kenosha WI, offered one back in the late 1950's (as pictured). With a nice roof rack and a low-emission diesel, this old Rambler would make a good starting point for a new design. (A hot looking retro-version of this baby would probably find a domestic market.) The downside could be...
Victorian Bedcurtains are back, as Sun Frost introduces the Sleep Genie, a tiny air conditioner just big enough to keep you comfy while you sleep in your insulated bedchamber. They note that it runs at 72 Watts, and can be powered by a 280 watt solar array. It is so logical, to reduce the load to reasonable amounts for solar simply by reducing the area cooled to the minimum. 
Sock monkeys are a classic do-it-yourself homemade toy. Traditionally they are made of red-heeled socks, in order to use the red heels for the luscious red lips. However changes are a happening and while the red-heeled socks still rule - sock monkeys are now coming in all 
Via 
Being of newborn prototype, Stormblade, we think, deserves appropriate background music. So, just imagine "Riders On the Storm" playing now, if you will. We found little Stormrider spinning away on "
The person who invented this cross between a barbecue and a motorboat really hates mosquitoes! Lucky for us, he or she also had a dislike for insecticide and these glowing traps that vaporize insect dust in the air we breathe. The way this "biting insect trap" works is by emitting a fake "breath" of CO2 with a scent that is attractive to the little vampires (mosquitoes locate their victims primarily with exhaled carbon dioxide). The device then sucks in the bugs in a radius of up to 1.25 acres (around 5,000 square meters) and dehydrates them (and then turns them into MREs?). The downside is that the CO2 is produced with propane, but that is not a fatal flaw as it would also be possible to get it from bio-sources and thus make it carbon neutral, and because the alternative is too often spraying DDT, which is clearly worse....
Growing food and gardening (without pesticides and herbicides) are treehugger activities, and so the things that make them easier to do are treehugger too. This wearable garden stool fits the bill. We haven't tried it, but we're pretty sure that it could be very useful to many people who get up and down dozens and dozens of times each day. The concept originally comes from Switzerland. "The stool actually straps onto your butt, and is adjustable for individual comfort. With the stool attached, the worker can move around the garden, farm or nursery with ease to work on new projects. The stool is very light weight (four pounds) and will not disturb the movement of the worker. The stool also adjusts to different heights for a variety of tasks." 
Do you remember the 12 million pounds of excrement, flowing from agrobusiness industries, polluting small community surroundings, as described in 
With its alien green style, this is one of the more unusual entries in a competition sponsored by the AIA Young Architects Forum of Chicago. The challenge was to design a recycling receptacle for the city. This receptacle was built to integrate itself with the existing trash cans, and emphasizes reusing newspapers, over just recycling. The newspapers are temporarily stowed in the holes of the green structure. There's more information in this 
Strange but true: 
Awhile back we featured 
No, it’s not the next accessory for the iPod. Scientists from 
Wasted water in between the bathrooms' four walls (shower, hand washing, tooth brushing, flushing the toilet) is not a pleasant topic to talk about, but important indeed. We've already posted some interesting approaches, like the 
I hate spam, but I have to admit, this time it got me... Vaporetto is a cleaning machine that works only with water pressure, more specifically with high pressure vapor, and eliminates mites and bacteria without the need for chemicals. We're sure it could use a little design help, but not only is it enviro, but also will save you a lot of money. It can be used for houses, offices, hospitals, schools, and any place that needs sterilization. In Argentina its price is around 700 pesos, which would be about 250 dollars. 
We won’t go into all the icky details of why cremation is a more eco-friendly choice than traditional burial (we might later though), and we certainly don’t mean to suggest that we begrudge anyone a traditional grieving process. But the truth is that the chemicals, materials, and sheer space used up by the funerary industry are counter-productive to a greener future, although some companies are indeed leading the way in 
Aesthetically, this lamp may be a wee bit un-Treehugger, but the idea behind it is spot-on. The whole concept behind Kwytza Kraft is to collect post-use, single-use chopsticks from restaurants in China (ew), thoroughly clean and sanitize them at extremely high temperature and pressure (phew), and use them to make high-quality accents for the living space (whew). The founder of the company is even committed to educating the Chinese about environmental sustainability, where, he estimates, billions of single-use chopsticks are used annually, consuming more than 25 million trees and bamboo plants each year. Btw, “kwytza” means “chopstick” in Chinese. Thanks for the tip Brian B! $48.95 
