It is generally expected that cooling appliances, such as fridge freezers, are the second highest contributor to energy bills after central heating. This makes sense, since they are the only appliance that needs to be on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

With this in mind, it’s well worth looking into the energy consumption of an appliance before deciding on a purchase. Even if your old appliance is working well, replacing your old model could turn out to be a fantastic long-term investment.

Integrated models

Investing in an integrated fridge freezer model is going to be far more energy efficient than having a separate fridge and freezer. While the integrated model is likely to use more energy than each individual appliance, it’s much better than having to power two appliances constantly. Purchasing the one appliance, rather than two, is also likely to be much cheaper.

Picking the right size

It’s important to ensure you choose the right size fridge freezer. Larger models will use more energy than small or medium sized models, which will cost more to power. In the long run, extra space that you aren’t going to need is going to be a bad investment.

Naturally, if you have a large family to feed, then you are going to need more room. Having to get an additional appliance further down the line is going to add both to your energy bills and your purchase costs. The need to keep an old appliance around, to make up for insufficient space, is also going to add substantially to energy cost.

You should put some research into the size of the appliance you are going to need. Capacities are displayed on models and measured in litres, giving you a good idea of the space offered inside.

Designs and extras

Design differences do have an impact on energy efficiency. The most efficient types of fridge freezer have the freezer positioned at the top, while those with the freezer positioned at the bottom are generally the second most efficient. Models with each of the integrated appliances positioned side by side are usually the least energy efficient available.

Extra features such as ice makers can also drive up energy usage; a model with an ice maker can use as much as 20 per cent more electricity than models that don’t have this added extra. It might not be as convenient, but making your ice cubes the old fashioned way, with an ice cube tray, will work out much more economically and ecologically friendly.

Energy efficiency ratings

It’s easy to tell an appliance’s energy efficiency rating. All fridges and freezers sold in Britain are required by law to carry a European Union energy label, which gives their rating by letter. Ratings range from A++ as the most efficient and cost-effective, to G, as the least efficient. Generally it’s only really older models that carry these less effective ratings.

However, some of the more environmentally-conscious consumers might be concerned about the massive carbon footprint that is steadily growing because of all the extra tech use. Fortunately, there are companies that cater to the more Eco-minded customers out there.

Even Apple tries to recycle as much as possible – Google ‘recycle iPhone’ to see how you can exchange your old handset for vouchers.

This list presents five of the most popular Eco-friendly gadgets out there. You might want to sell your stuff online to save up for some of these ingenious products.

Power Trekk

This is a clear favorite, ideally suited for those travelling on or off the road into the wilderness. If it’s too much to ask that you go on holiday completely tech-free, and you really need your Smartphone to hand for all your work updates, the Power Trekk charger is a pretty ingenious way of charging your phone when out in the woods.

All you have to do is fill it with water. That’s right, water. The charger will convert the hydrogen into electricity and all you have to do is plug your Smartphone in via USB, and let it work its magic. There’s no winding involved!

Switch Bulb

This is the one-stop answer for everyone who’s looking desperately for a low-energy light bulb that still looks nice and gives off pretty light. It’ll go for a staggering 25,000 hours before it finally burns out.

Apart from its longevity, the bulb also looks sleek and impressive, thanks to its stylish design.

Biolite Camp stove

Normal camping stoves are extremely wasteful and damaging to the environment, as they run on gas or liquid fuel. The Bio lite Camp stove, on the other hand, ingeniously uses its environment to produce heat.

It burns small sticks and dried leaves to produce enough heat to cook your food. As if that’s not enough, it does have one other feature that will put it above all other stoves forever: a USB charger for whatever gadgets you’ve brought along for the trip!

iBamboo Speaker

This is not only cool because of the innovation behind it, but because of how sleek and chic it looks. Made completely out of bamboo, it is manufactured with little waste and it sounds great. The resonance of the bamboo works to amplify the sound that comes out of your iPhone.

Cook Up 200

This is another gadget for those who enjoy the outdoors. The CookUp200 will generate heat from the sun (up to 200°C) to cook those burgers of yours. It’s quite spacious as well, with room for enough food to feed up to five of your hungry friends.

Its uncomplicated setup is definitely a plus. However, needless to say, you’re going to need a sunny day for this to work!

Project binders

The majority of people are using the hard covered binders made of plastic. However there is an alternative for these. You can always choose the project binders that are made of 97% recycled paper from magazines, office papers and newspaper. These are also strong and sturdy and they come with colorful spines.

Ecosystem journals

Although these are journals, you can also use them to write down assignments and notes as well. The journals come in three forms: architect, author and artist. These are produced in the U.S. and they are made of 100% recycled paper. All the journals come with an ID that you can use to track down your journal if you happen to lose it. When you are finished with it, the company will recycle it for you.

Biodegradable pens

You may know that the majority of the old pens get to the landfill. This year you could make a change if you opt for biodegradable pens that are made of corn. The best thing about these pens is that they last longer than the regular ones.

Recycled pencils

These pencils are made of recycled wood and they have an eraser that doesn’t smudge. If you don’t like the traditional pencils, you also have the option to get a mechanical pencil that is made of biodegradable corn.

Gear case

The gear cases have just the perfect size for the pens and pencils and they also come with a zipper. The cases are made of recycled inner tubes from bicycles and they are water resistant.

Stainless steel bottle

These bottles are better than the regular plastic bottles and they are just perfect because they are insulated so that they don’t sweat. These bottles are non-leaching, non-toxic and they don’t contain BPA. The mouth of the bottle is wide enough to put ice cubes in the water.

photo credit: (inhabitat.com)

Indeed, these days green manufacturers are on the rise and some of them put up the pretense of being aggressively environmental without walking the walk. Here are a few manufacturers you can rely on to supply your home with sustainable, environmentally eco-upholstery:

Knoll Textiles

With the creation of Abacus, this furniture manufacturer has jumped to the top of eco-textile industry, offering consumers furniture panels that have the consistency of virgin wool but fabric that is completely recycled polyester taken from production scraps.

As a member of the Clinton Global Initiative Energy and Climate Change Working Group, Knoll Textiles is proving its mettle in the green industry, having invested a considerable amount of money into green manufacturing and sustainable harvesting.

Rohner Textil

This Swiss manufacturer has created a biodegradable fabric called Climatex, which is Cradle to Cradle Gold certified (meaning it complies with a holistic, efficient, and eco-friendly approach to resource allocation) and made almost entirely from a renewable plant known as Ramie. Rohner Textil has another textile called Climatex LifeguardFR, which is chemical-free and made of wool and renewable beech wood.

Kvadrat

Kvadrat is a Danish company that produces environmentally friendly luxury textiles. Hallingdal, made from wool and viscose, is just one of the many products they produce under strict regulatory oversight which ensures ecological sustainability. They also produce biodegradable fabrics, such as Flora, Kosmos, and Helix.

Oliveira Textiles

This company creates a wide variety of eco-friendly textiles, including Anemone (made from seaweed, hemp, organic cotton, and twill), Shellgame (which is made entirely from hemp twill, or a combination of hemp and organic cotton twill), and its flagship Ocean Collection, which made from sustainable, renewable hemp and organic cotton.

O Ecotextiles

Known for their Hardy Organic Hemp, which is made entirely of long fiber hemp sourced by independent, sustainable farmers in Romania, O Textiles has an extremely good rating from the U.S. Green Building Council and has won awards for its devotion to green fabric.

Luna Textiles

Luna Textiles has based many of its materials on the MBDC Cradle to Cradle criteria and won industry accolades for creating the first polyester produced completely in accordance with 100% green manufacturing. Mezzanine, which was produced in conjunction with Victor Innovatex, is also made of Eco Intelligent polyester.

These aren’t the only companies making progressive strides in the green manufacturing industry, but they do represent an evolution in how commercial entities view their responsibilities to the environment and to eco-conscious consumers across the world. Any company or person who is in need of fabrics and textiles for upholstery or other construction projects, should look into the products outlined above. Hopefully, more companies in different industries will follow suit in the coming years.

(photo by www.ecofriend.com)

1. Eco shower

The most interesting thing about this shower is that it is able to heat the water on its own without any electricity. For this, a water-powered turbine is located in the showerhead.

There are pressure blocks in the base to pump the water. The flow of water is also regulated by the weight of the user.

2. Smart shower

This shower is special because besides working as a shower, it also serves as a basin during the day. As a shower, it uses aerated technology and so it uses only 1/6th of the water used by traditional showers.

Also, it can store half of the heating energy. Maybe the best thing is that it has a dual purpose, thus saving space.

3. Solar beach shower

You may know that at one point things could get quite sticky at the beach, and so you really need a shower. This is what this new concept offers you, plus a lot of privacy.

Just as the name suggests, the shower uses the power of the sun and so it becomes a green product. Besides all these, it is also portable. Because it is lightweight, it can be used by campers and hikers too.

4. Eco drop shower

Although you think that a shower must be comfortable, the main point of this shower is to make you uncomfortable as time goes by so that you don’t spend too much time showering.

This is achieved through creating gradually increasing spiky undulations. You may think that this is stupid, but it could seem appealing to the parents whose kids spend too much time under the shower.

5. DA/Spa shower

You can get a shower and hydro massage with the help of this product with only about 20 liters of water. This is achieved by recycling the water with the help of electricity.

Naturally there is also a purification system that maintains and regulates the pressure and temperature of the water. Although the shower does save water, it wastes electricity.

This is what the organic batteries have to offer. No wonder these are the hottest thing of the field at the moment. NEC is known to be a leading company regarding organic batteries that has been offering batteries of this kind since 2001.

Their latest invention is a battery that is only 0.3 mm thick that for sure has a place among the eco-friendly batteries of the future. The best thing about these batteries is that they have a higher energy density than the traditional batteries, they have no heavy metals and they are extremely thin.

Being so thin, they are half the thickness of the traditional batteries. The company was able to reduce the size with the help of the technology which allows forming negative electrodes on the circuit boards. At the moment there are only some prototypes, but their abilities are amazing.

These batteries can make 360 flash firings, 35 location transmissions and they ensure 2000 hours of screen time with only one charge. The tests show that the batteries keep 75% of their capacity even after they have been recharged 500 times. The lithium batteries used in cell phones have about the same capacity.

Another huge advantage of the organic batteries is that they need only 30 seconds to recharge, so people wouldn’t have to keep their phones in the charger for hours. Because of its thickness, the battery could be incorporated in items that have a limited thickness, such as credit cards, e-paper or smart cards. Just as you may have thought, they also make it possible for the electronics manufacturers to come up with thinner gadgets.

If everything goes according to plan and the manufacturers start using the new batteries, people will have a lot less weight to carry around. Imagine your laptop being a lot lighter because of the batteries, not to mention the mobile phones, cameras and so on. It looks like mankind has a really bright future because of the batteries.

You can see that there is a lot that such a small item as a battery could do for our everyday activities.

(photo credit: www.geek.com)

The lamp that he presented has been made of tiles right from the OSRAM laboratory and it shows people the potential that this new kind of lighting has regarding illumination and designing elements.

(photo credit: www.oled-display.net)

The project got the name of ‘Early Future’ and it has been created without using concealing reflectors. All of the elements of the project have been presented to make people understand the way it works. There have been metal clips used to secure the OLED modules that have been placed in the stem, and the cables have been almost invisible.

Then another project has been realized and it was called the Flying Future. This is a larger object that is made of airy metal mesh with about 100 luminous panels being attached to it. Since the mesh can be bent, the lighting can be customized in almost any way.

It’s not only the shape that makes OLEDs special. There is a whole new technology behind the light. There are radiant surfaces that diffuse the light and so there is less shadow and less unnecessary reflections.

At the moment the technology is available only for the designer of these creations. The product that Ingo Mauer realized shows us that using OLEDs in the everyday life is more than possible and it is closer to us than we could imagine.

The OLED is actually a 10×10 cm tile that has a light output. The advantage besides being organic, is that the light emitted is homogenous and stable.

It’s not only table lamps that we can use the technology in, but also these new lamps could turn the skyscrapers into advertisement panels for night time able to function without any energy. Technically they will gather the energy during the day, store it and then use it at night.

The OLED tiles on the side of the buildings are fuelled by one if there sides that is actually a solar panel which is flipped, according to the time of day so it will gather the maximum energy output.

Wouldn’t it be just great to stop using all that energy for the LEP advertisement panels, and substitute them with organic OLED light? This is the way to go in case we would like a better world along with shinning building commercials.

The good news is that scientists have been looking for ways to help the batteries run longer or may be eliminate the need to recharge the phone externally.

UCLA Materials Science Department has made breakthrough in the field and have developed a way to keep the phone charged even when continuously in use – the phone will be designed to charge itself.

The more it is used, the more recharging energy it will create. It may sound unbelievable but science has managed to bring life to the principle.

A smart phone uses energy whenever its screen is lit up, which is every time the phone is being used.

The LCD display of a phone consists of two polarized transparent sheets. Pixels or liquid crystal molecules are trapped between the two sheets. Each time the phone is in use, an array of LED back light switches on.

The backlight passes through these sheets to make display possible and the polarized sheets absorb almost 75% of the light.

Scientists have taken advantage of this and have developed a photovoltaic polarized sheet. It converts the absorbed backlight into electricity that in turn recharges the battery. These photovoltaic sheets will also absorb light from the sun and any other light source.

Therefore, the only time the phone will not be charging is when it is lounging in your purse or pocket. The technology will soon enable not just smart phones but also tablet computers and other electronic devices to keep themselves charged.

Wysips have announced another breakthrough. They have a working prototype of a phone that is charged with the help of solar power. The phone has a mini solar panel that is mounted on the screen.

The solar panel captures solar or any other external light and converts it into electricity to provide energy for the phone. This could mean that later models will be able to eliminate the battery altogether implying a future of thinner phones.

The only draw back with the prototype is that the panel is small and does not produce sufficient energy to keep the phone running, thus requiring a battery back up. Of course that these steps of science are just the beginning but the world looks full of hope to the day when Wysips will be able to design phones that will be self-sufficient.

(photo credit: advancedsmartphone.blogspot.com)

Eco printer concept

This is a new kind of printer that is different from all the others because it uses a special kind of ink. The novelty of it is that the ink allows the paper to be reused by erasing the ink from it. The ink disappears in the moment when the paper is exposed to ultraviolet radiation.

This way the lifecycle of the paper is increased. People can reduce the amount of paper used for misprints, temporary handouts, unimportant documents and unused copies. This would represent great economy compared to the traditional printers.

Pencil printer

This is another one of the eco-friendly printers. The difference between this kind of printer and all the other ones is that this one uses only slate pencils. This means that the print on the paper can be erased and the paper can be reused.

Eco printer and eraser

This is one of the most interesting concepts that people have come up with so far. It not only prints the paper, but it also erases if needed. In order to make it work all you have to do is to feed it with scrap pencils and erasers. It extracts the ‘ink’ from the graphite found in the pencils and it erases with rubber made of the pieces.

Pre-Peat eco-friendly printer

This machine comes with a special printing head that makes buying printing consumables a thing of the past. There is a thermal head and only heat sensitive paper is used to make sure that people can print on the same paper over and over again. The best thing is that there is no need for ink either.

At the moment the only drawback of the printer is that it is extremely expensive, so it won’t be available to the general public for some time. Most probably it will be used by large organizations that have a lot of printing to do. At the moment it costs $5,517 and the paper used is plastic paper of which 1,000 pieces cost $3,300. All this might be more expensive than we can afford.

At first make a small research about the producers of sustainable furniture. There are many of them on the market, but you should choose very carefully and only buy furniture that is labeled as 100 percent sustainable.

Recently bamboo has turned to be a very modern material for home décor, not to mention it is also very rational; so you should consider choosing bamboo furniture as a good option for creating green home décor.

The bamboo has many advantages and one of them is that the furniture can be used longer than others that are made of simple wood. Cork is also an option, but alas it is not very solid for furniture, so you can use it for some home accessories.

There are shops, including online ones, which offer cork accessories that surely grab the attention with their beauty; so don’t hesitate to choose cork.

Rattan is the second best material, when it comes to sustainable furniture. Actually one of the most beautiful furniture in French style is made out of rattan, mixed with Dedon  fibers. The fibers make the construction of the furniture a lot more solid and thanks to them, the furniture has a longer life.

Usually rattan is very convenient for eco furniture, for it allows creating of ergonomic shapes and design. When it comes to sustainable homer décor, it also comes to shapes and appearance. Choose only furniture with ergonomic design for is lasts longer. Another thing you should consider is recycling.

Don’t buy furniture that cannot be recycled because otherwise you will harm the environment.

Also for a greener perspective you can simply choose recycled furniture. The items are very artistic and super sustainable for they are made out of reused items. Reusing is also a tendency, when it comes to sustainable décor. Actually it is one of the most preferable ways to keep the environment clean.

There is one designer that is specializing into creating new furniture from the old and used home items: Andrew Gregg.  His compositions are already famous, for being modern and yet very comfortable.

His latest furniture is a dishwasher drum table made out of reused dishwasher drum. The spiral shape is another reason to admire his collections.

Instead of throwing your old furniture, you can create new one simply by reusing things around the house. This actually is the best way to create sustainable home décor.