Eco-friendly house
Living in smaller homes makes sense when it comes to heating and cooling them, and prefab houses are being billed as the next big (or in this case small) thing. Some folks are taking small to the extreme. Inhabitat explores the Top 5 tiniest prefab homes.
If you’re looking for a DIY project to busy yourself with this weekend (rumour has it we may be having a few dry days sometime soon), Green Options has two suggestions for your consideration. Install a rain barrel (also known as a water butt) or even more enterprising, build your own wind turbine.
On the subject of wind turbines, an inventor from Australia has designed a quiet, rooftop wind turbine that can be installed en masse to power your whole house. Sound good? Eco-friendly Info has the full story, and a video for you to watch.
And back to DIY. off-grid has instructions for making your own fuel-free fridge.
Water might not seem like it’s in short supply at the moment, but cast your mind back to this time last year when we were facing a hosepipe ban. It didn’t take long without rain before we were in serious trouble, so it’s important to keep water conservation in mind. The Good Human writes about 10 ways to conserve water around the house.
A pioneering couple in Muizenberg (a busy Cape Town suburb), are building an eco-friendly cob house that is going to be run as an organic B&B. The house is 200m from the beach and a somewhat unique location for a house of this type. They have been denied finance to complete their project, because South African banks don’t finance “alternative” buildings, and so have devised a plan as interesting as their house to raise the funds to complete it. Simric and Carey Yarrow are selling timeshare to raise the final R80,000 needed to finish the cob house, and which involves investments of as little as £70.
Responsible transport
If you have a shiny new Prius and need some extra storage space for your summer hols, Autoblog Green suggests you try the new inflatable roof rack that leaves the car’s aerodynamics unchanged when not in use.
And on to another form of transport entirely. How about having a go at building your own eco-friendly surfboard? If you’d like to ride the waves with a home-made board this summer, Keetsa! Blog has details of a kit from Green Light Surf Supply that contains everything you need to make your own green surfboard, as well as a DVD with full instructions.
I don’t normally write positive things about McDonalds (mainly because there aren’t very many positive things to write), but this time we’re pleased to let you know that they’re switching to running their 155 trucks in the UK on used cooking oil from their burger bars after a successful trial run in the Netherlands. Read the full story at off-grid. I still wouldn’t buy their burgers though!
Recycling
If you’ve ever wondered what to do with an old pair of jeans, Simply Thrifty lists 13 things you can make out of your old blue jeans.
Winners
Treehugger has announced the winners of their Green Theatre competition. To find out who won, and to watch their videos, click here.
And a primary school in Aberdeen, Scotland has won an the eco-friendly energy-saving RM ecoquiet PC after entering a competition. It would be good to see all schools supplied with these.
That’s all that’s on the Eco-radar this week. Don’t forget to watch Live Earth this weekend, and keep it green.