I’ve decided that I really enjoy reading about innovative, affordable, sustainable housing designs. I have a friend doing a Masters of Design program at Carleton University right now who’s all over these kinds of projects. The real push for this sort of design-for-sustainability seems relatively new, too — even Carleton University has only just started up this MA program this year. Hopefully it will become popular as it’s got so many benefits!

Take this one, for example — it’s made from recycled matierals, fits in a small space, yet is large enough to fit 3 people, a kitchen, a reading room, a living room, bathroom, and hydroponia area! And it kinda looks like the Deathstar. I mean, maybe that’s not a sell for you, but I’m certainly all ears.

These prefab pod homes can be built quite fast and adding an affordable price tag to that, it makes it an option for any socio-economic level and a viable solution for emergency housing, too.

This particular pod was designed by Broisson Architects of Naucalpan, Mexico.

“The shelter could become another option for developing low cost housing with very short building time and could improve the quality of the life for people without access to decent housing,” say the architects.

[via]

Uh oh! Looks like my time outside yesterday left me sunburnt — entirely my fault, of course, as I didn’t update my sunscreen application as the day went on. So now here I am with hideous white stripes on my back where my tank top was and bright red patches everywhere else the sun hit. I partially blame the unusually nice weather in mid September for my screw up. Shouldn’t it be Fall right now? I haven’t even broken out my sweaters yet.

Don’t have an aloe plant? Here are some other around-the-house tips for treating a sunburn without having to invest in nasty chemicals or lotions. They worked very well for me, try them out yourself!

• Use honey as a salve — put a healthy smear of it onto the burnt areas. It apparently helps ease the pain and helps to encourage the healing process.
• Liquify some potatoes. I know, sounds weird, right? But potato paste can be applied to the sunburn and when it dries, it sucks all the excess moisture (what’s keeping it hot and burning) out of your skin.

These more eco-friendly ways to treat a sunburn have the added benefit of having great odds of being in your home just when you need them. I don’t always have pain killers or burn spray in my medicine cabinet, but 99% of the time I have potatoes!

This is definitely something I would have up in my home. In fact, I’m considering the possibility right now while staring distainfully at my current crappy-plastic/glass and wood 1970’s era chandelier.

What a genius idea for recycling old wine bottles! And believe it or not, this one right here is from Pottery Barn.

I think that personally I’d prefer one solid colour — ie. all green bottles — but I bet you could find some really cool coloured bottles out there. Though, you’d have to drink all the wine before you could hang up the bottles. But that’s nothing that a big wine and cheese party at your house couldn’t solve, right?

And what’s better for that wine and cheese party than cheese platers made out of flattened wine bottles? Brilliant.

Sure, I don’t know how practical it is to live in such a teeny tiny cramped space — but it’s awfully neat!

This man pulls his home behind his bicycle. Might I add that this home is not only portable, it’s powered by solar and wind energy and can stand winds of 60mph and temperatures as high as 100 degrees farenheit!

I personally love the nomadic lifestyle — and with your house attached to the back of your bicycle, you could live anywhere that your bicycle can take you! And all without emitting a single gram of carbon into the atmosphere. Fantastic.

Check out TinyHouseDesign for some cool pictures of this cool mobile home!

I never had a treehouse when I was a kid. I didn’t really have parents that were comfortable climbing trees and building structures stable enough to hold their kids safely.

But as an adult, I’ve definitely thought about it more than once. I love being outside, I love building, and most importantly, I love sky high panoramic views.

This tree house – featured here – definitely caught my eye.

It’s becoming a neat eco-trend to repurpose lookout towers into homes. That’s right, I could live here! (Though I’m assuming it’s safe to say that this is likely out of my budget.)

So, who wants to rent me a repurposed watchtower, shipping container, or lighthouse? I’m open to any and all.

My better half comes from Russian ancestry and on occasion I have to make foods that I would certainly not make if I were only cooking for myself.

Now, having said that of course, I will say that I love this dish. My experience with beets before learning of this particular recipe was with my family dinners as a child when my grandmother used to try and make me eat beets. Like every child, I complained constantly that all the foods that were good for me were also terrible tasting. I felt like it was some sort of punishment!

But now? I love beets! They taste delicious, they’re good for you, AND I can touch-up my hair colour with the left over red beet juices! Not many of you can say that, I bet.

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 good sized beets, peeled and then shredded
• 1/4 cup minced red onion
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar1/2 lemon squeezed
• 4 tbsps olive oil
• 1 tbsp maple syrup (homemade is best, but I don’t expect all my readers to be pioneers)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Wisk together the vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and maple syrup. Pour over beets and onions and toss. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

Makes about 4 to 6 servings, depending on how delicious it ends up being.

I know, I know — the title makes it sound a little alarmist. Like your garbage can will become a ticking time bomb or the garbage bags will transform into monsters at the curb… but that’s definitely not what I mean. (But that would make oatmeal pretty cool, wouldn’t it?)

The Daily Green has posted an article discussing 12 Surprising Uses for Leftover Oatmeal — and it really is surprising!

My favourites include:

• Odor absorbtion – put a container in your fridge! Line your ashtrays (yes, really – ha!)
• 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of uncooked oatmeal and a tablespoon of honey in a luke warm bath apparently works to moisturize and rejuvenate your skin! (And you’d look like my breakfast.)
• Non-toxic crafting clay!

Check out the website for more cool oatmeal uses.

Putting pesicides on your lawn is bad because… pesticides are bad, right? I’ve known this for a long time because I remember seeing a ‘Keep off the Lawn!” pesticides warning on a neighbours lawn and asking my mother about it. All she could tell me, really, was that pesticides were poison. I remember being quite confused as to how pesticides could hurt me but not the plants/grass. Well, here’s some interesting little bit sized facts about lawn pesticides:

• Children who live in homes where lawn pesticides are used are twice as likely to develop brain cancer than children with pesticide-free yards. (via)
• People who work with pesticides (including pesticides used on lawns and in gardens) have an increased risk of fertility problems, such as an increase in spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as well as increased risk of having a baby with birth defects (such as cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, limb anomalies). (via)
• Workers exposed over a long period to pesticides have shown problems with information (ie. confusion) and have increased risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.(via)
• In the womb and into early infancy is linked to increased risks of some cancers (particularly leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and neuroblastoma) and birth defects. (via)

So if all these terrible things are possible with pesticide use, why on earth do people use them? Is having a healthy lawn worth all the poison and risk?

Stay tuned to BambiGoesGreen for tips on how to keep your lawn healthy and happy naturally!

According to The Daily Mail;

Tesco is sending 5,000 tons of leftover meat a year to be burned to generate electricity for homes, it emerged yesterday.
The supermarket disposes of enough meat that has passed its sell-by date to power 600 homes for a year through the National Grid.

Other major supermarkets plan to follow suit. But animal rights campaigners yesterday said many homeowners would be ‘horrified’ to learn that their electricity was generated by the ‘macabre’ recycling scheme.

Tesco has hailed the scheme as part of a ‘green’ drive which had enabled it to stop sending any of the waste it produces to environmentally damaging landfill sites.

You know, I read this article and wasn’t really sure what to think. On one hand, where would this meat go otherwise? Would it just be burried or worse — incinerated with no purpose but to destroy it? What a waste, both of the animal’s live and of fuel. I think that’s where I might stand on the issue — why not? It’s just going to go to waste otherwise. But I think there’s also a bigger issue to consider here: why are there 5,000 tons of meat leftover every year? As an ex-butcher, I can tell you that that’s a significant amount. Maybe they should be cutting back on production and trying to pinpoint demand a bit better.

But I think, overall, that using the excess meat as fuel – while a bit macabre indeed – isn’t a terrible use for it. But maybe I’m missing something? Do let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

For the rest of the article, check out The Daily Mail (UK).

That’s right! After some deeper digging, I managed to find a photo of Jesse James’ “Hydro-hell” hydrogen vehicle.

According to HydrogenCarsNow.com, Jesse plans to beat the current 186 mph record (held by BMW) by going a whopping 250 mph… in a car that he made himself! Well, repurposed. Still… crazy! I don’t think I’d trust anything I’d built enough to try and go as fast as humanly possible in it, but hey – I’m just a blogger, not a crazy-homemade-hydrogen-powered-car-with-cool-racing-stripes mechanic, right?

James has taken a Dees-Milodon Engineering-Davis B Streamliner that is over 40 years old and once raced at the Bonneville Salt Flats with a top speed of 237 mph and repurposed the vehicle with hydrogen.

“The 10,000 psi gaseous H2 tanks come from Quantum Technologies and the engine is a modified Chevy 572 internal combustion engine with twin turbos. If Jesse James lives up to his outlaw name, good things will happen with this hydrogen racecar.”

I know I’ll be watching — I wish that more press were pushing this (though I hear the show isn’t very popular) cause I think that if he does actually beat this record, it could be great press for hydrogen cars! What do you think?