Only a Very Small Percentage of Retired Phones are Recycled

While the huge number of retired phones continues to grow and the demand for refurbished phones is accelerating, only a very small percentage of displaced phones are actually making it into the recycling channels.

Nokia estimates that 74 percent of people are not even aware that their old phones can be recycled and most others don’t know how or where to recycle them. From the results of a worldwide survey done in 2008 by Nokia, only three percent of displaced phones are being returned for recycling – even less than the four percent that are being thrown in landfills. The rest remain in our respective drawers at home.

So Where Can They be Recycled?

The first thing you should attempt to do is to clear your mobile phone of all data and get it back to its original state. If you still have the manual you can easily find how to do it. If you do not , you will have to scroll through the set-up and or mechanical menus to find the option to do this. Another method that I recently did to clear my Blackberry of data before selling it on eBay, was to search the internet via your favorite browser search engine with “erase data on XXXX” where XXXX is the manufacturer and model on your phone. This popped up a number of  sites to assist me through the process. While also doing a search, key in “cell phone recycling” to get a list of places to either resell, donate or eco dispose of it.

Some sites we like are:

• Charity Guide
• GRC Recycling
• Gazelle
• EcoCell

This a small listing of many you will find if you search the Internet as mentioned above. Many of the large office supply chain stores also offer drop boxes as well as many of the cellular phone providers either at their retail locations or via programs on their websites. The bottom line is to get rid of the old ones cluttering your draw to save some space, make a few bucks or to donate to the less fortunate. Don’t delay do it today!

It’s not only what is inside that counts this holiday, but how you wrap your presents that matters as well. All of those lovely gifts can lead to a pile of boxes, gift-wrap and plastic packaging destined for the landfill. In 2009 Americans threw away 78.5 million tons of packaging, making up more than one third of all solid waste in landfills.

It’s in the Wrap

Everyone will appreciate gifts wrapped with recycled love. Comics are favorites, but outdated maps, yellow pages and finished coloring-book pages also can have a nice wrapping effect. And how about cutting the brown paper bags from the grocery store. Cut them open and use the inside for a crayon or paint canvas custom designed by the artists you have at home. If you must use wrap, look for recycled or at least partially recycled brands.

Gift Bags, too

Reuse last year’s gift bags if you can, but if you’re low on supply, try one made of natural fibers or recycled content, or make your own. Brown (recycled) lunch bags are always good as are the paper sack from the grocery store. If you must buy some new ones, once again look for at least partially recycled products.

One site we like is Green Field Paper. Of course there are many more just Google “Recycled Wrapping Paper” and you will have many to choose from. We are certain that with a little extra effort your holiday, be it Hanukkah,Christmas, Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice will be greener and more meaningful.

Be on the cutting edge with LED holiday lights.

 

Each bulb with this new LED technology uses only 0.04 watts and is up to 90 percent more efficient than its incandescent counterpart. So a household burning 10 strands of lights for eight hours a day for a month at $0.0853 per kilowatt-hour would spend $127.67 for large incandescent bulbs, $7.20 for traditional mini-lights, and just $0.72 for LEDs. Also these newer bulbs are sturdier, last up to 100,000 hours, or 20 years, and barely warm up thus eliminating most fire concerns.

To also maximize holiday lighting savings, use timers to limit light displays to no more than six evening hours a day. Leaving lights on for 24 hours a day will easily quadruple your energy costs while also creating 4 times as much green house gases from the additional energy needed to light them.

And be safe, unattended lights can cause fires, especially if the lights are on a dried holiday tree or wreath, so always unplug your interior lights before going to bed or leaving the house. See the U.S. Department of Energy website to learn about the savings.

You upgrade your computers and other office equipment periodically so when was the last time your business upgraded its electric meter?

Well you are not alone; as with most commercial businesses electric meters have not been touched since their initial installation. Not to worry though, your local electric company will soon bring your electric meter into the 21st century as a Smart Meter.

These new meters will help provide their customers with detailed consumption breakdowns and communicate information back to the utility for monitoring and billing.  They will help match consumption with generation, and promise major energy savings by changing how and when we use electricity.

Soon you will be able to:

• Monitor, track, and adjust real-time energy usage.
• Get more accurate billing to create better utility expense forecasts.
• Quickly identify energy hogs allowing for consumption adjustment to assist in lowering bills
• With real-time pricing, you may choose to run certain business processes based on off-peak pricing
• Depending on your type of business you may benefit by shifting working hours based on lower energy prices.
• Calculate an ROI for making a decision for an investment in an alternative energy solution like solar or wind for your business.

The smart meter/grid is rapidly progressing so begin today to start learning about how you can incorporate it into your business to save money.

RCA Airnergy Pulls Power From Thin Air

RCA Airnergy is a small USB device that harvests electrical power from Wi-Fi signals. Anytime the device is in the vicinity of one or more Wi-Fi sources, the Airnergy is Minor Limitation

The Airnergy unit, expected to hit the store shelves some time later this year (~ $40) is expected to only have a USB connection, meaning it won’t sync with a lot of devices like your iPhone or iPod without using a connection converter. So this means you will have another piece of gear to take with you. We hope RCA realizes this short coming and takes an appropriate action. We would also like to see the USB port also accept power input so it can be charged from your laptop or PC.

More Innovation

RCA is also developing Wi-Fi energy harvesting batteries that should cost roughly the same as the OEM batteries in most electronic devices. This means your phone/iPod/Blackberry/etc. will be able to recharge itself wirelessly anytime you’re near a hotspot without any extra peripheral devices. As cities and carrier networks experiment add more Wi-Fi clouds that blanket entire cities, the day may not be too far away when our smartphones download our email, update our Twitter pages and recharge our batteries all from the same signal, all the time, using otherwise wasted energy!

Who thought we would see such innovative products from a an old time company like RCA, the inventors of the 7″  vinyl single well it turns out RCA is actually now a brand from electronics giant AudioVox… who knew!

The K3 Wind and Solar Charger

A fully charged K3 charges a mobile phone over 5 times and charges an iPod/mp3 player over 10 times!*

Just one hour of sun & wind provides about 30 minutes of talk time and over 300 minutes of mp3 music!*

K3 FEATURES

• 2 in 1 dual charging ability for collecting sun, wind, or both
• The largest rechargable battery capacity of its group – ready to use over and over again
• USB port built in with available adapter tips to charge various devices
• Stand up, lay down, or hang the K3 – works in any charging environment
• Power status LED level indicators with the press of a button
• Durable, weatherproof design you can take anywhere
• Storage inside for multiple device adapter tips
• AC adapter included for pre-charging before you go

The product is great for camping, boating, to throw in your glove box or in your attache when traveling. This product is now available at many retail locations or via the companies website store at: http://www.kinesisindustries.com

*Performance figures will vary based on different mobile phone models and iPod/mp3 player models, as well as sunlight intensity and wind speed consistency.

A Unique New Device to Keep Your Showers Shorter

Waterpebble is a revolutionary device designed to take the effort out of saving water.

Water Pebble is a world’s first. Paul Priestman a director of design company Priestmangoode was inspired by a sign in a hotel bathroom to, “Please Use Water Sparingly” and he started developing the concept on his return home. The Waterpebble is unique in the way it works to help reduce water usage.

This clever device monitors water going down the drain when you shower. Memorizing your first shower and using it as a benchmark, Waterpebble then indicates, via a series of ‘traffic lights’ flashing gently from green through to red, when to finish showering. Each time you shower the Waterpebble automatically fractionally reduces your shower time helping you to save water without needing to think about it. Set it and forget it! The Waterpebble encourages you to use less water each time you shower.

Press the reset button. 3 lights will flash

Place in the shower near the plughole. Shower as normal. The lights will flash green, amber and red as Waterpebble memorises your shower. Then each time you shower, Waterpebble lights up to indicate:

Green – start , Amber – you’re halfway through, Red – time to stop

Every shower, your water usage is reduced a little. Waterpebble can be reset at any time. They claim the battery will last for around 4 to 6 months with average use. The battery cannot be replaced which we view as a downside however they do recycle the units if you send them back.

For further information see waterpebble.com.

See their video at Waterpebble

There is a shortage of light emitting diodes (LED) in the USA due to increased consumer uptake as people rapidly begin to use them in place of power hungry incandescent bulbs. According to a recent Department of Energy report on LED technology it states that 7% of electricity used America is to light our homes and businesses. Although that number is down significantly in the last few years due to the adoption of efficient lighting, there is still a great deal of ground to be gained. Further adoption will be because of continued innovations in more subdued color LEDs which will begin to make their way to the market. The DOE expects this further adoption to result in even larger decrease in energy use.

A small change like using this technology has a BIG impact as the cumulative savings of the continued adoption of LEDs over the next 20 years could lead to saving 1.500 terawatt-hours which based energy prices today is around $120 billion. The savings would eliminate the need for 24 new large power plants, to say nothing of the decrease in carbon emissions. So don’t delay get the LED out today!

Clean Energy From Ocean Waves

SyncWave Systems has a very different design to harness the oceans waves in a highly efficient way. The Animation/Simulation featured below is for a preliminary version of the SyncWave Wave Energy Converter (WEC). The animation is extracted directly from a 6 degree of freedom nonlinear physical simulation of the WEC in waves as noted below.

I recently came across this article that I thought would be of interest to you. It is not only a way to create less waste but many of these new chargers do not act as vampires of energy when they are plugged in and your phone is not attached. Little steps… Little steps… add up to big advances. Enjoy the reading… more yesteryear technologies soon to be posted.

One size fits all phone chargers on the way: ITU

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -

Ever forget your phone charger and no one around has the same kind of handset?  

Have a drawer full of useless old phone chargers at home?

Breathe a sigh of relief.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations’ telecom arm, said on Thursday it had given its stamp of approval “to an energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution.

“Every mobile phone user will benefit from the new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), which enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model,” the ITU said in a statement.

“Some manufacturers are already incorporating the UCS in their devices,” an ITU spokesman said.

The association hopes a universal charger will help reduce waste by cutting down on the number of chargers produced and then thrown away with the purchase of a new handset.

There are already more than 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions around the world.

In June, top mobile phone suppliers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other industry majors agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, which means phones compatible with standard charging devices are available in Europe from next year.

The EU estimates unwanted phone accessories account for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year.

Now, if only they could come up with a single plug.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske, Editing by Michael Shields and Dan Lalor)