Read the rest of Travis Pond Crafts Elaborate Larger Than Life Beasts from Scrap Motorcycles

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Post tags: animal sculptures, eco-art, green art, Honda, Motorbikes, Recycled Materials, recycled metal, scrap metal, scrap metal art, Scrap Motorbikes, Sculpture Dragon, steel pond, Travis Pond, upcycling

A new smartphone app made by the folks at CORA may soon be available to eco-savvy individuals and businesses who are looking to make use of, or donate, old materials in lieu of sending them off to the local landfill. The new app lets users type in what kind of trash they are tossing and in turn shows them if someone nearby would like it, where they can recycle it, and it even offers a list of super cool upcycling DIY projects that make use of the trash! This app will certainly make people think twice before throwing out their seemingly unwanted items.

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Post tags: DIY, diy app, green apps, green gadgets, green iphone apps, green smartphone apps, green technology, recycling, recycling app, team cora, team cora iphone app, team cora smartphone app, upcycling, upcycling app

Community gardens are already very popular in Berlin, but a group of agro-entrepreneurs is planning to take urban farming to the next level in the German capital. A team of three Berliners is planning to convert an enormous old malt factory in the city’s Schöneberg district into a rooftop farm that promises to be one of the most ambitious urban agriculture projects in the world. The Frisch vom Dach (“Fresh from the Roof”) project will be an aquaponics farm where both fish and vegetables are produced and distributed on-site.

Read the rest of Frisch vom Dach To Convert Former Berlin Malt Factory Into a Rooftop Aquaponics Farm!

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Post tags: adaptive reuse, aquaponics, berlin, Frisch vom Dach, germany, rooftop farm, shipping containers, sustainable food, upcycling, urban agriculture, Urban Farming

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Post tags: 101 Dorp Gallery, Art, eco design, environmental art, green art, green design, green interiors, Recycle, Recycled Materials, Relove, Roché Van Den Berg, rubber, Slee, solo exhibit, Stellenbosch, sustainable design, upcycling, Western Cape

Got an empty bottle of laundry detergent kicking around? When artist Martine Camillieri looks at it, he sees an ice cream truck. A bottle of motor oil? That looks sort of like a sports car. Camillieri specializes in transforming everyday objects into toys, and his latest creation is a series of plastic bottles that have been converted into different types of (adorable) automobiles. After creating a vehicle, Camillieri stages it so that the toy car can be viewed in its ‘natural’ habitat. Click through to see some of the others.

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Post tags: Art, automobiles, cars, eco toys, Martine Camillieri, recycled produces, recycling, toys, upcycling

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Post tags: antique birdhouse, birdhouses, brian carlise, Brian Carlisle, eco birdhouses, gadget sponge, green birdhouses, paper gadget, paper gagdet, recycled birdhouses, Recycled Materials, steam punk birdhouse, upcycling

Read the rest of Incredible Pendant Lamp Made From 270 Playing Cards

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Post tags: Design, Eco, green, green lighting, playing card lamp, Sustainable, upcycling

To most folks, used coffee grounds aren’t particularly useful — but a couple of British designers figured out a way to turn those old grounds into new furniture. That’s right, you can now you can rest your cappuccino on a table made of (mostly) recycled coffee grounds. Re-worked, a non-profit design company that specializes in green technology, recently unveiled a product called Çurface (pronounced “surface”), which is a composite board made of used coffee grounds and recycled waste plastics — a perfect illustration of upcycling. The material is water-proof, scratch-proof, and it’s malleable enough to be used in a variety of functions.

Read the rest of Re-worked Brews Up Furniture from Recycled Coffee Grounds

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Post tags: "green furniture", Adam Fairweather, Çurface, coffee, decor, green design, Re-worked, recycled material, Recycled Materials, sustainable design, upcycling

Read the rest of The Hummer House: A Better Use For Hummers As Prefab Housing

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", adaptive reuse, eco design, green architecture, Green Building, green design, green renovation, hplusf, hummer, Hummer Home, hummer house, modular housing, Prefab, Prefab Housing, Recycled Materials, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, upcycled materials, upcycling

Read the rest of INTERVIEW: Architect David Hertz Talks to Us About How To Build With Old Planes

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Post tags: "sustainable architecture", 747, 747 house, adaptive reuse, David Hertz, eco design, green architecture, Green Building, green design, green renovation, hertz architects, inhabitat interview, interview, plane, Recycled Materials, recycling, Sustainable Building, sustainable design, up-cycling, upcycling

Like many Americans, you may be lighting up the barbecue this holiday weekend — but if you want to set yourself apart from the bands of boring black grills, take a cue from our guide to stylish green grills. From DIY creations to hot spots that also double up as planting pots, whether you’re cooking up a sustainably raised burger or a tofu dog, each of these grills will help you streamline your holiday resource use without limiting your fun!

Read the rest of Four Stylish Green Grills for a Sustainable Fourth of July!

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Post tags: altoids, altoids grill, bbq, bbq Memorial Day, bbr Altoids, Black + Blum, DIY, diy barbeque, diy grilling, eco barbecue, eco grills, green bbq, green grilling, green holidays, Lapin Kulta, Memorial Day, repurposed materials, solar cooking, upcycling

A 16-foot mountain of used garments towered over Hong Kong’s Central Star Ferry Pier last week, as part of the ‘Get Redressed‘ exhibit — an awareness building campaign to promote recycling in response to Hong Kong’s staggering 253 tonnes of discarded textiles. Dubbed the ’3% mountain’, in reference to the 7.5 tons of textiles required to build it, the display helped put Hong Kong’s second-hand clothing waste into perspective. Despite the fact that Hong Kong has 190 used clothes recycling banks, the lack of awareness in the community has unfortunately deemed them ineffective.

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Post tags: eco-fashion, get redressed, green fashion, hong kong fashion, hong kong recycling, hong kong textiles, recycling, textile recycling, textile waste, upcycling

Sometimes, the most innovative lighting fixtures don’t come from the stable of perfectly finished, sleek task lights at design shows, but from the recycling heaps and hardware stores on the streets of Brooklyn. Pratt Industrial Design student Mayang Anggraeni often takes less glamorous post-consumer materials and transforms them into stylish objects. She recently showcased her Float Light fixture at the 2011 Pratt Student Show, drawing much-deserved attention from visitors, including the Inhabitat team. The fist-sized plastic fixtures, fashioned from recycled plastic detergent bottle parts, LED lamps and batteries, elegantly demonstrate the potential of upcycling commonplace objects into creative, high-design objects fit for any showroom.

Read the rest of Mayang Anggraeni’s ‘Float Lights’ Are Made From Recycled Laundry Detergent Lids

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Post tags: "lighting design", detergent cap, float light, floating light, green lighting, led light, mayang anggraeni, portable lights, pratt design show, pratt show 2011, upcycling

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Post tags: Bill McDonough, bill mcdonough interview, c2c, Construction Specialist, cradle-to-cradle, green architecture, Green Building, green design, green interview, green products, green wash, GreenBuild, Herman Miller, Howard Williams, intelligent materials pooling, Material science, materials recycling, MBDC, McDonough interview, Michael Braungart, product chemistry, PVC, reverse logistics, sustainable design, technical nutrient, upcycle, upcycling, use periods, william mcdonough interview, William McDonough Partners

Dirk Van Der Kooij’s Endless chair is a marvel that uses just one plastic string bent back and forth to form its innovative structure. The best part? The chair is made entirely from recycled refrigerators! Committed to environmentally-friendly design, Van Der Kooij chose to give new life to old fridges, saving them from scrap yards and landfills. Recycling the refrigerators also gives a little personality to the chairs (each one is a different color) yielding a unique chair for each color combination.

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Post tags: Dirk van der Kooij, Eindhoven, Endless Chair, furniture design, Recycled Materials, Recycled refrigerators, upcycling

Upcycling is a 21st century term, coined by Cradle to Cradle authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart, but the idea of turning waste into useful products came to life brilliantly in 1963 with the Heineken WOBO (world bottle). Envisioned by beer brewer Alfred Heineken and designed by Dutch architect John Habraken, the “brick that holds beer” was ahead of its ecodesign time, letting beer lovers and builders alike drink and design all in one sitting.

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Post tags: Alfred Heineken, Amsterdam, beer brick, cradle-to-cradle, eco design, Garbage Building, Green Building, green design, Heineken, heineken wobo, John Habraken, Martin Pawley, Netherlands, Rinus van den Berg, sustainable design, upcycling, WOBO, world bottle

This old rail engine was assigned to be scrap until Indian Rail engineers decided to use it to clean up the tracks instead. It’s been fitted with a massive suction pipe that sucks up all of the garbage in its path much like an elephant trunk inhaling peanuts. It’s already begun its mission, making Mumbai a slightly cleaner city to live in.

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Post tags: garbage inhaling machine, green design, indian rail, old rail engine, old train, Recycled Materials, recycled train, repurposed materials, trash sucking machine, upcycling

Just how powerful is your circular saw? Well, put six of them together and they can propel a go-kart and rider at more than 40 miles an hour. This important discovery was made this weekend at the UK’s national power tool drag racing championships in Somerset. The circular saw-powered Bolt Lightning kart — with 36 horsepower — handily disposed of the competition, which consisted only of vehicles propelled by ordinary power tools.

Read the rest of Go-Kart Powered by 6 Circular Saws Slices Through UK Derby

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Post tags: barry lee, dyi, go karts, mini cars, races, repurposing, somerset, toolstation, UK, upcycling

If you’re in the market for a GM car, you may soon be sitting among recycled Gulf oil spill materials. With partner GDC, GM is cleaning and recycling the infamous absorbent booms from the Gulf and will begin turning them into air dams, water deflectors and other passive car parts as soon as next week. Booms absorb oil but repel water — a property that comes in handy for parts that shouldn’t get wet.

Read the rest of GM to Use Recycled Oil Spill Cleanup Materials in New Cars

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Post tags: absorbent booms, BP, bp gulf oil spill, general motors, GM, gulf coast oil spill cleanup, recycling, upcycling

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Post tags: bar, bicycle, bikes, Denis Oudendijk, eco-art, glowing bike bar, green design, ibc container, italy, Jan Körbes, mobile bar, Nancy/Artyjane, Paolo de Guidi, recycled design, Recycled Materials, refunc, sustainable design, terni, upcycling, water container