The Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew temple in Thailand’s Sisaket province about 370 miles to the north east of Bangkok, is known as “Wat Lan Kuad” which means the Temple of Million Bottles.

It’s a great example of recycling went right with all the temple premises, the crematorium, the surrounding shelters as well as the toilets – all made of recycled glass bottles. And don’t think they threw out those used bottle caps. No sir! A beautiful mosaic work stands proud on the walls …

The process of collecting these green and brown coloured glass bottles started in 1984 when the monks began building shelters out of them. The result? The shiny glass managed to attract more and more people which not only visited the place but also started donating more bottles.

Structure after structure, bottle after bottle, the temple as you see it today, uses 1.5million used bottles as sustainable building material, do not fade, allows natural light to penetrate through and is easy maintenance. Kudos for the Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew monks for their incredible temple made of bottles. – via Inhabitat

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Drax, a major energy companies in the UK has revealed that it plans to build three biomass stations in the UK, at a cost of £2 billion. All of the biomass stations will run on biological waste from forestry or industries such as woodchips, straw, sunflower seeds, peanut husks and agricultural products such as sugarcane, hemp or willow.

Drax power station at midnight

As the prices of fossil fuels are continuously on the rise, this effective step will provide an enormous boost to UK’s target of producing 20% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020.

When ready, the three biomass stations will produce 15% of Britain’s total energy, to suffice 2million homes. They will be built in collaboration with the engineering giant – Siemens, with two of the plants going at Hull near Yorkshire while the third venue still remains undecided.

However there is slight concern over the sustainability of these stations because it is being felt that we might “sacrifice” plants for fuel, rather than eating them. With food, soon to be major problem, that’s a tough decision, don’t you think? – via Telegraph

Image courtesy of yorkshiregeek

A female bar-tailed godwit, a wading bird called E7, has set a new record of having flown 6,230 miles for eight days across the Pacific Ocean to reach her winter home in New Zealand.

Much to the astonishment of the monitoring research team, the bird flew continuously without stopping for food, water or rest, making it the longest bird flight we’ve been monitoring, beating the previous record of 4,038 miles which had been set by a Far Eastern curlew.

The other eight godwits that got tagged with tiny satellite transmitters, were reported to have flown what the research team referred to as “extreme endurance flights” between 4,355 and 7,258miles depending on the chosen route. Just like the E7 godwit, they did not feed on their journey.

Check out more bar-tailed godwit pictures if you love birds!

All images courtesy of jvverde

I don’t know if this is spelled right or wrong but it looks to me like somebody lost their backside. Not so. A hinny is a cross between a stallion and a female donkey. Two of them were found at a golf course in Primghar, Iowa.

The sheriff’s office is looking for the owner of the two unusual four-legged creatures found wandering around. The deputy’s offices corralled the pair and took them a city pasture. But, nobody is claiming the hinnies. It’s believed that the animals were abandoned because of tough financial times.

Truthfully, am I the only one who has never heard of a hinny? I wonder, what other cross-breed animals there are that I haven’t heard of. Teach me, please. Ligers…and, well, I can’t think of others.

It’s good to know the maker has a sense of humor, isn’t it? What was it Spielberg said, “Life will find a way.” A way to make us laugh, eh?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

You say potato, I say poh-tah-toe. You say tomato, I say purple cancer-fighting tomatoes. Seriously, I can’t imagine how people can have the gall to think they can improve on the Creator’s original product, but British researchers have announced that they have a genetically engineered tomato that is part pizza topping and part berry.

What’s more, the finished product has helped prevent cancer in mice and the finding was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The researchers learned that cancer-proned (they get that way from eating genetically altered food) lived significantly longer than animals who didn’t eat the purple tomatoes.

The mice were genetically altered to develop cancer and die within 142 days. Given the tomato, they lived 182 days. Um, how about we don’t give the mice anything that will cause them to get cancer and see how much longer they live, huh?

“The next step will be to take the pre-clinical data forward to human studies with volunteers to see if we can promote health through dietary preventive medicine strategies” said research leader Prof Cathie Martin from the John Innes Centre in Norwich.

The main finding – people can significantly improve their health by making simple changes to the daily diet. Gosh, eat right and exercise and you will live longer. – via DailyMail

The world’s economy may be taking a hit, but solar-cell-related business is still on the up and Japanese companies know this well. Four such companies are increasing the output of their contribution to the solar-cell industry.

Mitsui Chemicals produces a sealant film to prevent solar cells from cracking. The firm will raise its annual production of the film from 9,000 tons to 20,000 tons.

Bridgestone, which together with Mitsui Chemicals, owns 30% of the global market for the film will triple its output capacity at one of its plants.

Toray Industries “will increase output of PET plastic film used in solar panel backsheets that prevent electronics components from weathering.” Toray has a majority of the global share. The company will raise its monthly output from 400 tons to 1,000 tons.

Teijin will invest ¥500 million to double production capacity of the PET plastic film to 600 tons a month.

Good business, bad business, these Japanese companies know where to make money and make the world a better place. We salute them all!

Source: Nikkei (sub needed) and Image copyright reiner.kraft

Honda knows that fuel-saving cars and low inventory are the keys to staying competitive.

The company also knows that saving fuel is saving our environment and producing cars on demand doesn’t tax other global resources as well.

Honda’s President was interviewed – excerpts:

“Compact cars like the Jazz (known as the Fit in Japan) remain stable in the region, but we are having a hard time selling larger vehicles.” Duh?!

“…the rise in crude oil prices will have long-term implications for us. Accordingly, what we should do now is develop more inexpensive, fuel-efficient vehicles.” Why wait till the economy is a mess?

“It is equally important to improve the lineup of energy-saving vehicles. We will go into an offensive mode highlighting hybrid vehicles.”

Honda knows that making cars friendlier to our environment and less taxing on our resources is a long term solution. America’s Big Three! Are you reading?

Image courtesy of Clint M Chilcott

Though they aren’t green enough yet, I’m pretty sure that big guys like UPS, FedEx and DHL will always be on top when it comes to shipping your items. However, from time to time, smaller companies with innovative ideas are trying to bring new solutions to the market to get their name out.

A very good example is First Global Xpress (FGX) that is proposing a faster, cheaper, greener solution to shipping a package, than what we’ve been used with.

They self-praise with the fact that their system is avoiding the traditional hub-and-spoke method that require additional flights (usually more than two) and have cut shipping time by as much as 24 hours, shipping costs up to 20% and carbon emissions by at least 30% per package only using one flight.

How do they do it? The company has partnered with over 100 commercial airlines that serve as third party carriers. Also worth mentioning is the fact that FGX’s boxes and envelopes are all made of recycled materials, use vegetable-based inks and that for the NYC area they use hybrid cars from East Coast Limousine.

Today, FGX ships 250,000 packages each year and registers $10 million in sales. Do you think they’ll ever play in the big league in a green/eco-friendly way?

TogetherGreen is an Audubon program funded by Toyota, that aims at helping people get involved in creating a brighter, healthier future. It’s a program that provides inspiration, leadership and opportunities that will make people aware and will persuade them to take action at home, in their communities and beyond to improve the health of our environment.

Sample projects that received funding include:

1. Engaging low-income students in middle schools to devise and implement energy saving plans (Denver, CO);
2. Constructing gardens to stem storm water overflows that carry pollutants and disease-laden sewage into homes and waterways (Pittsburgh, PA);
3. Involving the public in hands-on strategies for restoring vanishing wetlands vital to flood control (coastal Louisiana); and
4. Reducing bird fatalities caused by their attraction to the lights in high-rise buildings (Minneapolis, MN).

“Our biggest environmental problems can’t be solved unless we engage people from every ethnic, racial and economic community that makes up America and help them realize their power to make a difference in their own communities,” said Audubon President John Flicker. “These TogetherGreen Innovation Grants help local groups to engage people and to start achieving tangible conservation results at the same time”

Launched in the spring of 2008, a total of 41 projects in 24 states were selected from nationwide applicants to receive up to $1.4 million in TogetherGreen Conservation Innovation Grants, for the next five years the project will run. Many of them target inner-city and non-English speaking audiences that always seemed underserved by the environmental community.

For more info check out the press release

If you are in search of an energy efficient but smart looking replacement for your CFL light bulbs, then you can end your hunt here. Frog Design has come out with an innovative LED bulb which is shaped like the conventional bulb instead of a LED, and what is more interesting is that it lasts for a good thirty years.

This high-powered LED uses less power and has a brighter light quality as compared to the CFL and since it is in the ordinary bulb shape it can easily be fit into any light socket.

The heat released by the bulb is absorbed by its aluminum base thereby giving it the long life that it promises to have. Whether the Frog Design’s LED will live up to its expectations is yet for us to see. – via CleanTechnica