All the flashing strobes and pounding speakers at the dance club are
massive consumers of electrical power. So Bar Surya, in London,
re-outfitted its floor with springs that, when compressed by dancers,
could produce electrical current that would be stored in batteries and
used to offset some of the club's electrical burden. The club's owner,
Andrew Charalambous, said the dance floor can now power 60 percent of the
club's energy needs.
 Company creates a desktop printer that doesn't
use ink nor paper
Who says printers only use paper to print documents? It's time for you to
meet the PrePeat Printer then. Different from conventional printers,
PrePeat adopts a thermal head to print on specially-made plastic sheets.
These plastic sheets are not merely water-proof, but could be easily
erased, just feed the sheets through the printer again, and a different
temperature will erase everything or just write over it. Also claimed by
the manufacturer, such one sheet could be used up to 1,000 times so that
you'll reduce your expenses on paper for sure.
 University constructs a green roof as a
gathering place
Green design is an enormously popular trend in modern architecture, just
take a look at this amazing green roof at the School of Art , Design and
Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore . This 5-story
facility sweeps a wooded corner of the campus with an organic, vegetated
form that blends landscape and structure, nature and high-tech and
symbolizes the creativity it houses. The roofs serve as informal
gathering spaces challenging linear ideas and stirring perception. The
roofs create open space, insulate the building, cool the surrounding air
and harvest rainwater for landscaping irrigation. Planted grasses mix
with native greenery to colonize the building and bond it to the setting.
 Designer creates a sink that uses wasted water
to grow a plant
Made of polished stained concrete, the Zen Garden Sink has a channel that
allows the water used while washing your hands to water a plant. Created
by young Montreal designer Jean-Michel Gauvreau the sink comes in single
or double basin model. The sink is designed in a way you won't get your
plants all soapy. There is a main drain at the bottom of the basin for
soapy grime. Your little plant friend just gets whatever you choose to
dole out.
 Designer creates a shower that forces you to
leave when you've wasted too much water
20% of our total domestic energy usage is from hot water for showering
and bathing. That's over 6 times the energy usage of domestic lighting.
So designer Tommaso Colia came up with his eco-friendly shower design
that will force you to get out when you take too long and waste much
water. The eco_drop shower features beautiful concentric circles that
will rise to force you to stop showering when you take too long, and
accordingly save water.
 Designer creates light-switch that changes
colors to teach children how to save energy
Teaching the importance of energy conservation is the goal of this design
from Tim Holley. He calls it Tio, and it's a ghost-shaped light switch
that gives kids a visual reminder of how much energy they've used by
leaving lights on. Tio starts out green and smiling. If the light is left
on for more than four hours, he turns yellow and looks shocked. And if
you dare to leave that light on for more than eight hours, sweet little
Tio turns into a raging red hulk, complete with frowny mouth and angry
eyes. But he won't just visually remind your kids about their energy
habits; information from the light switch is sent to Tio's computer
program so the entire family can see how they're doing. In a brilliant
piece of visual positive reinforcement, Holley's program lets kids grow a
⤽virtual tree⤠which gets bigger and healthier the more energy they
save.
 Environmental company creates a staple-free
stapler to avoid staple pollution
Staples are supposed to be so bad to the environment that a company
decided to create a staple-free stapler. This product promises to make
collation eco-friendly. Instead of using those thin metal planet-killers,
the staple-free stapler "cuts out tiny strips of paper and uses the
strips to stitch up to five pieces of paper together." You can even
order them customized with your corporate logo so you can, you know, brag
about what your company is doing to stop the staple epidemic.
 Designer creates an iPhone charger powered by a
hand grip
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