Green Living: Nokia is the greenest electronics company, Nintendo still environmentally unfriendly

While we’re still waiting for Greenpeace’s latest edition of its guide to greener electronics, let’s recap October 2010 edition.

Nokia ranked first among 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. All its current mobile phone models are PVC free and Nokia’s scheduled releases are on track to be free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide.

Sony Ericsson, Philips, HP, Samsung, and Motorola are also praised by Greenpeace for their efforts against toxic chemicals.

Apple is ranked #9 because of its lack of information about its management of chemicals and its supply chain communications. Apple also continues to score poorly for the minimal information it provides about its future toxic chemical phase-out plans.

Toshiba, Microsoft and Nintendo get a red flag. Toshiba, on #16, backtracked on its commitment to bring to market new models of all its consumer electronics products free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by 1 April 2010, its own timeline for meeting this commitment. Greenpeace accuses the Japanese company of misleading its customers by not admitting that it would not meet its public commitment until the timeline for that commitment had passed. It has failed to provide a new timeline, which means there is no longer a commitment to eliminate these harmful substances, Greenpeace says.

Microsoft also backtracked on its commitment to phase out BFRs and PVC by the end of 2010, having no products that are completely free from these compounds.

Nintendo remains in last place with the same score of 1.8 out of 10 that it got in the previous edition of Greenpeace’s guide to greener electronics. It continues to score zero on all e-waste criteria and although it has improved its information to customers about access to its take-back programme in the US and Canada, this was not enough to score points.

Nintendo scores points on energy criteria, for the energy efficiency of its low power AC adaptor for the Nintendo DSi, which meets the requirements for external power supplies in the Energy Star programme. It also retains a point on energy for disclosing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from its own operations. However, it fails to score for its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, due to a second year of increases, despite a commitment to cut CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases by 2 percent over each previous year. Emissions in 2007 increased by 1.5 percent compared to 2006, following a rise of 6 percent in 2006, Greenpeace states.

The full ranking:
1 – Nokia
2 – Sony Ericsson
3 – Philips
4 – HP
5 – Samsung
6 – Motorola / Panasonic / Sony
9 – Apple
10 – Dell
11 – Sharp
12 – Acer
13 – Fujitsu
14 – LG / Lenovo
16 – Toshiba
17 – Microsoft
18 – Nintendo

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Green Living: 5 natural hangover remedies

An useful piece of advice from Mother Nature Network. Happy New Year!

Bananas: When it comes to home hangover remedies, reaching for a humble banana or two is one of the most effective ways to combat a case of the post-Champagne nasties. Excessive alcohol intake can eliminate your body’s supply of potassium. Bananas fill you back up with this essential mineral quickly, safely and cheaply. If you anticipate that the morning after is going to be a rough one, place a couple of bananas on your bedside table.

Water: Even though you’re filling your body with liquids, boozin’ is a surefire way to become uncomfortably dehydrated. We recommend following the “two carafe rule": If you plan on imbibing, keep two carafes of tap water by your bed (alongside those bananas). Drink one before you go to sleep, and drink the other when you wake up the next morning. Many folks drink water only when taking aspirin, ibuprofen or other pain-relieving medicines. We say skip ‘em when treating a hangover, since they can only complicate things and make you feel worse if there’s still alcohol in your system. Opt to take B-vitamins instead.

Fruit juice: Guzzling fructose- and glucose-heavy fruit juices, particularly freshly squeezed varieties, raises blood-sugar levels and replenishes your body with the essential vitamins depleted during drinking. But if a sour stomach accompanies your raging hangover, it’s best to avoid O.J. due to its high acidity. Drink stomach-soothing ginger ale instead. Whatever you do, avoid coffee and other caffeinated beverages. They may make you feel a bit less groggy, but they aren't helpful in conquering hangovers since they're diuretics, which will dehydrate you even more.

Honey: This potassium- and antioxidant-rich pantry staple boasts numerous hangover-helping qualities. Ingest it by itself or, better yet, spread it over a piece of dry toast or a cracker, since you do need to eat something during a hangover (even if your appetite tells you otherwise). In fact, the Royal Society of Chemistry believes eating a breakfast of honey-on-toast is one of the best ways to beat a New Year's Day hangover.

Soup: Does the sight of bacon and eggs — edibles that you’d normally scramble toward — make you feel even more nauseated while hungover? If honey-on-toast and bananas aren’t cutting it but you’d rather stay away from grease, opt for soup. Filled with vitamins and nutrients and that familiar “feel-good” taste that warms the senses, eating rehydrating soup is beneficial when battling hangovers. Something as basic as chicken soup can do the trick, but if you’re feeling ambitious, try experimenting with traditional “hangover soups” from around the globe, such as pho (Vietnam), haejangguk (Korea), pancita (Mexico) or borscht (Ukraine). It also helps to add a bit of spice to your hangover soup of choice, since sweating eliminate toxins from the body.

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Green Living: Italy bans plastic bags

From the TreeHuger: "Sustainability is made of little changes to our lifestyle that don't cost us anything and can save the planet," said Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italian Environmental Minister, as she confirmed that a ban on non-biodegradable, single-use plastic bags will take effect on 1 January 2011, for all of Italy.

The plastics industry protests that the rules are not clear, that the abrupt transition will have negative repercussions on consumers, and that Italy has no reason to take the initiative as there is no ban at the European level. But their arguments seem weak in light of the fact that the ban, originally announced for January 2010, has already been delayed a year to give the industry time for transition.

Further arguments include the cost of biodegradable bags (4-5 times more), and the fact that biodegradable plastics cannot yet meet the technical specifications that the non-biodegradable plastics meet; read: the biodegradable bags rip even as consumers pack their purchases at the cash register. Perhaps any inadequacy of the single-use biodegradable bags will convince more Italians to reach for multi-use bags. In a survey last November, 73% of Italians reported that they would use alternatives to single-use, non-biodegradable plastic bags when shopping.

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Green Living: Wii is the most energy efficient video game console

Tweet this post From the New York Times: Shopping for a video game console? The Electric Power Research Institute has ranked models on a characteristic that is rarely at the top of the list of must-have features: energy consumption.

Playing Madden NFL 11, the popular EA Sports video game, consumes roughly six times more electricity on the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 than on the Nintendo Wii, according to engineers at the institute’s lab in Knoxville, Tenn. The Wii drew an average of 13.7 watts vs. 84.8 watts for the PlayStation and 87.9 for the Xbox. (The figures do not count the TV screens that the boxes must be connected to.)

To calculate what this adds up to over the course of a year, the engineers drew on a 2006 estimate by the Nielsen Company that heavy users play for five hours and 45 minutes a day. That puts the Wii’s consumption in the range of 29 kilowatt hours, which the engineers compared to that of a fluorescent light fixture with two four-foot tubes. The consumptions of the PlayStation, at 179 kilowatt hours, and the Xbox, at 184 kilowatt-hours, were akin to a washing machine’s or a television set’s.

The Xbox and the PlayStation “are very powerful computing units that have powerful graphics cards and powerful processors, and it takes a lot more power to run things like that,’’ said Jeffrey A. Dols, a project manager at the lab. “The Wii is much less powerful.’’

In fact, in the Madden game, the players have recognizable faces on the PlayStation and the Xbox; on the Wii, the images are “more cartoony,’’ he said.

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Off-topic: Are fake Christmas trees better on the environment?

From the New York Times: In these eco-conscious times, many people want to shrink their environmental footprint while still enjoying the trappings of the holiday season. In some cases, the earth-friendly alternative – pass the tofurky – is a pretty obvious choice.

But in others, the answer is not so clear. When it comes to Christmas trees, for instance, which is better for the planet: the long-lasting artificial kind, or the freshly cut, pine-scent-and-sap variety?

As I report in Saturday’s Times, at least one major study found that the real tree is probably the better choice. But as I found during my reporting, many consumers still believe that a faux fir is less harmful to the environment than the real thing.

That’s because an artificial tree can be used again and again, unlike a real tree, which is tossed out at the end of the season. Yet as it turns out, that’s not enough to tilt the scales in the faux fir’s favor. The resources used to make artificial trees — plastic and metal — have a high extraction cost, and most trees are made in China, meaning they need to be shipped thousands of miles before they reach American shores. Read more...

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Swedish region becomes independent from oil for heating

Green heating? It is possible, tell the swedes and the New York Times: Over the course of the last decade, Kristianstad’s government has orchestrated a conversion from mostly oil heating to various “green” fuels like biomass, food processing waste and wood pellets.

It’s quite interesting because it is so easy to think, “Impossible!” when some environmental policy experts suggest that countries should cut emissions by, say, 20 or 30 percent by 2020. As many of the articles in our “Beyond Fossil Fuels” series point out, some methods for drastically reducing emissions exist. But they come with economic costs (at least in the short term) and require a political commitment.

Having cut out fossil fuel for heating, Kristianstad’s per-capita carbon dioxide emissions are now only about 4.1 tons per person. Compare that to 19.18 in the United States and 4.91 in China, a far less developed country than Sweden.

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Old elevated railway in Manhattan becomes a park

Awesome solution to paint cities green. From SustainableCities.dk:

June 2009 saw the opening of New York’s High Line, a coherent stretch of green parkland on an old elevated railway on Manhattan. The new park immediately became a major attraction. A second section is expected to open in 2010 to give New Yorkers a 2.3 kilometer- (1.5 mile-) long green corridor. The High Line railway, which was in operation until 1980, now fulfils in its new function as a much sought after green area in the Big Apple. (Read more)

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