here’s my two cents; Depending on the intelligence level of the consumer, green living could be anything from a Hippie peace loving commune that grows its own vegetables, to responsible living with limited waste. It all really depends on the market you are after.

The greener living guide defines green living as:

Green living is an attempt to carry out your life in an eco-friendly, environmentally responsible manner, an attempt to minimize the size of your ecological footprint. Green living concerns itself with a range of topics and practices including conservation of resources, recycling, sustainability, green construction, alternative energy, organic food choices, and other environmental topics."

With all that said, I look at it as “reduce waste, reduced cost, reduce future cost”.
Reduce-reuse-recycle is great, but is pertinant in that order. In a capitalistic society, if it saves future money, without harming the environment- it’s green.

from: Jerell Klaver Salus
Gold Member

www.ShopSalus.com , and we’re as new of a startup as you can be .. think of the concept as having all of our customers be inventors :)
…and Entrepreneur Magazine just did a one page article on us for August…we have it posted to our front page.

from: Daniel Bizzell
Desizzin
Gold Member

Very cool" I know many athletes that live an organic lifestyle and would love your Muscle Relief Gel.

Muscle Relief Gel is a holistic solution for maximum results. Menthol with its quick, cooling relief is enhanced by the deep penetrating and lasting heat of Capsaicin. Our proprietary blend of Arnica, Organic Aloe and pure Essential Oils support recovery and repair to get you back into the action of life.

This week I was eating lunch out and I was fascinated with the eating utensils texture. Turns out" the forks were made from potato starch.

Wow, potato starch…I am more familiar with PLA resin (made of corn sugar). Here is a link to a company (Natureworks, LLC) that has been very good at answering any questions I have:

http://www.natureworksllc.com/product-and-applications/fact%20or%20fiction.aspx#edible

I am going to check out vegware—thank you!

Heidi, thanks for the contribution

Hey Daniel,
I can link your two topics together!
Both consumers and inventors think MONEY is green!
Gotta love those dead presidents!

The definition of green comes from what isn’t.

I love the biomimetic idea of closed loop manufacturing, where the waste products of one process are the raw ingredients for another.

That’s the industrial ends, for consumers it is the little things – “ORGANIC” on the label, Recycling, planting a garden and buying local, mass transit…

Our job is to fill the gap by inventing Alternative Energy, Non-Toxic products…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuXJFbJNltg

I tried to load this clip without success…I’ll try again.

Mathew,

Daniel,

With all the legislative actions in in California on banning plastic bags, I would consider BioBag a good example of a Green Invention.

http://www.biobagusa.com/

I would say for the consumer, “green” is something that 1. saves electricity and money (like my redlighted submission
2. saves or economizes fuel
3. a biodegradable form of something else that lasts in the landfill for 10k yrs
4. taking “waste” and making it useful

Great example of the last is the javalog, they take coffee grounds and make them into a fireplace log! Saving something like 20 million tons of coffee grounds from the landfills, pretty cool. Or hot.

I’ve always wanted to buy one of those Java logs but I’m not inclined to buy firewood over the Internet and have never seen them in person. Read about it years ago. Have you used them Mike? Do they make your home smell like a coffee house (not that there’s anything wrong with that)?

Haven’t used them, just read about it. I live in FL and it’s plenty warm here, although I’d go for the coffee aroma.

The coffee ground potting soil they give away at Starbucks is pretty good stuff" … for your plants that is.

Daniel,
I’d think that would mess with the alkalinity of the soil, wouldn’t it? I’ll have to get a ruling from Lori.

I use Starbucks coffee grinds all of the time, the only thing is once you open the bag you have to make sure it closes up tight because it will mold and then I don’t think that is good for the plants. I’m in Georgia and they don’t have to many stores that give it but in S.C they have them bagged nice by the door.

I use lemonade as a plant treat. The acid and sugar makes them happy. Kind of like catnip. :)

This one’s interesting “In the News”. Some of you are probably aware of The Detroit Electric Car Company, but I wasn’t aware that it had been revived. Of course Mr. Edison was in on it too back in the day, and they used his batteries:

http://detroit-electric.com/content/about-detroit-electric

More background and present info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric

About Java Logs,

I just talked with the VP of sales and marketing at Duraflame yesterday again, and we had a discussion about a product I have pitched to them with regards to using a bi-product for recycling. We talked about Lava Logs (not theirs) and I think he said that with most scents with regard to the wax based logs that the aroma does not smell because of 2 things, which is that the chimneys are meant to allow the smoke to leave the space not enter it and because the wax and the added ingredient like coffee grounds do not become a liquid like a candle wax, so the aroma is not there. The ingredients burn and leave the space. So he said that the Lava Log company Jarden had to add an aroma that smells like coffee, to make it smell like that. He said that they (Jarden) may have even stopped that because it can cost about 1.50 per log to add a scent raising their cost to the consumer.
But I thought that bit of knowledge might be appreciated by fellow inventors.

I brought that idea to mind with my submission and now see it is a very expensive area for them to consider. He also said what one consumer might like as regard to scents, another might not, so scented items can hinder sales sometimes as well as encourage them.

Also Duraflame became a business when another business they had, had a lot of saw dust to get rid of, so they got creative and made this product. He said being all the world is green, that it is hard to find bi-products like these out there…and most are now a commodity making purchasing more expensive to create less of a profit margin.
I guess the lesson here is to own the bi-product and make it a hot commodity!