Green-News: Monday 12.8.08
- Most historic buildings are dark and grey. But that could change. As air quality improves and more clean fuels are used. Buildings in the U.S. and Europe, like the Empire State Building, might turn yellow, reddish-brown and even green with lichen and moss; NewScientist investigates.
- Regular plastic is non-degradable. That’s why a company is developing a bio-plastic, also called liquid wood, made from trees. It uses lignin, normally thrown out in paper production, combined with natural materials, like wood, hemp, flax and wax, to produce plastic granules; via DiscoBlog.
- Cattle farmers are fuming mad! Federal officials want impose fees on belching and gaseous cows, citing cattle’s effect on air-pollution. If passed, large farms would have pay an annual fee of $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 for beef cattle and $20 for hogs; the Associated Press reports.
- Trees might make plastic, but elephant crap can make paper! A Brooklyn, New York company, called Mr. Ellie Pooh, won Co-op America’s 2008 Green Business Leader Award for turning Sri Lankan elephant dung into stationery and various grades of paper; from SustainableBusiness.
- Nintendo Wii is the hot holiday gift this year, but an environmental group will reevaluate one of its components, claiming it could possess the harmful chemical bromine. The Michigan-based, Ecology Center plans to reexamine the battery cover on the controller; via the Associated Press.
- Piezoelectric crystals produce electricity when stress is applied. This could power things like cell phones with sounds waves. So a Japanese railway company will install piezoelectric elements in subways in order to generate power from people passing through ticket gates; from CleanTechica.
