Cleaning up oil spills

Getting to the bottom of the barrel

Ever wonder about oil tankers and how the get out all that crude oil at delivery? I did. I did a little research and found out about a thing called a Belt Skimmer. You know that old thread mop that you have? Or perhaps that you've seen people use at your favorite fast food restaurant, airport terminal or other such place that has a lot of floor to cover? Would you believe that the same principle is applied to the mopping up of crude oils from barrels, containers and oil tankers? With a few improvements of course.

The basic idea is that of the string mop. The fluid is absorbed into the threads and then it gets wrung out some place else. The difference between a conventional string mop and this big brother is both the size and the wringing mechanism. The mop can be up to 50 feet long and is a loop. At the bottom of the loop, the mop picks up the liquid, in this case oil. It is transported to the wringing mechanisme by just pulling it up and then it's wrung out over a container using electric powered 'squeegy' rollers. Then it returns to the place of the oil and starts over again. Would you believe that up to 50 gallons of oil can be salvaged per hour this way?

What about floating oil spills?

Allright, we've seen how the belt skimmer can be used to mop up oil from the bottom of a barrel. However, if the mop becomes waterlogged it can't contain any oil, so how can we make sure when we're mopping up oil from a body of water, that we're not mopping up the body of water?

Again the solution is simple and elegant. We affix the end of the mop to a place above the water allowing the mop to drag on, rather than in the water. Of course, this can't be done on very choppy water, but if you 'stake out' a bit of ocean for instance, by putting a sort of bottomless boat over the top of it, the water inside the stakeout will be calm enough to mop up the oil. This is a rather laborious task but it can be done and every bit of oil salvaged from a spill means at least two things: A bit less beach spoiled, and less danger of marine wildlife and birds getting hurt.

Oil companies are starting to understand that unless they want to lose the support of the public, they better clean up their act. Just as they are starting to understand that their industry is going to disappear in the next 50 years or so, and if they wish to survive as a company, they'd better diversify. The other option is to plan for the dissolution of the company, personally I'd prefer that option. In my opinion any company that has outlived it's use should be declared obsolete and cease to exist. This is certainly true for the oil industry.

After all: if you can build a multibillion dollar multinational company once, you can do it again. This time, take what you've learned about customer satisfaction, the environment and social responsibility and start over. Make a company that is committed to doing good, rather than just 'don't be evil'. The world is wating for strong entrepreneurs that want to make the world work again.

A challenge to the industry

When the big oilspill in the gulf of Mexico happenen people donated human hair to help with the mop up. Somehow word had gotten out that human hair could absorb more oil than any other type of material and, well, people cared so they donated their hair for the mop up.

I'm not sure if the hair thing was effective or not, but it does show that the public does care. So here's my challenge to the oil-spill cleaning industry, listen up ambarenvironmental: find a material that is even more effective at mopping up oil. It truly is a win win win win situation.

• People won't be feeling the need to turn in their hair
• The public will approve
• The oil spill will be cleaned quicker
• You'll gain more oil from the mopping

With nanotechnology, biomimicry and combining all kinds of knowledge with the simple yet elegant mop design, we can make sure we are ready for when then next spill hits and we can prevent a lot of the disastrous consequences of our carelessness. And make a profit to boot.

Innovation, thinking beyond the obvious

100+ uses of a paperclip

One of the ways to make the world a better, more sustainable place is finding new uses for things. By looking for new and innovative ways of doing things with what we already have, we can avoid buying or building new things. Versatility is key in the new economy. Something that portable storage San Diego has understood well and true.

There was a recent study done how where they challenged 4 year olds to come up with as many different ideas as they could for using an everyday object, like a paperclip. Within an hour time frame a group of preschoolers could come up with over 160 ways of using a paperclip, ranging from picking your nose or ears with it to, if you made a really big one you could slide down it. The childs mind is not yet throwing away any ideas as “unmanagable” or “unrealistic”. Instead it centers upon finding as many different uses for the paperclip as they can and let their imagination run free. Now this was a longitudinal study and they retested the kids at age 15. By the time these preschoolers had gotten an education they have trouble coming up with more than 20 uses for the paperclip. We lose a lot due to our education.

Smart thinking

I don't know if portable storage San Diego invited a bunch of preschoolers to work alongside them for the project but they did come up with some very usefull and innovative ways to use containers. First of all containers are for transporting stuff, right? Storage is a new use for containers and an innovation in its own right. Now you can put a bunch of those containers together and build a fence around them and you have transformed a vacant lot into a regular storage rental space at a fraction of the cost of putting up a building. This is exactly the way Coronado Mobile Storage started out!

Now there is more things you can do with a container and one of the things that I thought was really clever is that instead of asking people to bring over their stuff to storage, you can also deliver the container to their door to be filled with their stuff. A lot easier for both the customer, who can put their stuff in at leasure and for the service provider as well. All you have to do is drive the container out there and pick it up after the customer calls to say it's filled! How smart is that?

Many uses for containers

The next step is even more innovative. What else can you use these containers for? Well, it's a huge enclosed space that with a few adjustments can be modified into a mobile office, or you can provide an enclosed space to safely put equipment in at an on location jobsite, roadwork or the like. A few more adjustments and you can make a container into a complete home, where you can live part- or fulltime. A mobile home without the wheels, so to speak. And let's be honest: how many mobile homes are really meant to be mobile, meant to be moved around a lot. Generally it's more like a parked home to begin with. So lose the wheels and use a container to form the basis, put in a few adjustments such as electricity and running water and you have cheap housing, if not on a permanent basis then certainly in times of a crisis or disaster. Heck, let's go even further and equip the containers with their own solarpanels and you'd really be able to park them anywhere!

Solar energy: solar film, the solar panel of the future?

The future might be thin film

The developement of technologies is accelerating at a high rate. Where only a short 30 years ago solar panels were largely unheard of and considered highly advanced technology, the first generation is already outdated and the second generation will soon follow suit. Many people have started their own solar farm, helped along by government stimulation programs and the enormous rise in the cost of fossil fuels. They have formed co-operative efforts and use smartgrids to share the energy thus collected off their rooftops and in sharing they have found that they can be selfsufficient much easier than when everyone has their own closed circuit. So sharing is the name of the game, with smart computer programmes measuring the relative use of everyone connected to the smartgrid. Still for a lot of people solar panels are prohibitively expensive. The market for renewable energy resources is ready for the next breakthrough in technology making gathering solar energy available to even low income homes and families. And it might just be thin film.

Red light, blue light, all can be used

Thin film is a layer thin as can be, we're talking nanometers here. I don't pretend to know everything about the technologie that produces these thing films, but it's the same type of process that I wrote about in the blog I did on Magnetron sputtering. A thin film has to have certain properties that allow it to convert speed of the sun's fotons into energy. Now the classic first and second generation solar cells use only the red light out of the whole spectrum that the sun sends down. Red light is less energetic than blue light, but less blue light reaches the earths serface, so that sorta balances out. The idea now, with these thin film technologies is to create layers of thin film in which both the red light energy and the blue light energy can be converted into useable energy. This would effectively increase the output of solar panels manifold. A single layer thin film could already mimic the results of the (relatively expensive) solar panels, but a multilayer thin film is expected to increase efficiency enormously.

Imagining the future now...

Thin film can be mass produced, simply, effectively and for all kinds of purposes including solar energy. You can go to the hardware store and buy solar film for your windows (they're so thin that they are see through anyway, so why not put them on all your windows or at least the ones that get the most sunlight). Then you plug your household appliances into your windows and of course, because we've already learned the advantages of sharing, we build a smartgrid for every office building, every block of housing. Every empty building is turned into a powerplant by covering it with thin solar film from Vergason for instance and because it's so cheap, we cut our cost of living radically (incidentally ending the world wide financial crisis we're now in the middle of)

I don't know the particulars, but wireless electricity seems to be the next necessary step to connect people without needing a world of infrastructure and wires going everywhere. Because of all this interdependent technology we're also getting to know our neighbors better and because of this we're investing in each other more, becoming less dependent on the money grabbers at the utility companies and at the same time let's also get smart and share our wifi instead of letting the telecom companies bleed us dry. The future then finds us interconnected on a global scale while being interdependent on a local scale. Now there's a twist on globalization!

The new, socially responsible, sustainable iPad 4

What's new in the iPad 4?

Read all the information that is available on the iPad 4, which admittedly is not a lot. Apple, with it's typical closed mouth approach to marketing a new product, making curiosity do it's magic on the market and has not leaked a lot of information on this new iPad4 about to hit the stores.

However I figured I would make a list of the things we want to see on the new iPad. Let's speculate and make assumptions based on past behavior by Apple and go from there. In that we can see a lot of possible directions that Apple might be taking this. Let's also look at what is keeping people from buying an iPad and what Apple could do to make their customer base broader and happier. Perhaps if they take advise from a lowly blogger we might actually get the iPad we want!

Better customer support on the iPad4

The iPad4 targets the market where the most money is: The Elderly.

In an effort to better serve this market the iPad4 comes with an optional package of having a computer-specialist install it's basic software as well as some extension packages for the most used applications (meaning: Angry birds, photosharing tools and a basic version of pages, numbers, etc.) One of the best moves in the bussiness as a lot of elderly people (70 and up) are starting to be aware of the iPad and they do not always have a computer, nor the necessary computer skills to install the most used products themselves.

The customers service package includes several visits from the computer expert to re-install stuff that might have been displaced or lost. The package is also sold seperately. A very popular item for busy family members that don't want to drive up to grandma incessively to help her with her Pad.

The most environmentally friendly iPad to date

In an effort to please the most environmentally conscious customers as well, Apple now offers the iPad with minimal packaging, uses a lot of natural materials and comes with it's own built in solarpanel to recharge the batteries.

The front of the iPad4 consequently looks much different then before. Instead of the colored cover that the iPad2 and iPad3 sport it has the same foldable flap, but this time enbedded in it are 4 tiny state of the art solar panels that provide a high yield charge to your iPad4's batteries. Apple went all out in this and has merged their superior knowledge of minimization with the knowhow that's allready out there in terms of solar energy and has come up with a solar panel technology that could well revolutionize the world of solar panels as well. We'll be looking for the iPanel as it is called to branch out into other industries as well.

Apple sais no to slave labor!

Finally, in an effort to win all new age thinkers over, Apple has rallied to end slave labor in China (and all other countries that they buy their materials from. Apple has released footage from Chinese factories that they do bussiness with and in addition has laid out plans for the entire community surrounding the factories in China that produce their products. Plans include schooling for the young, a healthy, ergonomic work environment for their workforce and 40 hours a week contracts for all their laborers. There's also three weeks paid vacation included in the packages and pregnancy leave on a par with the Swedish are a part of the plan.

Since the package was introduced long lines of Chinese have formed outside their factories wanting to work there. Other Chinese factories have since introduced similar measures because they couldn't find enough personnel as everyone wanted to try out for the jobs in the Apple sponsored factories. World economic watchdogs are starting to call it the quiet revolution. People simply resist working at slave wages in factories.

Apple iPad4 is irresistable!

Long lines of senior citizens are expected to form when the iPad4 is introduced. A whole industry appears to be forming around the event. Small entrepreneurs with great idea's are peddling their wares to the customers waiting in line for their Apple product. There's people selling cut and cored apples to the health conscious elderly waiting in line. There's hot cocoa sold by the cup, of course this is slave-free cocoa from Tony Chocolonely that uses the introduction of the slave-free iPad4 to promote their latest product: hot cocoa mix. The atmosphere in line is festive, like a new world has begun.

Recycling, reusing and refurbishing your ECM: economic and ecological

Why go for new?

A new ECM can cost you a lot of money. This is an investment of course that you have no choice but to make, seeing as having one is the law. But nowhere in the law it specifies that the ECM you're using has to be brand new. So you can save yourself a bundle if you can find a second hand one. Going to a specialist in ECM rebuilding is worth your while.

The trouble with second hand is, you never know whether the person selling it to you is levelling with you about the condition of the ECM or if he's just trying to palm off an ill functioning thing to you in hopes you won't notice till he's out of town. This is a bit of a risky deal then, because the law does require you to have a working ECM, even if it doesn't need to be a new one. This is where remanufacturing comes in.

What DSO Industrial does is buy up all kinds of old, second hand ECM's and refurbish them. This is a thorough process in which all the elements of the ECM are checked and if necessary replaced or repaired. The result: an ECM that may look a bit worn but internally, everything is sparkly and copacetic!

Knowledge and skill

The folks at DSO Industrial know what they are doing as this is their trade and craft. This means that aside from getting an ECM that is cheaper than a new one, you're also getting great advise on things that are very important to you.

Not every ECM works well with every truck, for instance. This is something that new manufacturers don't advise you one, they only sell their one type of product and they either don't know about troubles using their device in certain trucks or they don't care. The trouble usually starts to happen after a while, sometimes leading to breakdown of the unit right after the warrantee has come to an end, leaving you with an expensive piece of equipment that no longer works.

This too is where refurbishing can come in handy. The folks at DSO Industrial do repair work as well, but also they can advise you on which ECM's are known for causing trouble with your vehicle and which last longer, work better etc. That way, instead of just repairing the trouble when it occurs, they help prevent trouble in the future. That's the kind of service that you usually have to pay extra for. Here you'll find you're paying less because it's used and remanufactured goods that you're going for.

Helps the environment

Anything that re-uses old parts, like in this case ECM's, is good for the environment. Any piece of electronic equipment is riddled with hard to recycle plastics and difficult to break down into component parts and re-use when taken out of context. By taking old ECM's and refurbishing them to become new ECM's, or remanufactured ECM's if you want to be picky about it, DSO Industrial is preventing them from landing in the garbage pile and with that they are helping the environment by preventing waste.

On the other side of the production process, new materials are saved that won't need to be used because of the re-use of the original products in the new refurbished units. This is up-cycling at it's best. Prevention of waste and re-use of old materials, definately an environmentally sound choice to make.

Imported car parts for improved performance

Fuel injection and more

When your car starts to stutter when you start the engine up, consider tweaking it by ordering and installing a new improved model of fuel injection. The technology in these products hasn't stopped the day you bought the car and it's likely that the best there was available at the time of production of your vehicle wasn't the top of the line to begin with. Everyone knows that the cars that roll of the line are a compromise between performance and price and when you're a discerning customer who doesn't have the money to purchase the high class cars out there that don't make consessions to affordability, this means you're getting mediocre parts to begin with. However that's not where you need to stay!

Getting top of the line import performance parts is a way to improve the performance of your car and because you do all the work yourself it's a cheap and easy way to upgrade your car to a really high performance vehicle.

Tinkering is for classic cars

Let's face it: these days if you're really a tinkerer, not a full fledged auto mechanic, there's no fun in working on a car less than 20 years old. Ever since on board computers have taken over the honest mechanics "I'll listen to the sound of your engine and tell you where the problem is" is an anomaly. Most people can't tell the difference anymore and the onboard computer has warning signs for anything that is about to go wrong before it actually spirals out of control.

In Africa and south America, where we ship our "wrecks", they keep cars on the road for ever with a piece of chewing gum and a pair of nylons if need be and people work together as a team on figuring out what is wrong with the car and how to fix it. It seems as though there they still understand the need for reconstructive maintainance. Making sure it runs is priority number one. This is why so many of the vehicles you see out there have long since outlived their natural shelf-life and are reconstructed to accommodate far more than the normal payload for any automobile that's on the road today. You can see schoolbusses that we've declared unfit for travel on the road there, painted up in glorious gaudy colors and giving off a thick black smoke whenever they accelerate and they are filled to the brim with people and luggage, stuff they are taking to the market.

Imported parts for import cars

Yes, you can use all kinds of parts with all kinds of cars. It often takes a lot of tweaking and customizing, but in theory you can use parts from an old american car and use it in a Japanese or European vehicle. The warranty on those expires the moment you take it for a drive as they aren't used to each other and the computerized systems used these days speak many different languages, so in a modern car you are more likely to make it work if you're a computerfreak than you are if you're an automechanic.

So my advise is simple: buy import performance parts for imported cars athttp://www.velocityfactor.net/. Installation should be easy with the manuals that come with the product and you'll be driving around in no time flat.

How to let your old clunker go (and why)

Selling or giving away

These are difficult times and a bit of extra cash can go a long way. The financial crisis has been around long enough to clear out most of our savings and put our family finances past it's stretching point. To make ends meet we have to find ways of cashing in on stuff we've gathered over the years and that are perhaps less than useful in todays economy and that can be converted to cash, like that old clunker sitting in your driveway gathering rust. There's a lot of things that still hold value to others sitting around your home. Selling them to family car buyers can be a great way of simplifying your life and getting your clutter back in control.

One man's trash is another man's treasure

In Europe today the trend is to arrange things without money. Trading and giving away things is a good way of bypassing the flailing money system and it helps to recycle and reuse things. One of the more succesful sites in the Netherlands is “free stuff” where people can list things they are done with, like furniture that is no longer in use and people can come and pick this up for free. Doing it for free has the advantage that a things find their ways to peoples home. In spite of the crisis in money, people still own a lot of things and rather than paying for storage or for having it removed it's an easy and fun way to get to know people and lessening the pressure of garbage on our environment.

Recycling can be profitable as well. That old wreck that is cluttering up your driveway or garage can be sold a a profit. This way you can convert something that is a hindrance to you into something that can enhance your life, like cash. Selling your car can be done profitably at http://www.familycarbuyers.com/

Ask and you shall be given

There's also a trend, coupled with the free stuff initiatives that is called: “Ask for it”. People who dare to ask for what they need have a much greater chance of getting it than those who don't, is the simple filosofie behind the idea. There's a great many things that go from hand to hand because of people asking for it. And it's not all just junk either, I've seen people ask for Ipads and planetickets and get them, because someone had what they were looking for and didn't need it anymore.

Giving away stuff you're done with is also a way of contributing to a better standard of living for people who are down on their luck. In the past few months I've gotten a fat-boy from someone who no longer needed it and I've gotten rid of several cookbooks which I don't need because I allready know how to cook. I've gotten a wonderful stylish lamp and an end table from some nice people who didn't want it anymore and I've given away a bicycle that needed just a bit of repair, like new tires and a new lock.

Spiritual cleansing

Spiritually it's a good thing for the soul to clean out stuff that you don't need. A good practise in letting go, letting go of your attachment to stuff. There's a classic piece by American comedian George Carlin about stuff. Giving up our attachment to stuff is a very buddhist, new age, spiritual cleansing sorta thing which means that George was probably way ahead of his time on that point.

Some things have intrinsic value though and although giving stuff away is good for the soul, making money is also a concern. In particular getting some cash for your junk car can help meet the bills. There's a lot of components to a car that can and should be reused and selling your junker to www.familycarbuyers.com. They even come and pick it up at your home and give you a good price for it.

How to quite paying for gasoline, buying an electric car

A new car for the new year

If you're still driving an old vehicle that is drinking gasoline like water and perhaps even burning oil, pay attention! You're burning money and killing the environment! Time to sit down at the kitchen table and look over the options for a new car. Now I don't know your wallet so I don't know what kind of money you have to spend, but you can look at a few options for getting money as well. Selling your old car to family car buyers for instance, instead of trading it in, might be a good way to add some money to your pocket book.

There's many ways to go about buying a new car and many things to consider, so I'm going to focus on buying an electric car because I care about the environment. Now we all know that electric cars are better for the environment and get a lot better milage for your money, in particular if you go ahead and put some solar panels on your roof as well to recharge the battery with. Also recharging is offered in a growing number of places. If you're an average Joe, driving a maximum of 50 miles to work and maybe to the lake on the weekends, the average electric car will get you there and back on one charge.

Hybrids?

If you're not that average and have to drive long distances in your vehicle, a hybrid might be the way to go. This you can run on gasoline when necessary and on electricity when available. In addition running the car on gas allows you to recharge your batteries, in the smartest of cars they even store the energy you waste on braking. Also, the technology is relatively new so expect improvements to be made on your vehicle for some time, making our dependence on fossil fuels drop dramatically, with all the political advantages internationally.

If you have to go more than 50 but less than 100 miles to your place of employment (where you have to spend 8 hours earning your keep) you might want to talk to your employer about putting a recharging station in the parking lot. That way you can still use your car to go to work and back and half the electricity will be on your employers tab. With a little investment in solar panels this could work out very well for both of you. And 8 hours is ample time to recharge your batteries! This might eliminate the need for a hybrid and give you the option of buying a fully electric car.

Picture perfect: an electric car and solar panels

So let's make some calculations. Let's say you're driving 100 miles a day on average, going to work and back, etc. This means you drive a total of 36.500 miles yearly. Give or take a few miles, let's say it's 40.000 a year (for easy calculation)

Gasoline is $3,60 a gallon now, and more likely to become more expensive than less so, but for the sake of argument let's say it's going to be an average of $3,50. Your current family car, that old clunker you are going to sell tohttp://www.familycarbuyers.com get's about 20 miles to the gallon? You should be so lucky you say? We'll go with 20 MpG anyway...

This means you buy 2.000 gallons of gasoline each year. At $3,50 that means you're spending 7.000 dollars a year on gasoline alone! Average family, average use, average expenditure on a family car, am I right? Your situation may be a little or a lot different so you best do your own math on this one. If you have the money to invest in an electric car in combination with solar panels your average expenditure goes down to zero.

The electric car is free!

Buying an electric vehicle isn't cheap. However driving it is going to be a lot cheaper, up to zero expenditure in combination with solar panels (and a good deal with your boss for charging during the daytime). So how can you afford nót to buy the electric car?

What's the cost of a new electric car? You can purchase one round about 35.000 dollars, which would mean that if you had the money in cash you would start saving yourself 7.000 a year. The solar panels to feed your car would run about 7000 dollars as well. This means in only six years time you will have saved on fuel the full cost of a car and solar panel system. Put a different way: If you drive this car for 6 years it's essentially a free car.

If you have to get a car loan the interest on that is all you pay on top of what you would normally pay for gasoline alone. Selling your old car at family car buyers will give you a bit of capital and perhaps you have some savings so you won't need to loan the full amount. Interest is steep but remember, you'll be saving yourself 7000 a year (almost 600 a month) in gasoline cost.

Worth considering ain't it?

Why pay for gasoline when it's ever more expensive: the alternative is here!

Why bring your paycheck to the pump?

Sit down some day and think about all the money you've been spending on fuel! Your old family car, the one that get's maybe 25 miles to the gallon on a good day has served you well over these years but it has also guzzled up a major portion of your income. Not to mention that fuel cost is on the rise still! Time to put a stop to it and leave the oilbaron's servitude and consider the alternative. Time to get rid of that old junker, sell my car for cash and invest in an electric car. Because electric cars are the way of the future and you might need to get one today to keep up with the wave of the future.

Fuel cost is a major portion of your family budget, on a par with the cost of renting a home or paying a mortgage. I've heard stories a few years back that the complete income of one of the partners in a marriage went to cover fuel alone. Insane amounts of gasoline are needed to keep people on the road and incredible amounts of money go into the open jaws of the oil industry. It really doesn't matter if these are Texas oil barons we're feeding or Middle Eastern Oil Sheiks. Truth is we're getting the short end of the stick no matter what.

Democratization of energy

There's a revolution going on and we're all part of it. We're democratizing our energy consumption and taking the production of energy into our own hands. Too much of our money has gone to gasoline, electric companies and other sources of energy when the sun is beaming down on us constantly. Solar panels are showing up all over the place and people are getting off the grid and onto smartgrids: sharing energy in coöperative efforts with their neighbors. Solar panels, wind turbines: people are taking their own energy production back from big companies.

I see at least two reasons for this trend:

1. Of course there's the rising cost of energy. It's quite simply becoming relatively cheap to produce your own, because the electric companies, gascompanies and assorted others are overcharging customers left and right to make more money for their shareholders.
2. Underperformance of electric companies. Power outages are becoming more frequent and it appears that the current net needs some big revisions (meaning more rise of cost). It also doesn't seem very efficient to make energy in one place and transport it longdistance, when form most places there's ample local energy in wind and sun.

Going off the grid is going to be the trend, with technology improving in leaps and bounds and startup cost getting lower by the month.

Hook up your car to your solar panels

It's time to act. To grab the bull by the horns and take your energy consumption and production back into your own hands. You can save money every day on your car by selling your old gasoline consuming vehicle to places like original cash for cars and put the money towards solar panels and an electric car. Today's electric cars have enough range for average, every day use (just think about how much you normally drive in a day).

Even without solar panels and essentially free solar energy, the electric car runs at half the cost that your classic gasguzzler does. If you save up the money you would normally spend on gas and put it towards a nice family vacation you can finally make that trip to Hawaiï you've always dreamt about.

Getting stinky old clunkers off the road. Good idea? Or sinister plot?

Yes we can!

A car is a means of getting from A to B in a relatively comfortable fashion and preferably quickly. Now I don't think there's an aware person in the world who doesn't know that cars also consume non-renewable, polluting resources, at least the cars we used to build. The old cars were built like a tank, weighed a ton and if you listened real hard you could hear a slurping sound in the back, that was your gasoline being consumed. There's a new car out that has that same slurp in it, the Hummer, but let's not go there. In an effort to become less dependent upon fossil fuels, the US government, like it's European counterparts offered cash for clunkers, really old vehicles that were the most polluting of all. I'm not sure how the roads looked after that in the US, but here in Europe it was a very satisfactory run programme, removing some of the worlds worst polluters from our cities and in doing so, making a contribution to a more sustainable future. So can I sell my car for cash? I think you'd better!

Licenced and bonded

Of course, in America there was the original cash for cars programme, licenced and bonded offering top dollar for your used car, trying to get you to sell it for cash to people who really want your old car, instead of trading it in to your used car dealer who according to the cash for cars people, have very little interest in your clunker. Either way, the US government offered cash for clunkers in an effort to clean up the environment and then of course there was the highly contested FOX news piece that Glenn Beck did. I included the video here.

Makes you wonder...

His position is that the government website related to the cash for clunkers program has a warning online that effectively allows your government access to all your computer files. Now, what is the deal here? According to Glenn Beck the text he warns people about is a privacy act from 1974. He never produces the text online, but instead provides the supposed text on a big screen.

In the same program, almost in the same sentence he scares people by warning them to not go to the supposed link on this website, not to check this out. He frightens people into believing that the government has cookies and has evil intent to pry into your personal belongings, your personal files and can even tapping into your phonecalls.

Now I can't help but wonder: Why in the world would the American government be in the least interested in your vacationpictures, your private conversations with your daughter who is away at college or your dare I say it? “Secret erotic images” squirreled away in some corner of your computer. Does that make sense?

Original Cash for cars will not run out of money!

The government programme as I understand it was very succesful, in fact it went offline in a few days because the funds allotted to it were all gone. Thankfully the American people weren't scared enough to fall for this rather obvious attempt at making the government look like, what did he call it “evil tzars” instead of celebrating the succesful programme that took over 22.000 gasguzzlers off the road in favor of more economic vehicles and less polution. The fact that their website was taken off the air later doesn't mean the privacy act Glenn Beck and Fox contended was on there was actually on there. It meant that the program had succesfully taken so many cars off the road that the programme ran out of money. Something that is not likely to happen at the original Cash for Cars. Their programme is not likely to run out of money because it is how they make their money! So don't hesitate to bring in that old clunker you've got littering your driveway. Or maybe, don't even bother bringing it in! They'll pick it up right outside your door. Now that's service for ya!

Live long and prosper: how to buy longevity promoting groceries

We live on a third of what we eat, the rest is what our doctors live on

I'm not sure who first coined that phrase but I think there's a lot of truth in that statement but a bit of fallacy as well. I'm not one for a spartan lifestyle with calorie-deficient diets and constantly watching my weight, which is probably why I am obese in the first place. Obesity is one of the factors that contribute to all sorts of diseases that shorten a person's lifespan. There are many other contributors. Here's some:

1. A sedentary lifestyle: sitting around a lot, not doing much of anything makes your body weak and unresponsive.
2. Overexercising: going to excesses of excersize, in a way many heroes of the sporting world do is very bad for your health. The average lifeexpectancy of a sportshero is much lower than that of the general public.
3. Stress: this should by rights be on the first place. Stress kills people, slowly and methodically. In addition it doesn't make for a fun life.
4. Smoking, drinking and doing drugs is generally bad for your health, even prescription drugs. The prevalence of such drugs in America is stunning to me.

So what should you be putting in your grocery bag when you want to live long and prosper?

Eat to live, not live to eat

The first answer to what you should be taking home from your grocery store is “less”. Sounds simple but it's true, we tend to overeat and in doing so we are subtracting years from our lives. But of course there's more to it than that.

The types of food we eat mean a lot to our system. It's not just about content either, but that is certainly a factor. A fresh look at some of the staple foods of America.

• Cereal. If you can find one that is sugarfree, perhaps honey sweetened, and certainly free of any artificial coloring and flavoring (including sugar substitutes) that would be a good thing to eat. Don't use milk with it though, milk is for baby cows, not people. If you must have milkproducts then go for sour milkproducts such as yoghurt.
• Mashed potatoes. If you buy the potatoes (organic of course) and you cook them yourself and mash them up with very little butter (real organic butter) then you might eat this.
• Vegetables. Fresh veggies you can eat a lot of. Hardly any of them are fattening and all of them are very healthy. However! Don't eat green leaves more than twice a week and don't ever reheat things like spinach: leafy greens that you eat cooked. Variety is key: use many different vegetables each week.
• Fruits. Apples have iron, pineapples have enzymes, kiwi's have oodles of vitamin C, more than any Oranges. As a rule of thumb though: Buy what is locally grown. If there's no Oranges where you live, you shouldn't be eating them.

Avoiding the bad stuff

Here's what to avoid putting in your durable holden bag at any cost:

• Anything freezedried or microwaved or needing such processing at home. In fact, first get rid of your microwave, then go shopping.
• Coffee, hot chocolate, black tea. Instead learn about the herbs and spices and their different properties and choose among their many healing qualities. Choose liquorice root tea of you have a sweettooth, but don't overdo it. (a cup a day max)
• Any food that is pre-processed: leave it at the store. It may be convenient, but it sure isn't food.
  
  

Green is hot! Environmentally friendly, sustainable grocery bags

Going Green

Companies are doing it all over the world, because Green is hot! Thank goodness we the concerned consumers have finally gotten through to major corporations! Green and environement friendly is beginning to spread! More then ever we are learning that the choices we make affect our environment and we are learning to make responsible choices, choosing things that last over things that are fast.

I was at a trade show last night which consisted solely of fashion made responsibly. Fashion with a story attached. Fabrics of today don't destroy our environment, but are made of renewable sources: bamboo, hemp, soy and even fast growing trees. Every article in the show had a unique story to it. There is so much to tell about just the fabrics. Organic cotton, now just 5% of the worlds cotton production is made without pesticides. Regular old cotton uses about a kilo of pesticides to produce 3 ounces of cotton. Ridiculous amounts right, but that's what the lady there told us. Even if half of that is true it's still an enormous amount of pressure to put on our environment. At the end of the show she handed us all a cotton tote bag with some natural soaps and detergents, a lipbalm and some coupons in them.

Environment friendly little green bag

In Holland recently George Baker had a hit with a tune called “Little Green Bag”. Not high culture, it was just a little ditty, but the fact that he had a huge hit with it means that he's got his fingers right on the pulse of contemporary society. Green it hot and green tote bags are not just for hippies anymore. Now everyone can make a green, environment friendly choice. Green is fashionable, ecofriendly is in.

Now, shifting our societies from “use-em-up and throw-em-out” to completely “cradle to cradle, let's throw out our garbage-bins alltogether cause we don't need them anymore” is a daunting task which has been set in motion by the forces of concerned consumers. Now it is time to jump on the bandwagon and make sure your customers see you as green, environment friendly and with concern and care for our planet. One of the ways you can do this is by buying bulk tote bags. Tote bags have a high visibility as they get used and reused, over and over untill completely torn and tattered. And having your logo imprinted on one of these tote bags is now easier than ever! If you click the link above you can see many examples of what is possible for promotional purposes .

Trade shows, non profits, big or small everyone goes friendly to the environment

The best part about buying bulk tote bags like these at Holden bags is that it's really simple and fast. Their website is absolutely clear and they have a great customer support service which means that you have a real person to speak about your order with on the telephone within minutes and most of their tote bags are in stock so they can have the product ready to ship to you in three days! Think of a great promotional activity today and implement it this week. Show the world you have a heart for the environment.

The service is awesome and proof that environement friendly doesn't have to mean slow and oldfashioned. Plus you don't have to order thousands of bags to get a decent price-quote. Orders can be as low as 100 pieces and you can be assured of the same type of service that the big guys get and for many products you can get a price quote within 15 minutes! Holden bags has been in bussiness since 1975 and growing ever since. They show the same care wether you're huge, like Coca Cola or the Humane Society or just a small shop like the one giving the trade show I was at yesterday.