bPSE Structural Engineering

Replace lumber with recycled rubber Tire Logs. Photo from Re-Tread Products Don't grind old tires; slice 'em and roll 'em up into rubber logs to use like lumber. From footwear to handbags and earthship homes, recycled tires have found various forms of an afterlife, but that doesn't come close to dealing with the vast numbers of waste tires generated each year. Most "recycling" of tires ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

The remarkable thing about the 1 hour design challenges at Core77 is how clever some of the ideas are, and how well presented, given that they are ostensibly done in an hour. Of course there is no way of knowing if the designer took a day or a week, and some of them look like they took the full month. The competition ending Sunday night is for the design of short term emergency shelters, with the prize being a $500 donation to Architecture for Humanity. Of course, Cameron Sinclair of AFH would probably say that the last thing the Haitians need are i... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: Michael Graham Richard Vote With Your Wallet Mélanie, my fiancé, is working on her master's thesis. She tries to keep printing to a minimum, but many professors still require hard copies. When she ran out of paper, I was the one who went to buy more. I ended up buying the second cheapest kind of paper (made by Cascades, see pics above and below), and it reminded me that "100% recycled" should be just a starting point.... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Sometimes I get it wrong in this gig, but rarely have I been so consistent as I have been in my coverage of Ultratouch Recycled Denim Insulation. I had to retract about half my post in Planet Green, when I complained that shipping old jeans all over the country wasn't exactly green; Bonded Logic, the manufacturer, contacted me to say no, it is almost all post-industrial scrap from factories, diverting 300 tons of it from the landfill every month. Campaigns like tho... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Behold: glow in the dark toilet paper! No need to turn on the light for those late-night ventures to the bathroom,. Toilet paper has been the subject of considerable drama here on the ole' TreeHugger. Sadly, the softer it is, the worse it is for old growth forests. We've heard calls to ditch the TP entirely and go with a bidet, and we now know that <a hr... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch The first keynote of the day at Greener Gadgets came from Yves Behar, founder of fuseproject and one of our favorite designers around TreeHugger, dreaming up things from bike helmets to the One Laptop Per Child computer. And its no surprise why. He's all about integrating sustainability into every aspect of design, from cars to undies. During his talk, Behar covered some cool design pr... Read the full story on TreeHugger

In keeping with Philippe Starck's philosophy of creating practical objects with a sense of aesthetics and functionality, the designer has created a couple chic wind turbines, named Revolutionair. The hip French designer first unveiled his sketches in 2008, working with Italian generator company Pramac to make them a reality. This sleek look offers another image of the classic three-blade turbine we've come to love - and some hate. If Starck's designer windmills were whirling around mountaintops, wou... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Treehugger leader Graham Hill uses a standup desk. TreeHugger founder Graham Hill uses a standup desk, a very simple board on two cabinets; I stayed in his apartment a few years ago and just loved it, and have wanted to convert to one ever since. I thought it would keep me more alert; now Olivia Judson of the New York Times writes that it is better for your health. She first describes the problems of sitting:

If you consider only healthy people who exercise regularly, those who sit the most during the rest of the day have larger waists and worse profiles of blood pressure and blood sugar than those who sit less.

... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Leather packaging design by Sebastian Vecchio and Guillem Ferran. Leather might not seem the most treehugger-liked material, but like with any material, it depends how you use it, where it comes from and what processes it has undergone. A few craftsmen and designers in Catalonia, Spain, got together and created some beautiful pieces to promote certain local trades (in this case the leather production) to prevent them from disappearing in the region due to the pressure of cheaper products from China or elsewhere. The project is called La Pell, which means the skin ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

digg_url = 'http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/for-sale-atlas-missile-base.php';There is nothing greener than renovation, repurposing and reuse of existing buildings, so how could we not publish this conversion of an Atlas Missile base in the Adirondacks into a lovely 2300 square foot underground home, complete with private runway, contemporary fiber optic effect lighting along with natural sunlight rendition back lighting, and a ventilation system specia... Read the full story on TreeHugger