Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Mar 8

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Can’t People Just Make ‘Green’ Things Easier?

There are always articles and advice on how to better use this or that, and ways to improve efficiency in whatever else - basically using your own time and resources to make something you already have ‘greener’.

Why can’t someone just invent these things in their most energy-saving of non-polluting form - and make them readily available and stylish! (Obviously all products would be A-Rated for energy…)

For example: certain washing detergent companies have developed their standard powder to work at lower temperatures. It’s not more expensive than their normal product and it is in the mainstream of retail - meaning you don’t have to order from a weirdly named small company from their brochure - you just pick it up in the store.

Being responsible shouldn’t have to involve putting yourself out all the time. I myself don’t mind piles of recycling around the kitchen or reusing containers for cooking and storage - but we need to attract the mainstream if we are going to make a difference.

Fridges & Freezers:
They say that a full fridge and freezer work much more efficiently than an empty one - and if you don’t want to keep buying food - they suggest that you put newspaper in them to act like ‘fake food’.

Now this seems like a very time consuming activity - and where do you keep the screwed up newspaper? Or do you recycle the first lot after you’ve been shopping and use another newspaper for stuffing as you eat your food?

Now, we have all seem those single fridges that have the little freezer in the top - separated only by a tiny door flap. So here’s the idea: Why not have those little doors in all freezers and fridges to separate off all the compartments. That way, you could turn down all those that had no food in them and turn them back up after you’d been to the store.

Dishwashers:
Apparently, you should use the lowest temperature for these and you don’t need to use the drying facility as you can just leave the door open and the plates and saucepans dry themselves. So, why not invent a dishwasher that just had 2 buttons rather than vast numbers of knobs and dials - Dirty Wash and Really Dirty Wash. Both setting use the lowest temperature for a decent clean and both settings ping the door open for the drying setting. Taa Daa!!!

Alternatively, invent a smaller dishwasher - say half the width of normal so you can do smaller washes without running your machine on half full (which is very bad in terms of energy). Maybe using the other half of the space for your recycling tubs!!!

Bathwater Capture:
To save water, we should reuse our bathwater to water the garden or to flush the toilet! Now either of these is not something you can expect most people to spend time doing after a hard day at work - Imagine having an after dinner guest walk into your bathroom to find a giant bucket of bubbly water beside the toilet!

So, why not invent a bath tub that look normal on the outside, but has small reservoirs under the panelling (the wasted space underneath the tub) linked up to your cistern. It only fills up to it’s limit - as does a toilet cistern (with the rest feeding down to a water butt outside obviously) and every time you flush it refills from your undercover bath water supply.

This lead me on to the following invention….

Half Flush Toilets:
Now I know these already exist, but I find that none of them are 100 clear on whether you have half flushed as the 2 functions are the same button and nearly everytime I half flush, the larger button seems to follow it down as well. Why not make 2 actual separate flushes - either handles of buttons. This way people can definitely decide that they only want a ‘number 1′ flush!

Cosmetic Goods Refill Sites:
We visit gas stations time and time again using the same tank to fill up, but we are supposed to just keep throwing away our cosmetic bottles and then buying new ones.

If a toiletries company used larger bottles we wouldn’t have to do this so often, but how great to pop into a store with your empty shampoo bottle or empty shower gel container and getting it topped up on site (cleanly) and for a greatly reduce price.

The Body Shop used to do this in their stores and many local delivery services used to refund you some of the cost if you gave them back their bottles to use again. It seems silly that we used to do this anyway - but now we really need to conserve things - we don’t!!

In Conclusion:
Now, I know that these things have to be financially viable for companies to want to offer them - but in general - have people got a choice? We have already been forced to change our boilers - they only sell condensing boilers now - and recently they have stopped selling old fashioned light bulbs!

There will be many more ‘forced’ environmental changes that everyone will have to do due to legislation, but if ‘green’ technology does exactly the same job as an ’un-green’ one and for a similar price, then there is no reason not to welcome these new products or concepts into our busy lives.

Of course, if something is fantastically useful, does the job, looks good and is somewhat cheaper, then the general population will buy that - even if it pollutes heavily, uses more energy to run and emits loads of carbon!

You don’t want to control people lives too much - but when the very world depends on it………