One of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker, recently linked to an article about how you can make a DIY (Do It Yourself) solar powered lawn mower, which was originally published by Appropedia here.

Well, it takes a little bit of work because they take you through everything for replacing the actual gas engine with an electrical one but it’s very thorough, even for building the solar panel and hooking everything up. If you’re looking for a slightly easier way to do this, I’d recommend just buying an electric mower and building a solar panel to charge it.

While preparing the bed of soil that will be my urban garden in just a few weeks, pulling larger weeds and cutting back the intruding crawling vines, I saw that the vines which just last year were only on the fence behind my apartment building are now also covering the garage and retaining wall.

Why did this capture my attention? Well, it’s mostly concrete back there. The one fence sits between a sidwalk and a parking lot and barely has any soil available, but yet the climbing vines are back every year.

Here are our top articles to-date on EnviroHumanImpact showing simple steps you can take to reduce your paper use and improve your envirohuman impact.

Print with Less Paper with Firefox Aardvark Extension

Top 5 Tips for Reducing Your Junk Mail Paper Trail

EHI Quick Tip: Use a Credit or Debit Card

I am pleased to announce a new series here on EnviroHumanImpact.com.  “‘Fund’amentally Enviromental,” will focus on companies, groups, and associations with a fundamental commitment to either better, more sustainable practices and/or products and some that focus on the environment itself.

Readers of the “Fund”amentally Environmental Series can expect to get outlines of what a company or non-profit aims to do and to be informed of companies that you might consider investing in or groups to which you might want to make a (tax-deductible) donation.

Printing a single page or piece of information from a web site is not always the easiest thing to do, despite the simplicity of clicking the printer on your tool bar. Many times, I only wanted a single piece of information (maybe a confirmation code, phone number, address etc.) but I don’t want to use the “Print Selection” option as the formatting of the page may be thrown out the window.

So instead we are often left with just clicking print, which while it might look like only one page’s worth of information, your printer spits out 3-4 pages with 2 through 4 containing the footer or some other worthless piece of the site (read: advertisements – barf!).

Sustainability regarding both energy and commodity consumption has to be more of an issue in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections. Whether you are paying record prices for gas (hopefully you consider using public transit if it’s available and you do not already) or you see the price of pretty much everything creep up slowly (and sometimes quickly!), you may see that your bank account is dwindling. You also may not be making more money than you were last year or the year before that, especially when you adjust for inflation.

So this campaign season, when you get out and talk to the candidates for different offices, call them, or write them, let them know you care and that you expect for them to talk about the environment, sustainability, real world ways to reduce energy consumption, and that you expect them to put their plans into place, once in office. We’ll all benefit from a cleaner environment, better managed energy resources, and the intelligent use of commodities. But we have to keep it on their radar!

Honestly, I don’t normally like to do this, but for now, I’m going to step up onto my soapbox and proclaim:

“Ethanol is not the solution to our energy crisis in the US or around the world! More than cruel joke than responsible solution, ethanol does neither of the two main benefits that its proponents suggest: it does not and will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil and is not even that much more environmentally friendly!”

Now, until just a few months ago, like many others, I believed that ethanol was part of the solution to our rising cost of gasoline and moving

You know that feeling after a worm takes a huge dump? Awesome!

Actually, let’s talk about many many worms pooping lots of little bits to make a product called, “Worm Poop.” Disgusting? Look for it at your Home Depot!

TerraCycle is a young company started by two Princeton dropouts, Co-founders Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer, one of whom, while visiting a friend, found his collection of worms making compost in a plastic container in his kitchen (after a night of drinking). Fascinated at his friend’s method of getting soil for some “plants in his basement,” (watch the video!), he began thinking of a way to make a company that could make and market composted organic waste for gardening.

Fast forward a few years. After spending lots of their own money and trying to make this work, the fledgling company had survived and forged ahead by entering and winning business contests. They won many, but one offered the company, that then had about $500 in its account, $1 Million!

Did you know that an estimated 110 million trees are cut down every year with the sole purpose of filling your mailbox with unsolicited credit cards offers, catalogs, and other various forms of junk mail?  Well, I don’t have to convince you that it’s not just annoying but incredibly wasteful when you think about it. How about some easy, quick tips for reducing the amount of junk mail you get every day?

1. Direct Mail Do Not Mail List :: Sign up here to remove your name from the mailing lists and, BOOM, no more direct mail ads.
2. Opt-out of Credit Card Offers :: Here you can

We reported a story not long ago about how drivers are driving less than they were last year, due much to the higher cost of fuel. Now, with a barrel of oil costing almost $140, gas prices are unlikely to go down. And along with it, expect skyrocketing costs of energy in general, as well as products that use a lot of oil in their production.  Transporting merchandise is not getting cheaper, either.

What does this mean for the average American consumer? Well, for those of us who haven’t already begun making the metamorphisis to a greener lifestyle, that change may be coming by force, rather than by choice. When you’re short on money, extravagance has a way of changing to a more frugal and environmentally sound lifestyle.  This should be a great chance for U.S. consumers to change some bad habits, but if you are not careful, it might happen to you by force instead of choice.

Eager to stay ahead of that force?