Vertical gardens bring lush, verdant life to even the coldest and barest of surfaces, both indoors and out. These ‘living walls’ are a big part of the future of green design and technology – they increase interior humidity, purify the air and provide a much-needed touch of nature in spare, angular urban spaces like airports, museums and shopping centers. From skyscraper farms to vertical parks, here are 15green buildings with stunning vertical greenery, from 6-story elevator shafts to subterranean restaurants. – WebEcoist

Rain Barrel/Compost Bin One Day Sale

On Saturday, October 22, 2011, from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., Houstonians can buy rain barrels for $55 (a $120 value) and compost machines for $45 (a $100 value) on a first come, first served basis at Minute Maid Park, Parking Lot “C” corner of Texas and St. Emanuel, Houston 77003. Parking is free.

Rain barrels are used to collect and contain groundwater from rooftops, which can be used for watering gardens and lawns. Rainwater conserves water, improves air quality and saves money. Compost bins are used to store and assist the decomposition of various materials to be used to fertilize garden soil. Composting enriches soil, deters erosion and contaminated soil, prevents pollution and saves money.

For more information on the rain barrels and compost bins available see http://www.norsemanplastics.com/products/norseman_rainbarrel_npl_315.html and http://earthmachine.com/. To learn more about Green Houston see http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/.

Food Day Houston

Food Day Houston, Wednesday, October 26, 2011, will showcase local healthy, sustainable food initiatives in a fun and educational celebration at the City Hall Farmers Market, just outside of City Hall, 901 Bagby, Houston 77002.

At 11 a.m., Recipe for Success Foundation will host a Local Food Throwdown featuring celebrity chefs from the Recipe for Success Chefs Advisory Board. At noon, Urban Harvest will host a Lunch-In, a large community lunch. Bring your food to the Reflection Pond to participate or buy your lunch at the Farmers Market from one of the 35 local vendors who participate weekly at the market. The event will take place rain or shine. At 1 p.m., the City of Houston will host a Food Day Town Hall meeting just below City Hall steps, featuring a panel discussion focused on inspiring ideas and solutions to advance the local food movement.

Food Day Houston is organized by The City of Houston, Recipe for Success Foundation, Houston Food Bank and Urban Harvest. To find a list of Food Day events going on throughout Texas, visit http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/, http://www.urbanharvest.org/ or visit the Food Day Texas page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Food-Day-Texas/233595083357005.

Permanent Electronic Recyling

The City of Houston’s Solid Waste Management Department and CompuCycle have partnered to provide a permanent electronics recycling drop-off site for Houstonians to recycle their electronics responsibly at the CompuCycle building located at 7700 Kempwood, Houston, 77055. The partnership also provides monthly one-day collection events on Saturdays at three neighborhood City of Houston recycling centers.

Recycling electronics keeps potentially harmful materials, such as mercury, cadmium, lead and cathode ray tubes out of the waste stream and the environment.

Permanent drop-off site:
The permanent location is 7700 Kempwood, Houston 77055 in the Spring Branch area. It is open Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Once a month drop-off sites:
The monthly Saturday electronics recycling will be held 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the:
- Kingwood Metro Transit Center (1st Saturday of the month), 3210 West Lake Houston Parkway, Houston 77339
- Ellington/Clear Lake Neighborhood Recycling Center (2nd Saturday of the month), Highway 3 @ Brantley Road, Houston 77037
- Center Street Recycling Center (3rd Saturday of the month), 3602 Center Street, Houston 77007

Electronic Items accepted:
Personal computers, servers, keyboards, mice, laptops, game consoles, monitors, small kitchen appliances, memory chips, hubs and routers, printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, projectors, rechargeable batteries, cable boxes, car batteries, telephones, cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), tape drives, hard drives, cords, cables and cameras.

Did you know that 6,250 tons of landfill waste could be avoided if just half of the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones?  But there’s an alternative out there – National Costume Swap Day!  Which happens to be THIS Saturday, October 8th! And though we didn’t hear of any swaps going on in the Houston area, a costume swap can be as simple as getting together with a few neighbors.  By “going green” this halloween, you’ll be making a difference in your community by saving resources (and money, too!).

The Butt Butt from Hemingway Design

What is it:So apparently in the UK, they call rain barrels “water butts.”  Well, Hemingway Design took the term water butt to a whole new level with the Butt Butt.  That’s right, it’s a rainwater collection container for your garden.

The No! Shopping Bag Bra from Triumph Japan

What is it: Yes, it is indeed a bra.  It’s also oh so eco-friendly!  This one keeps your reusable shopping bags close to your heart.  There’s really no excuse to leave home without them.

The Din-ink pen cutlery from Zo-loft design

What is it: We’ve all loved and lost our Bic pens.  But now, your average ballpoint pen can become your utensils for lunch.  Thanks to Zo-loft design, you can carry around these little cutlery pen tops and bust them out instead of using disposable sporks or something.

Here’s his plan: Each day, starting on July 1^st, Kyle will be making a post on http://kyleempringham.wordpress.com about the daily eco-challenge he is making in his life. The ideas all come from Vanessa Farquharson’s “Sleeping Naked is Green” book, which lists 365 changes she made in her life. At the end of the two-month period, Kyle will have made 60 eco-changes to his lifestyle! He will also be posting about why he’s making each change, why it’s important to him, and if there were any challenges with making the change.

So far, all of Kyle’s changes seem pretty doable.  And a lot are small things that I wouldn’t never think twice about.  Like using straws, or actually NOT using straws.  Of course no one REALLY needs a straw, which makes them wasteful, but straws are fun and I do like them…I’ll have to think a little bit more about that one before I implement it into my life!

(Photo by James Wojcik for TIME)

Did you know…

That the journal Nature published a study in 2001 stating that for salmon, the fish-in, fish-out ratio (the amount of food or other fish that salmon eat), could be as much as three pounds of wild fish to make one pound of salmon. That’s a pretty screwy equation! Why are we coming up with a net marine protein loss?

And while we all know that including fish in our diet is beneficial for a number of reasons, including being lower calorie than other meat sources and containing omega-3 fatty acids, are we eating too much fish?  Are our oceans being picked clean? Can farming fish take the place of catching them?

Showing us that we can make our environment “greener” in some pretty creative ways, Coca-Cola and the World Wildlife Federation unveiled the first “living” billboard in the Manila, Philippines last week. The green bits around the coke bottle are thousands of Fukien tea plants spread across the 60-foot-by-60-foot canvas. Each plant can absorb 13 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, for an total of 46,800 pounds of carbon dioxide absorption.

If that isn’t enough eco-friendly points yet, the whole thing is made of recycled materials. The planting pots are made from recycled coke bottles, while the potting soil is made up of industrial byproducts and organic fertilizers. To water and nourish the plants, the billboard is fitted with an efficient trickle-down irrigation system.

I don’t know about you, but this billboard definitely makes me start thinking about getting a plant!  And maybe planting said plant in something unexpected, like this!

Click here for more repurposed container garden ideas.

Have you heard of “freegans”? Though sometimes shocking and more than a little disturbing, freegans are dedicated to eliminating wasteful over-consumption. Which sounds good…but it can be extreme. Freegans sometime giveup so much that they’re forced to dig through trash cans for food. In the new film by Jeremy Seifert, Dive! Living Off America’s Trash, we get a look at the hidden world of dumpster diving.

Dive! follows Jeremy Seifert and his circle of friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of L.A.’s supermarkets. In the process they uncover thousands of dollars worth of good food and an ugly truth about waste in America: grocery stores know they are wasting and most refuse to do anything about it.

What do you think?  Does this change the way you look at your trash?

in.gredients

Reducing waste while eating foods that are good for the body and earth can seem impractical. While packaging makes up 40 percent of municipal waste streams in the US, avoiding packaging is sometimes impossible. Nearly all the food we buy in the grocery store is packaged, leaving us no choice but to buy packaged food that’s not always recyclable.

The first package-free, zero-waste grocery store in the U.S. will open this year in Austin, Texas, if founders can meet their funding goals. In.gredients will offer the usual grocery fare like organic produce, household cleaners, dairy, and wine with a refreshing twist: everything will be sold in bulk, revolutionizing grocery shopping as we know it. Their goal is to reduce waste by ditching packaging altogether, shoppers will bring their own reusable containers and bags to the grocery (or opt for the store’s compostable containers if they forget).

Americans generate 250 million tons of trash annually and 1/3 of that waste comes from packaging, so a zero-waste grocery store would be great news for the environment. GOOD reports that the United Kingdom already has an all-bulk store, but In.gredients would start the trend in the United States. Founders are crowdsourcing the funds to launch the grocery; investors can contribute to In.gredients on Indiegogo.com.

Read more: http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2011/06/packaging-free-store-austin-texas-ingredients-zero-waste.html