We just launched a brand new line of eco-friendly watches here at FactoryGreen.com, and they are KILLER! I’m wearing two of them right now, and nothing else. That’s right people: two watches and no pants.

But don’t take my word for how awesome these babies are… check’em out…

Cone Watch

Road cones that were left on the highway and byways have found new life by going under the knife (like Joan Rivers). Road Cone Watch with a new Japanese movement watch face

Fem Tire Watch-Pink

Fem Tire Watch: Hand cut tire with a watch made of metal and plastic. Ergo, most of it will outlast you. Female Tire Watch Pink with a new Japanese movement watch face

Tire Watch

Tire Watch: Hand cut tire with a watch made of metal and plastic.  Tire Watch with a new Japanese movement watch face

Tennis Ball Watch

Tennis balls ruthlessly slashed and festooned with watch faces. Love. Match. Game. Green. Fuzzy. Tennis Ball Cuff Band with vintage Evans De Luxe Watch Face

Fem Tire Watch-RED

Hand cut tire with a watch made out of metal and plastic. Female Tire Watch Red with a new Japanese movement watch face

Fem Cone Watch

Fem Cone Watch with a new Japanese movement watch face

Matchbook Watch

Matchbook Cuff Watch with new Japanese movement watch face

From Japan

Dome House

Heard about the affordable, environmentally-friendly igloo-shaped house made of Styrofoam that two people can assemble in a week?  It’s no joke.  The Dome House is another amazing Japanese design innovation.  We’ve got our fingers crossed that they’ll land stateside soon.

Ever since I wrote the entry titled “3:45am…” my inbox has been regularly filled with messages from people asking “What is Jungle Juice?” and “How can I make it?”

Here’s the simple answer folks… JJ is a concoction invented by the Devil to make that special someone who has been ogling you all night from across the room look much more attractive than they would if all of your faculties were working.

Now, how is that any different from grandpa’s home-brewed, bathtub-Gin that you’ve been sneaking at holiday parties for the past decade?

Here’s the answer: grandpa’s bathtub-Gin doesn’t make grandma look any sexier. Jungle Juice does.

You have been warned and informed.

Now how do I make this entry related to the environment….

There we go.

We at FG can hardly believe it’s September again, which can only mean one thing for the design calendar!  The London Design Festival 2008 is set to kick off on Saturday the 13th and will run until Tuesday the 23rd of September.

The Festival reflects the growing worldwide recognition of the power of eco-design to change things for the better, to help deliver economic prosperity and to improve quality of life. Whether you want to be inspired, informed, or simply see how design is working with the environment instead of against it, there is something for everyone.

Check it out @ londondesignfestival.com

Fo sho.

FlexibleLove

FlexibleLove, an ingenious piece from Taiwanese designer Chishen Chiu, begins as a simple chair.  With its accordion-like structure, however, it can morph into various couch-like iterations, seating up to 16 people.  Props to FlexibleLove not only for its amazing design, but also for its eco-friendly construction: the piece is made from 100% recycled wood and paper products.

FACTORY•GREEN

In eco-design, as in dancing, the fun depends more on your attitude than on actual innate ability.

It’s not how much you know, but how much you’re willing to try. Think of the amusement of your hips doing the Cha Cha when you’re trying for the Twist or rocking on your head whilst about to try the worm.

This is us, and that’s how we try and do things, we’re a collective of students who have grouped together under the umbrella of FG or Factory Green - don’t believe everything they tell you…

sAy HellO tO eVeryONe…

-Daniel, Jack, and all the Saints

While sitting in my Medical Microbiology class the other day viewing PowerPoint slide after PowerPoint slide of horrible, incurable diseases of the genitalia, I couldn’t help but daydream back to a time when modern medicines and technologies were the stuff of science fiction novels. Back to a time when Sir Alexander Fleming was quickly becoming every college student’s best friend with his discovery of penicillin.

As a college student and almost-scientist, I see every day how human innovation has bettered millions—nay, billions—of lives. How the automobile and plane have shrunk the world, how the internet has put knowledge at our fingertips, and how a simple antibiotic prescription the day after a night enveloped in Jungle Juice and black-out sex can save an individual from a lifetime of misery.

But is it possible for human innovation to be hurting us?

Before I entered my sophomore year of college, our university required that every incoming student read the book titled Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age by Bill McKibben. McKibben essentially presented a Dooms Day message about how our technologies were going to… well… kill us all. I remember thinking that technological advancement has helped all of us in countless ways, but is our progress killing us?

The answer is extremely clear: maybe.

It’s obvious that human innovation and industrial progress have elevated peoples’ quality of life to a level that was unknown to generations prior. But with these improvements have come detriments in the form of pollution, poisoned water supplies, mountainous landfills, and a knack for wasteful consumption. Societal advancements come at a price. The Industrial and Technological Revolutions of the last two centuries brought with them a smorgasbord of new environmental challenges.

The same innovations that have worked to harm our environment must be utilized to save it.

It is a Green Innovation—a Green Revolution, if you will—that must occur and continue to swell and spread throughout the hearts and minds of those at the forefront of human innovation. It is only with a mindset geared towards placing environmental protectionism first and human comfort second that we can begin to halt the effects that mankind’s genius has inflicted on our planet. Each presidential candidate is espousing how he will put environmental issues at the top of his agenda. Great. But real environmental change will only occur when the individual, not the government, decides to step up and tackle the issues at hand.

Step up. Everything, and I mean everything, is riding on it.

Today I have to go back into my Med Micro class and suffer through two more hours of horrible images. God bless antibiotics.

Message of the day: Wash your hands kids.

-Daniel

I’m sure you’ve heard about this blog: Stuff White People Like. If you haven’t… you should immediately go there and bask in its hilarity and overall genius. A friend of mine directed me to a particular entry concerning white peoples’ love of recycling. Here it is in all its glory…

#64 Recycling

February 14, 2008 by clander

Recycling is a part of a larger theme of stuff white people like: saving the earth without having to do that much.

Recycling is fantastic! You can still buy all the stuff you like (bottled water, beer, wine, organic iced tea, and cans of all varieties) and then when you’re done you just put it in a DIFFERENT bin than where you would throw your other garbage. And boom! Environment saved! Everyone feels great, it’s so easy!

This is important because all white feel guilty about producing waste. It doesn’t stop them from doing it, but they feel guilty about it. Deep down, they believe they should be like the Native Americans and use every part of the product or beast they have consumed. Though for many white people, this simply means putting plastic bags into a special drawer where they will accumulate until they are eventually used to carry some gym clothes or bathing suit. Ultimately this drawer will get full and only be emptied when the person moves to a new house. Advanced white recyclers will uses these grocery bags as garbage bags.

If you are in a situation where a white person produces an empty bottle, watch their actions. They will first say “where’s the recycling?” If you say “we don’t recycle,” prepare for some awkwardness. They will make a move to throw the bottle away, they will hesitate, and then ultimately throw the bottle away. But after they return look in their eyes. All they can see is the bottle lasting forever in a landfill, trapping small animals. It will eat at them for days, at this point you should say “I’m just kidding, the recycling is under the sink. Can you fish out that bottle?” And they will do it 100% of the time!

The best advice is that if you plan to deal with white people on regular basis either start recycling or purchase a large blue bin so that they can believe they are recycling.

It’s been far too long since the last blog entry, but it’s my goal to get better at producing them more frequently. We’ve gotten a bit of flack lately that our blog isn’t “eco” enough, so amidst my humorous witticisms and sophomoric humor, I’ll bend to the will of The Man and include some bits of eco-wisdom and ultra-easy ways to green your life.

Perhaps even a few ways you haven’t considered before…

But first, an update on what’s cookin’ in the world of Factory Green:

1. New Website: FG is having a completely new website designed and it’s going to rock! Not even joking. Be on the look out for it towards the end of July.

2. Wikipedia: You know you’re ballin’ when you’ve hit “Wikipedia entry status.” Check it out HERE.

3. Magazines: Factory Green will be in the September issue of Greenability Magazine! Daniel and Jack will be dressed like members from the Village People (only kidding…or am I…).

I wanted to talk a little bit about a GQ article that I read a few months back concerning just how important the little things are when it comes to reducing one’s environmental footprint. One of the astonishing facts about reducing our individual carbon footprint—the standard way of measuring the CO2 emissions each person is responsible for—is that it doesn’t take much effort at all to have an immediate impact on reducing the production of greenhouse gases. What’s even more mind-boggling to imagine is the cumulative effect on these emissions if enough of us act together in these minor ways.

That’s because so much of the way we live our lives is wasteful and, to put it bluntly, thoughtless. It takes nothing to unplug your phone charger, switch off a lamp, take a 5 minute shower instead of a 20 minute one, skip the pre-wash part of the dishwasher cycle, etc. And they all save $$$, which is one of the rather striking things about reducing your carbon footprint.

So we’ve mentioned before a couple ways to “green-up“ your life, but here’s a few ways I bet you haven’t thought of…

1. Your Death: Eco-friendly funerals. Many private funeral homes are beginning to present eco-friendly alternatives to traditional coffins, including wicker caskets and shrouds (yes, shrouds). Traditional coffins are made of chipboard that is created using formaldehyde which, when cremated, can release toxic gases into the atmosphere. If simply buried, that same formaldehyde and glue leaks into the soil and groundwater.

FG’s advice: Die in the desert. You’ll fertilize the nutrient-depleted ground with your corpse or, better yet, become the snack of a starving animal.

2. Don’t Be a Butt Tosser: There’s a myth out there that cigarette butts, when simply tossed on the ground, will biodegrade over time. While partially true, decomposing cigarette butts release harmful chemicals that enter our land and drinking water during their break-down. Nearly 4.5 trillion (that’s with a ‘T’ people) cigarette butts are littered worldwide each year.

FG’s advice: Quit smoking. But if you gotta’ smoke (?), carry around a 35-mm film canister to store those used butts in until you can discard them properly.

3. Standby No Longer: Leaving one’s computer or tv on standby wastes huge amounts of energy. Electronic devices utilize 40% of their full running power while in standby-mode. Each year, the energy wasted in this way is the equivalent of the annual output of 26 power plants.

FG’s advice: plug your ‘energy vampires’ into a power strip and turn it off when not in use.

-Daniel