"Collecting urine, that magical yellow liquid we excrete from our bodies several times a day, is a key step in recycling human nutrients. Urine contains most of the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium we release. These nutrients are the major components of chemical fertilizers, and urine is an amazing plant fertilizer! It is typically sterile, and, if separated from feces, can be easily and safely reused. Urine collection can be as simple as peeing in a jar or installing a urinal or urine-diverting dry or composting toilet. Although female urinals haven't caught on yet, there are some designs and models available."

All you need is a five gallon jug! Boy, I can't wait for female urinals to catch on.

Submitted by jason - 2007-09-06 19:58:26
Channels - blogcadre futuretech
Tags - green plants greywater fertilizer

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Interesting article on Wired about the design of a new Chinese metropolis, built from scratch as a model for a green city.

From the article:
Dongtan's master plan — hundreds of pages of maps, schematics, and data — has almost nothing to say about architectural style. Instead, it outlines the world's first green city, every block engineered in response to China's environmental crisis. It's like the source code for an urban operating system. "We're not focused on the form," Gutierrez explains. "We're focused on the performance of the form." He and his team imagine a city powered by local, renewable energy, with superefficient buildings clustered in dense, walkable neighborhoods; a recycling scheme that repurposes 90 percent of all waste; a network of high tech organic farms; and a ban on any vehicle that emits CO2.

Submitted by jason - 2007-05-09 15:50:42
Channels - futuretech
Tags - green city china architecture pilot development

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The Compact Low Emission VEhicle for uRban transport is a new vehicle prototype from BMW and the University of Bath. It's a three wheeled, semi-motorcycle that runs on compressed natural gas, gets 108mpg and can cruise at 80mph.

This was one of Time's best inventions of 2006: http://www.time.com/time/2006/te...

Submitted by jason - 2007-05-08 10:56:23
Channels - blogcadre tech futuretech
Tags - green transportation vehicle prototype

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