Khunu is a start-up company that aims to be the first to bring yak wool clothing to the global market. They offer a range of athletic clothing that is made with 100% Himalayan yak wool. What are the advantages of yak wool? Khunu says that independent lab tests have shown yak wool to be 10-15% warmer than merino wool of Australia and New Zealand. They claim the wool has a luxurious hand feel which is comparable to cashmere, because only the ultrafine down fibers of the wool are used. (more…)

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Looptworks Hoptu Laptop Sleeve

I’ve been testing some Looptwork products, and they are amazing. Here’s why: the company makes all their products from 100% industrial “excess” materials. That means every zipper, button and thread used in their designs was about to be thrown out. For example, the Hoptu Laptop Sleeve shown above is made with 100% upcycled nylon neoprene which was recovered from a wetsuit factory. (more…)

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Ultra-Efficient Design Meets Low-Impact Manufacturing: Patagonia Wetsuits (photo: Patagonia)

If you’re not a surfer or a diver, a wetsuit may seem like a fairly specialized or even obscure piece of equipment. But once in a while, a product arrives on the market that’s noteworthy not only for how well it performs its job, but also for how it’s designed and produced. Such is the case with the amazingly efficient line of wetsuits recently added to Patagonia’s catalog of outdoor gear. (more…)

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GreenFiber Cocoon Insulation: Energy Efficiency From Recycled Material (photo: GreenFiber)

One of the simplest ways to improve a home’s energy efficiency and comfort is to make sure that it is properly insulated. Cocoon Insulation from North Carolina-based GreenFiber is a highly efficient insulator, offering more convenient installation and higher R-values than common alternatives, as well as utilizing recycled source material.
(more…)

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The Contina line by Hape International is said to be the first range of 100% bamboo toys. They are colored with natural, water-based paints. The full range is available from Hape through Amazon. Found via: Eco Child’s Play

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Cardboard can be incorporated in modern design pieces — check out this impressive gallery of cardboard furniture. Bloxes (shown above) are the latest option in cardboard furniture. The corrugated cardboard puzzle pieces lock together to form sturdy shapes such as chairs, walls, and play forts.

The creator of Bloxes, Aza Raskin, explains what they are:

Essentially 3D cardboard legos that ship flat, and fold up in modular building blocks that are strong enough to stand on. While they aren’t tech per se, we use them for building tables, walls, cubicles, and desks. Both Google and Mozilla have expressed interest in using them in their offices. So, this may well be the new thing in terms of agile office-space deployment. Don’t like where a wall is? Just move it! Don’t like the way it looks? Just rebuild it! They are cheaper than cubicles, and much more fun.

The 6-sided, 9.5 inch-square shapes are designed with CAD software and made in Chicago. Bloxes sells each case of 20 brown or white squares for $60, enough to build a form 36 inches by 45 inches.

Link: Bloxes

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Cocona is a natural fabric enhancer that is made with activated carbon. The activated carbon is derived from coconut husks — it is a “waste” product of the water filter industry. But what does Cocona do exactly? It is said to help traditional fabrics resist moisture, control odor and shield ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Activated carbon has a huge absorbing area — one gram of it has a surface area the size of two tennis court. Some 40 outdoor clothing manufacturers, including GoLite, Marmot, Sierra Designs and Royal Robbins, are incorporating Cocona into their 2007 product lines.

Shown here is a Drimove Zip Top from GoLite that uses Cocona. Outside Magazine gave it a 2007 Green Gear Award. Gregory Haggquist, from the Cocona company, provides a detail explanation of how the product works:

Activated carbon uses the adsorbance process to control odors. Adsorbance is a reversible process dictated by temperature. The activated carbon surface area is full of pores, the sizes of the pores and the size of the adsorbant (odor) dictated the interaction energy between the adsorbant and the adsorbate. The higher the interaction energy the higher the temperature required to desorb the adsorbant.
COCONA uses coconut shell activated carbon. Body odors are molecules such as butyric acid, isovaleric acid, and trimethyl amine. These molecules are all similar in size. The coconut shell activated carbon has pore sizes that are just right to adsorb these molecules at ambient temperatures and desorb these molecules at temperatures found in a washer (hot water cycle) and cloth dryers. We verified this by testing the adsorbance capacity of each COCONA certified fabric. The test determines the adsorbance capacity using butane gas. We ran experimental trials where we saturated a COCONA fabric and then washed and dried the fabric 50 times. We found that the adsorbance capacity slightly increased over the 50 cycles. The capacity increased because more of the pores of the coconut shell carbon became exposed. The reason for this is in the patented process TrapTek uses to make COCONA yarns and fabrics. TrapTek uses a protective layer which coats the carbon during the processing of the yarn. If no protective layer is used when the polyester polymer is melted to be formed into yarn the polyester will fill up the activated carbon. In a sense this deactivates the activated carbon. When the polyester solidifies to form the yarn the carbon pores are filled and covered with polyester never to be exposed. However, in the TrapTek patented process we use a protective layer which covers and protects the pores during the yarn processing and fabric production. The final step in the fabric processing removes this protective layer exposing the activated carbon pores. Further washing continues to remove this protective layer exposing more of the activated carbon pores increasing the adsorbance capacity.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that natural latex is the optimal mattress-making material. I’ve tried all kinds of mattresses: goose down, wool, foam, cotton futons and box spring mattresses. But I have to say that my first few nights sleeping on a latex mattress were the most comfortable I ever experienced.

It’s a natural material which we will probably never fully reproduce synthetically. Latex’s power is that it is yielding, but also highly resilient. Latex mattresses do not require flipping or turning, and last around 15 years.

The “mattress” I am sleeping on is actually a king-sized 2″ natural latex topper, which I purchased from U.S. Memory Foam. This company seems to have the best prices ($209 for a king-sized mattress topper). A 2″ topper seems to work quite well, they do also have 3″ and 4″ toppers. I also have a natural latex pillow.

Latex is the milky sap of the rubber tree. It is mostly harvested in South East Asia, where trees are tapped for latex by cutting a groove in the bark of the tree. It is a renewable process — each tree can produce latex for 20 years.

Latex is also hypo-allergenic and its anti-microbial properties inhibit the growth of bacteria, mildew, and dust mites.

I like 100% latex mattresses because they are completely biodegradable. Other “Talalay” latex mattresses have a synthetic material added, to increase their durability.

Here are a retailer that sells full, natural latex mattresses (i.e. not just a topper): Natural Lux Mattress by The Form Source.

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During the 1990s color grown cotton was back in production, due to the efforts of Sally Fox, an inventor from California, who cultivated long fiber colored cotton, and created her own patented cotton called “Fox Fibre”. Most Fox Fibre is grown organically (called Fox Fibre Colorganic), and requires minimal processing because it does not need to be dyed. It is used in a wide variety of products today, including clothing, bedding and furniture.

You can read more about Sally Fox here.

Fox Fibre available from Cottonfield.

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Conventional paint strippers are usually very toxic substances that you’d be better off not bringing into your home. But one company, Green Products, has created a bio-based paint stripper and solvent called aMAIZEing.

It is a proprietary blend of U.S. grown corn and soybean esters designed to strip and remove paint, adhesives and mastics from concrete, masonry, wood, metal and a host of other surfaces. It can also be used as a degreaser. See the aMAIZEing home page for more information. See also this soy-based paint stripper from Soyclean.

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