white castle tries a different color on for size - green!
white castle, how can i explain how much i love you? we’ve been through so much together - sleepless nights in college when i found solace in your deliciously steamed slyders, a bad batch of clam strips that i eventually overcame and a fender bender caused by my fervor for your chicken rings (can you believe that the guy understood that i was in a rush to get to white castle and drove away with no questions asked?).
you’re america’s oldest burger chain, and you’ve stayed in the game because you know how to evolve. i’m proud of you for your recent switch to 100% recycled crave cases and sacks and encourage you to keep up the good work. don’t be discouraged by people who might call the move greenwashing. you were able to overcome the public’s hesitancy to eat ground beef in the 20s with your sparklingly immaculate towers of white, and kept them coming back for more with your juicy little burgers and unwaveringly crunchy onion rings.
in case anyone is interested, white castle also takes the following steps to conserve energy and reduce waste:
they have been committed to reusing and recycling the outer bun cartons since 1965.
the company has used duro-last white roofing for new restaurant construction since 1992. duro-last reflects over 86% of the sun’s energy, reducing energy costs. duro-last is a charter partner in the energy star roof products program, sponsored by the u.s. environmental protection agency.
white castle recycles thousands of pounds of metal each year and approximately 1200 pounds of recyclable plastics per year.
led lighting used in 55 white castle restaurant locations reduced co2 by 948 tons per year. each unit retrofit reduces co2 emissions by 17 tons per year.annual electricity savings is $2,550 per store from an investment of approximately $10,000 per store.
plans are underway for more environmentally responsible initiatives including storm water bioretention and use of more green building materials in the construction of restaurant buildings.
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interactive telecommunications goes green
i was lucky enough to check out some insanely creative projects at nyu’s itp (interactive telecommunications program) show last night in a space that can only be described as what it would look like if the smartest, most creative person in the world vomited their brain out and arranged the contents neatly in compartmentalized stalls.
so what do interactive telecommunications have to do with sustainability and going green? just about everything. not only are electronic methods of communicating inherently less wasteful because they eliminate the need to use paper and send packages that need to be transported using fuel*, many of the concepts directly addressed the energy, water and waste crisis that we are currently facing.
check it:
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cameron cundiff and nobu nakaguchi’s how much water? is a system that shows you the amount of water you’re using as you use it. cameron explained that although the project is still conceptual, he hopes that such a system is in the works in the real world. how cool would it be if something like this could be integrated into your wii or posted to your facebook? note: the poland springs water bottle in tucked behind the project is ironic, don’t you think?
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martin ceperley’s power aware is similar to the wilting flower that i wrote about a few weeks ago, but improves upon the idea by consolidating the system to a single powerstrip. i also like how martin encourages potential users to compete with one another to use the least energy via facebook and other social networking sites.
some of the other projects didn’t necessarily focus on green technology, but were undeniably brilliant or just a delight to look at and play with:
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oscar torres and florica vlad’s pianocktail is a contraption that mixes you a cocktail based on the combination of notes that you play. “now you can drink your music in addition to hearing it,” they explained.
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aram chang, amanda syarfuan, dharmarajan ratnagiri ayakkad and seungran woo’s reverve is a shopping portal that works in conjunction with your favorite shows. let’s say you love charlotte’s glasses and want to buy them on the spot. reverve gives you the option to do it!
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tweetmobile, the brainchild of jill haefele, jorge just, joshua schelling and sara huong allows your twitter tweets to be manifested into the actions of these playful birdies. my tweet made the bluejay flutter!
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nobuyuki nakaguchi’s breath note was inspired by his childhood memory of fogging up his mom’s car window with his breath and doodling words and pictures on it. nobuyuki turned his fondness for this little pleasure that almost everyone has enjoyed into a way to capture your breath notes and send them to friends.
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corey lane menscher transformed his desire to know when his wife (who is actually pregnant!) felt kicks from their baby into the kickbee, which wraps around a pregnant woman’s tummy and sends a twitter tweet to loved ones every time the baby kicks!
what a treat to peek into the minds of tomorrow’s interactive media moguls. and how empowering to see so many minds focused on conserving, recycling, and communicating these goals to the rest of the world.
* the flipside is that electronic communication requires, you guessed it, electricity, which we all know needs to be conserved as well. but think about it this way: sending a whole bunch of text messages really uses about the same amount of energy as sending one or none, so why not use it to its full potential?
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revisiting brita’s filter for good campaign
remember these?
yes, that’s oil spilling out of their mouths.
there was a considerable amount of positive buzz surrounding brita’s filter for good ad campaign last summer, but many people are still purchasing bottled water. why???
it is somewhat understandable if you’re out on the street, feel a bit parched, and pick up a bottle of water at the closest bodega. but it’s a little different when you consciously purchase cases of the stuff to drink at work, especially in an office like mine where delicious, double-purified and free water is available right from the cooler.
many of my officemates were horrified when the cases of water they buy from staples skyrocketed from $3 a case to $10 (due in large part to oil prices). but guess what? they still kept buying them! many still purchased 2 or 3 cases. $20 or $30 bucks a month vs. free? seems like a no brainer to me, but for some reason, we americans can’t seem to shake the idea that something that we have to pay for is inherently better than something that we don’t.
by the way, if you haven’t heard yet, these brita ads are referring to the fact that making the plastic bottles to meet our country’s demand for bottled water requires more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year.
so, why are you still drinking bottled water?
the little bit of controversy behind the ad campaign was that brita never mentioned the fact that their filters are also made out of plastic and end up in landfills just like plastic bottles do. but kudos to them for being able to counteract that dirty little secret with a new collabo with recycline, a company that makes toothbrushes, plates and other cool stuff out of plastics like stonyfield farms yogurt cups that aren’t usually recycled.
brava, brita, brava.
pics courtesy of why me design
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truth in hydration?
there’s a new water in town, and it’s from our town too!
tap’d is purified, bottled new york city tap water, plain and simple. why would we pay to drink bottled water when we have access to delicious nyc h2o from our kitchen sinks? well tap’d makes a good point. sometimes you’re on your way somewhere and you just don’t have access to tap water. they even encourage people to only buy their water when tap water is not available. i have to applaud their honesty and transparency (chuckle), and will definitely pick them over dasani, fiji or poland spring next time i need hydration on the go.
the fact that tap’d is sold in plastic bottles is still a problem, but hopefully new yorkers will drink tap’d, realize how tasty our water is, and stop buying bottled altogether.
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beauty and brains: eco towers abu dhabi
eco towers will be the first mixed use leed platinum certified skyscrapers in the middle east. the 23-story towers flaunt such earth friendly features such as:
air purification systems, renewable energy, toxic-free materials, dual glaze windows, water efficiency and waste reduction, not to mention breathtaking curves.
images courtesy of www.igreenspot.com
fyi: leed stands for leadership in energy and environmental design and provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
take a gander at the rating system when you have a chance. it will no doubt help you impress people at the next green cocktail party you attend.
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why drinking bottled water is just not smart
imagine that your cell phone could use either the rechargeable battery that is inside of it right now, or AAA batteries that you purchase from the store. you’re a busy professional with lots of things to do. your cell phone runs out of battery. do you plug it into the charger you have connected to an outlet in your bedroom? or do you leave your house, walk or drive to the store and pick up a 20-pack of batteries for your phone on a sunday? now imagine that those batteries weigh about as much as a bag of rice and are just as annoying to carry. oh, i forgot to mention that the store-bought batteries cost about 4000 times as much as the electricity to simply charge your phone at home. one more thing - the batteries are really bad for our earth. would you still do it?
if you consider yourself a smart and savvy individual, you probably wouldn’t, and yet so many americans do something very similar in their homes. for some reason, we’ve been taught that tap water is bad and we should go out of our way to go to the store and pay a 4000x markup for bottles of water that either are tap water, filtered tap water or either about as good or worse than tap water. why? many of my friends majored in finance and pride themselves on being informed consumers, but they still lug home bottles of water from the store. it’s like something out of a twilight zone episode. what’s even weirder is that at restaurants, most of us choose tap over sparkling because we know that we have to pay extra for sparkling. if we are smart about it when we go out to eat, why do we all of a sudden lose that insight when we return to our own homes?
now, some of the smartest people in the world drink bottled water (i glimpsed some super intelligent scientists drinking it the other night at a panel discussion on clean energy!) so don’t feel too bad. sometimes we just don’t want to be rude by refusing it, or we’re outside of our homes, thirsty, and there is nothing else to drink. but next time you’re at the store, why not do your back, your wallet and the earth a favor and skip the bottled water. all three will thank you.
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how to recycle your bottles and get a free table
it looks like these are filled with different colored water. it would be cool to have different substances in each one as well; sand, dirt, plants growing with roots, toy soldiers, etc.
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why is this a site?
swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.
look for stuff
feed yourself