Live Off-grid in an Egg

Credit: Ecocapsule

It comes with the tagline ‘Dwelling with the spirit of freedom’, and we have to agree, because what is off-grid eco-living if not ‘freedom’?

Measuring 4.5 metres in length, 2.4 metres in width, and 2.5 metres in height, the Ecocapsule, designed by Nice Architects, features a total usable floor space of 8 square-metres, comfortably sufficient for two adults. Despite being a portable home that boasts an ‘immense off-grid life span, worldwide portability and flexibility’, the Ecocapsule is equipped with a folding bed, two large operable windows, a working/dining area, shower and flushable toilet, built-in kitchenette with running water, and even storage space. The eco-friendly part of Ecocapsule is that it is powered by a built-in 750W wind turbine and a 2.6-square-metre array of high-efficiency solar cells; in times of low solar and wind activity, the egg-shaped portable home will stay operable with a high-capcity battery (9,744Wh). The rounded shape is more than just aesthetics issue, but also for rainwater collection optimisation. Weighing 1,500 kilograms, the Ecocapsule can easily fit inside a standard shipping container, meaning you can ship it to your travel destination for a green escape, instead of booking yourself into a hotel.

The price is expected to be announced end of the year, and meanwhile, Nice Architects are looking into further reducing the size and weight of the pod for easier transportation. So eco-fancy, don’t you think? 

Take Your Kids to the Eco Paper World

Credit: hk.on.cc

When it comes to raising an eco-conscious child, nothing beats instilling the values of environmental conservation and exposing them to eco solutions when they’re still young. If you’re stuck for places to bring your children this weekend, try Korean Corner in Kowloon Bay.

As both a mini playground and a shop that sells eco toys and furniture pieces for the little ones, Korean Corner appeals with the giant four-metre-tall dinosaur made of cardboard, which is complete with a slide and a mini maze inside its ‘body’. From mini houses to bookshelves, Korean Corner has stocked up on creative furniture pieces that are made with eco-friendly materials, such as wood sourced from eco forests.

Go on, let your little ones explore the fun of eco-friendly furniture pieces!

Information
Location: Room 17, 2/F, Metro Centre (I), 32 Lam Hing Street, Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 3976 2976
Opening Hours: 10:30am to 6:00pm Monday, 10:30am to 8:00pm Tuesday to Friday, noon to 6:00pm Saturday, Sunday and public holidays  

Green Tuk Tuk

Credit: Fast Company

Have you ever travelled in Thailand or Cambodia, wishing your home city could introduce something like the good tuk tuk?

Apparently a design student at RMIT University has, and has created Lindo, a sleek, electric, app-connected version of the tuk tuk, which could offer city dwellers a new means of transport in the bustling city, and address ‘the current stress of population growth and congestion within our cities’ while helping to combat carbon emission.

Literally everything inside the vehicle can be controlled through an Uber-like app, from playing music to changing the lighting in the passenger compartment, and instantly paying for the ride. Understanding that the vehicle would need to be something that people actually want to ride in, Kyle Armstrong has fitted the tuk tuk-inspired vehicle with a curved carbon fibre frame that resembles modern motorcycle – the lightweight materials mean the vehicle consumes much less energy than a conventional electric car. Meanwhile, the photovoltaic skin of Lindo helps charge the lithium batteries inside the vehicle.

Would you ride in this concept car? 

Your Pets Can Help with Recycling Too!

Credit: Ecozine

As a devoted pet parent I’m all for sustainability education for my fur kids. No, I’m joking. I reckon my babies are doing pretty well already: they leave no food waste behind, and clean the bowl with non-chemical ‘agent’, like they do with their bodies. I can’t complain. The only thing they can’t do is to take the packaging of their food to the recycling bins.

Now, I normally take the cans to the recycling bins but if you’d like to make this act more meaningful, BeWell, a charity project is planning to give new life to used pet food cans by making them containers for the bead wax refills they provide with every BeCandle Beads purchase. Anyone that donates used pet food cans will be entitled to a complimentary refill of BeCandle Beads in a glass bottle that is recycled by Green Glass Green, and a free pilates class with BeWell project leader Elisa Fu. If you wish to give more, BeCandle is offering a special pack (HKD180) of BeCandle Beads that includes a recycled glass bottle, a sachet of wicks, and a recycled pet food can filled with wax sand made of natural palm wax – know that 100% of the profits from the special pack will be donated to the SPCA.

You’ll find the pet can collection station at BeCandle’s GLUE Associates (S402, PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central), and the special pack can be bought online here. There will be a launch party for this project at 6pm on Saturday, 13 June, at Panevino, so bring your pets! 

Meet Hong Kong’s First CGS

Credit: www.info.gov.hk

If you’re still griping about the insufficient government effort in battling environmental pollution, it’s perhaps time you stopped and take a serious look at Hong Kong’s first Community Green Station (CGS), just opened in Sha Tin less than a month ago.

Run by non-profit making organisations, the CGS’s, expected to acquire a presence in each of the 18 districts to promote environmental education while serving as a spot to collect different types of recyclables, are designed with aesthetics and practicality in mind, and have therefore incorporated elements of sustainable development and green buildings. The Sha Tin CGS, for instance, is now a public place composed of container modules, reformed from the temporary parking space it previously was. A quick tour at the Sha Tin CGS reveals the multi-purpose rooms and ancillary facilities built for exhibitions, seminars, workshops and other kinds of educational activities.

Now, although there are already existing recyclers (with whom the Sha Tin CGS will be working closely with to provide a better recycling solution), one thing you should note about the CGS is that it will focus on the provision of collection services for recyclables of lower economic value, such as electrical appliances, compact fluorescent lamps and tubes, glass bottles and rechargeable batteries. The materials will then be delivered to trustworthy and qualified recyclers to turn the waste materials into useful resources.

The operator – Christian Family Service Centre, in the case of Sha Tin CGS – has already established collaboration arrangements with over 70 housing estates, institutions and schools in the district as we speak, and the network is expected to expand further in the future. For so long we have been wanting more government subsidies and support for the local recycling industry to ensure more waste materials are recycled, and it looks like now that the government has done something conducive to a sustainable future, as a response to the hitherto unsatisfactory recycling situation. Surely the CGS initiative deserves some applause? 

Grow a Book Tree

Credit: Fast Company, Pequeño Editor

If you need one more reason to get your children to read, Pequeño Editor has come up with a solution to make reading not just intellectually beneficial, but also environmentally educational.

Titled Mi Papá Estuvo en la Selva (‘My Father was in the Jungle’), the book – which has been made available in its standard format for quite a while – has recently been given a redesign to remind readers of resource conservation. The ‘resource’ in this case is trees, which are cut down to make books.

With each page printed with non-toxic inks and sown with seeds of the jacaranda tree, readers of the children’s book are encouraged to water the book cover to help the seeds germinate, before planting the book in a garden once the seeds have sprouted. To quote Raquel Franco, editorial director of Pequeño Editor, the book is a metaphor that “everything we read also takes root in us and is part of our mental library, our culture, of who we are as people”. 

Top 5 Green Shops in Hong Kong

Credit: sassyhongkong.com

Not sure if you’ve realised but green shops in Hong Kong are sprouting like mushrooms, and they are showing no signs of abating. Scattering all over the city and outlying islands, owners and founders of Hong Kong’s green, organic and sustainability-orientated shops are giving you no excuses to not shop for a sustainable future. Just in case you need a quick recap of the green outlet landscape, here’s a pick of five from us.

Green Common
Yet another green initiative by social enterprise Green Monday, Green Common is the latest addition to the city’s stock of shops that prioritise green, organic, healthy lifestyle above everything else. As the first Asian sales point of Beyond Meat – a brand dedicated to replacing animal protein with plant protein to sustain future food supply and the planet – and a community space that organises regular and free seminars and workshops on food labelling and cooking, Green Common is David Yeung’s attempt at raising public awareness on the necessity of going green. In addition to donating 1% of its revenue – from its vegetarian ice cream, gluten-free pasta, zucchini pasta and the likes – to food bank Food Angel, Green Common will also be donating part of the remaining revenue to Green Monday’s own foundation to continue its environmental education effort.

Location: 222 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 2263 3153
Email: info@greencommon.com
Opening Hours: 9:30am to 8:30pm Monday to Saturday, 10:00am to 8:30pm Sunday

JustGreen Organic Convenience Store
Hailing from Lamma Island, JustGreen soon expanded towards the city with a location in Soho, Star Street, plus a centralised warehouse in Kennedy Town and a new fashion concept store in Soho. From recycling resources and minimising energy usage within its office, to sourcing from only ethical products via sustainable methods, JustGreen covers everything you’ll need from body care to what you need for the larder. If you need ideas on healthy diet for your baby and toddler, or a vegan diet for yourself, JustGreen has stocked up on books and magazines to make sustainable living easy too.

Location: 75 Yung Shue Wan Main Street, Lamma Island, Hong Kong (more locations on website)
Phone: +852 2982 2325
Email: info@justgreen.com.hk

Locofama
Known for its innovative menu of healthy and clean diet, complete with vegan, dairy- and nut-free options such as the carb-free cauliflower risotto, snow crab sesame oolong soba, and fresh juices to keep you energised, Locofama also makes health-conscious living easily achievable through its stock of local and organic products from pasta to tea and coffee and pet food.

Location: 11 Fuk Sau Lane, Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 2547 7668
Email: hello@locofama.com
Opening Hours: noon to 10pm daily

HKFYG Organic 21
Also a restaurant-and-store in one, HKFYG Organic 21 by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth is a social enterprise that promotes healthy and organic living by dishing out food made with ingredients grown organically in Hong Kong’s only USDA-certified organic farm. Its farm-to-table experience includes everything from organic salads, pastas and all day breakfast, but by all means stay after the meal and shop the organic garlic juice, acai berry juice and argan oil at its food store.

Location: G/F, 60 and 62 B Staunton Street, Central, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 3104 9134
Opening Hours: noon to 9pm daily

Green Dot Dot
With easily accessible locations spread across the city’s MTR stations, Green Dot Dot encourages a healthy, natural and eco-friendly lifestyle with food and grocery items that are free of pesticides, preservatives, artificial colouring and chemical fertilisers. From sustainable seafood to organic pork and vegetables, Green Dot Dot makes sure even the time-poor can pick up the right food ingredients for an organic and healthy dinner after work.

Location: Shop No,23B, Hong Kong MTR Station
Phone: +852 2147 3239

Poop Power

Credit: Fast Company

If you told your friends last year that your dog could be your source of renewable energy, you could easily be taken as a fool. But not anymore, with the conceptual design Poo Poo Power by Geneva-based designer Océane Izard, also the human parent of three dogs.

The way the device works is simple: place a biodegradable bag of dog poop inside, let the sludge-eating bacteria belch out methane that is then converted into power, and the electricity is stored in batteries to be used to power your appliances. Naturally, the amount of poop produced by different sizes of dogs matters too, so a German Shepherd produces around 500 grams of waste a day, which is enough to keep your fridge running. The Beagle, on the other hand, produces around 250 grams of waste per day, which would suffice to power a fan for two hours.

As gross as the idea may sound to some, powering your home with dog poop is nothing but ingenious. Not only does it help cities save up the cost of cleaning dog poop on the streets, it also prevents the emission of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere where dog poop is dumped into landfill. Additionally, it helps to keep the city clean – cities where dog owners don’t have the good manner to clean up after their dogs, that is. 

Save the Bees with One Billion Wildflowers

 Credit: Inhabitat.com

You’d be no stranger to posters of supermarkets void of fruits and vegetables, or various collective efforts the world over in saving the bees. In case you didn’t know of Colony Collapse Disorder, which sees the bee population dwindling at a staggering rate, partly as a result of lack of diversity or availability in pollen and nectar sources, look it up now. The possibility of losing this adorable and resourceful little creature – and depletion of food resources – is a depressing prospect, but fret not, there’s quite a lot you can do on an individual level to help bring back the bees, such as what a couple in Bay Area, the United States, is doing.

Determined to combat Colony Collapse Disorder, Chris Burley and Ei Ei Khin have come up with the ambitious plan to plant one billion wildflowers, and they are making it easier for keen individuals to join by creating the rainbow-coloured Seedle seed-bombs. Consisting of native, non-GMO-certified seeds, compost, clay and natural dyes, the colourful pellets of seed bombs can practically grow themselves – all you need to do is to throw them in the soil and grow them. As the fruit of the couple’s 18-month experimentation in their backyard, which eventually won USD11,000 of funding on Kickstarter, these seed bombs are designed as a solution to ensure a sustainable food system for the future generations.

If you’re looking at more instant, local solutions to help save the bees, find out what Hong Kong’s first urban bee keeper Michael Leung is doing with his HK Honey.