But recycled material or not, most phones still need electricity to fuel all their gadgets and apps, and unfortunately, that electricity usually comes from fossil fuels or nuclear power plants.

Most, but not all.

LG recently unveiled an attractive pair: a mobile phone with a specially designed solar power charger that will allow you to permanently declare your independence from the electrical outlet.

Unlike other after-market solar chargers, the LG PCB-100 mobile phone accessory can give you enough juice for a short phone call with just 10 minutes of exposure to direct sunlight. But the best part is that this solar charger is actually a sleeve that can be placed on the LG POP all the time, which means it can charge while sitting on a windowsill or sun-soaked desk, all the while providing added protection to the phone.

As a new smartphone owner, I can attest to the fact that keeping it charged is a constant battle. Because constant charging not only uses up a lot of energy, but also lessens the life of the phone’s battery, I’m constantly carrying around my charger so I won’t be stuck without a phone when the power gets low. I love the idea that this solar charger can be fitted over the phone so the phone can charge whenever it is exposed to sunlight, and I can leave the bulky charger at home where it belongs!

Unfortunately, the LG PCB-100 solar charging sleeve can’t draw power from artificial light, which means it won’t be useful if you spend all day cooped up in a cubical without access to genuine sunshine. But, this is a nonetheless a bright, shiny step toward smartphone sustainability.

Enter recycled denim insulation. Specifically, UltraTouch Denim Insulation from Bonded Logic.

Recycled denim insulation looked like a promising alternative to traditional Fiberglas insulation. It is made from the scraps left over from the manufacturing of jeans, and it not only keeps waste out of the landfill, but also compares well to Fiberglas’ insulation properties.

And as previously reported on 1-800-RECYCLING.com, Bonded Logic Inc. boasts a “zero-waste manufacturing process — it shreds any edge trim that does not pass quality control and returns it to the raw material supply, keeping 200 tons away from landfills each month.”

My family’s evaluation:

• The warmth factor: Denim insulation has an R-value that is comparable to Fiberglas insulation; it’s available in R-13, R-19 and R-30 batts. The thickness of the denim insulation also allows it to perform well in extreme temperature-change environments.
• The nontoxic factor: Denim insulation doesn’t contain formaldehyde or other volatile organic compounds. And although formaldehyde-free Fiberglas insulation is now available, there are still many Fiberglas insulation products that contain formaldehyde.
• The sound factor: Denim insulation provides better sound insulation than Fiberglas material. According to Bonded Logic’s website, “UltraTouch is made from high-quality natural fibers. These fibers contain inherent qualities that provide for extremely effective sound absorption and maximum thermal performance.”
• The installation factor: You install denim insulation the same way you do Fiberglas, but the cotton fibers of the denim don’t have any of the “itch” associated with Fiberglas. We could handle it without special gloves. Denim insulation, however, has been known to dull cutting tools faster than Fiberglas. Although, at the advice of our local store manager, we used a circular saw and it worked well.
• The cost factor: Denim insulation is priced at about a 15% to 20% premium over traditional Fiberglas insulation. To us, the cost difference was worth keeping harmful chemicals out of our home and reducing landfill waste.

In the end, we were happy with our decision to use the recycled denim insulation, and I’ve since found out my family is in good company. Many buildings around the country have installed denim insulation, including the LEED Platinum Academy of Science building in San Francisco. The academy’s conclusion about the insulation:

“[It] provides an organic alternative to formaldehyde-laden insulation materials. Recycled denim insulation holds more heat and absorbs sound better than spun Fiberglas insulation. It is also safer to handle. Even when denim insulation is treated with fire retardants and fungicides to prevent mildew, it is still easier to work with and doesn’t require installers to wear protective clothing or respirators.”

It’s fitting then that two American companies have teamed up to create an affordable, simple living roof system to combat global climate change. A joint effort by Weston Solutions of West Chester, PA, and ABC Supply Co., Inc. from Beloit, WI, offers the eco-forward GreenGrid roofing system.

In this arrangement, ABC Supply has proprietary ownership over the GreenGrid roof systems technology and Weston Solutions serves as the exclusive licensee throughout the U.S.

In short, ABC Supply owns the supplies for this the turnkey, modular roofing system known as GreenGrid while Weston Solutions (or designated subcontractors) operate as the trusted “builder” to install them. But what makes this particular roofing technology different and better than all the others? The answer lies in its prefabricated, modular nature.

Green roofs have been used in various cultures for centuries. But the energy-saving benefits have brought them back to relevance. Typical green roofs are site specific, meaning planters and structural borders have to be constructed and attached to the building itself.

The GreenGrid roof on an IKEA store in Stoughton, MA. Photo courtesy of GreenGrid.

As pointed out, the disadvantages of traditional green roofs come to the fore almost immediately. Installing a vegetated hat on your building is no afternoon project. Planters need to be custom-made and secured to the structure. Designs need to be drafted and executed in a manner that fits the building’s surface area. Many components need to be planned and fabricated — drainage systems, mats, root guards, moisture retention, etc.

GreenGrid’s advantages leap out since all of these features that are necessary for a healthy roof garden are self-contained within each module. These modules don’t require the labor-intensive approach of built-in green roofs since each unit is more or less dropped into place.

A second perk of the GreenGrid system addresses upkeep. If, or more appropriately, when repairs or alterations are needed on the building, non-modular living roofs are an embedded obstacle. On the other hand, the GreenGrid system “modules can easily be moved and then put back in to place without disturbing growing media or plantings.”

GreenGrid also employs lightweight materials in order to minimize the load a roof must bear. This, in turn, makes structural improvements somewhat rare and mitigates repairs from adding a lot of weight on the roof — a perk built-in systems can’t boast. As needed, the different pieces are easy to put on, and easy to take off, ad infinitum.

With gardens, there are endless possibilities. GreenGrid’s system only enhances the level of customization. Whether it’s just a section or the entire surface of a building’s roof that can go green, this system is easy to implement to keep sustainability attractive. In fact, there’s even a nursery dedicated to keep GreenGrid roof gardens not just alive, but lively.

Plantings are started and nurtured at the nursery until installation. With this comes the option of swapping for diversity. Is it a new season? No problem, send current modules to the nursery and get new, different plantings. More plants, better planet.

An abundance of vegetation keeps carbon sequestered, produces more oxygen, retains storm water and limits the “heat island effect” in which energy gets trapped in urban centers. All together, green roofs have huge ecological benefits. The GreenGrid system goes further by creating the modules from recycled materials and offering an option for using only native plants to the system’s region. All these elements add up to some major points in the LEED system for evaluating sustainable buildings.

In our green lens of environmental awareness, the ancient dirt-and-plant roof is now a hip, reborn idea. The ease of installation and maintenance, customization and sustainability have further progressed the living roof under the GreenGrid banner.

With such a list of pros, why would someone want any other kind of roof? The answer is in the fact that living roofs are essentially gardens, requiring attention and effort. But not with GreenGrid. Just pick the pieces, create a plan and go green!

That helps explain why the Houston company recently has been boosting investments in technologies that can convert much of what goes in the landfill into fuels, electricity and other energy products.

While those investments are still relatively small for a firm that collected $12.5 billion in revenue last year and 100 million tons of trash, they highlight a shift in the way the country’s biggest garbage hauler views its business as well as waste itself.

“In my mind, it’s pretty simple why we’re doing it: If we don’t figure it out, somebody is, and they’ll take the waste away from us. If we lose the waste, we’ve certainly lost the business,” said Carl Rush, vice president of the company’s organic growth group, the chief vehicle for its energy investments.

The shift in thinking comes at a time when U.S. landfill collections are hitting a plateau as Americans recycle more, consumer products makers reduce packaging and many large corporations adopt “zero waste” goals.

Demand for renewable energy and fuels also is increasing, in response both to regulations requiring them and to public concerns about the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and their environmental impact.

The confluence of trends has pushed Waste Management’s leaders to take a hard look at where the company is headed, and has brought a slow and sometimes reluctant culture change to a business that had been set in its ways.

“Five years ago it would have been, ‘just put it in a hole and don’t worry about it,’?” Rush said. Today, company officials try to avoid even using the term trash. Instead, it’s “materials” or “resources,” he said.

“It’s remarkable to me to see the change that’s taken place just in the mind-set of the people in this company.”

Waste Management’s energy portfolio can be divided into two broad categories, existing and emerging.

In the first, the company operates 17 waste-to-energy plants that incinerate garbage to generate electricity. It also collects methane gas from 129 landfills and turns it into electricity, which it sends to the grid for public use.

Combined, those projects produce enough energy to power 1.1 million homes – more than the U.S. solar industry. And the company has a goal to double that by 2020.

The emerging side, however, is where Rush and his team are placing their focus. Their goal is to identify and invest in technologies that can convert more materials in the waste stream into energy resources – and they’ve placed many bets in the last few years. Among them:

Terrabon, a Houston firm that has developed an acid fermentation process that converts organic waste into a gasoline nearly identical to its petroleum-based counterpart.

Agilyx, an Oregon firm that makes a crude oil substitute from waste plastics.

Enerkem, a Canadian company that can make ethanol from municipal solid waste and wood chips.

Waste Management also has its own pilot plant in Oklahoma that converts landfill gas to diesel fuel for its trash collection trucks. And it’s in a joint venture with Linde in an Altamont, Calif., plant that turns landfill gas into liquefied natural gas and powers 1,000 garbage trucks there.

The list goes on. The company now has a portfolio of nearly 30 acquisitions, joint ventures and investment projects at various stages of development. Rush won’t disclose the actual amount Waste Management has spent on the projects, but he said typical outlays have been $5 million to $10 million each.

Most of the technologies aren’t yet contributing to the bottom line. But several should start production within the next two years, he said. As they grow, the goal will be to integrate them into Waste Management sites and capture more revenue. “That’s sort of the next phase,” Rush said.

But some analysts are getting antsy to see a return on the investments. “I’m not seeing any benefit from it probably for three to five years,” said Michael E. Hoffman, who follows the company for Memphis, Tenn.-based Wunderlich Securities. “That’s a long time for investors.”

While he agrees with the longer-term strategy of extracting more value from landfills, he believes the company should have kept the investments quiet until they were closer to commercialization.

Amol Deshpande, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said that may be sooner than many people think.

Kleiner Perkins has partnered with Waste Management on several waste-to-energy projects, and commends the trash hauler for picking up on trends that are gaining momentum around the world and within the investment community.

“It’s what any very good, forward-looking management team would do,” he said. “It’s about being prepared for where the industry is eventually going.”

Source: Fuel Fix

Lorna Li

The school year is already starting for many around the country, and although the weather is still hot, many folks are getting ready to settle into their normal routines of school and work.

But just because the lazy days of summer might be drawing to a close doesn’t mean that you can’t still enjoy a few more weekends on the patio, tinkering around with fun projects or sipping a cold lemonade.

If you aren’t ready to surrender your time in the summer sunshine just yet, here are three fun and easy DIY solar projects you should try before winter:

Solar USB charger

USB ports have made it exponentially easier to standardize electronics chargers and transfer digital information between devices. But what about when there isn’t an outlet available?

Solar chargers are very popular, but they cost an average of $50, which is more than anyone should have to pay for a charger. Why not take Instructables guru Joshua Zimmerman’s advice and use an old Altoids tin to make your own for less than $20 instead? See materials needed and directions here.

If you don’t want to run around collecting these supplies yourself, Zimmerman sells a DIY kit for this project on his website, BrownDogGadgets.com, for just $16.99.

Solar lawnmower

Depending on where you live, mowing the lawn could be a year-round chore. Traditional combustion mowers are noisy, emit greenhouse gases and require expensive gasoline to operate. Electric mowers are a quieter, cleaner alternative and cost far less to operate. If you’ve already switched to a battery-powered mower, it just takes a few easy alterations to make it run on solar power. Find instructions here.

Solar grill/stove

Photo: Flickr/StationaryHobo

There’s just something about food cooked on a grill that tastes better, whether it’s August or January. If you’re tired of using coal- or gas-powered grills to cook up your steaks, why not let the sun do the work instead? These instructions and an hour of time are all you need to build a solar grill using a cardboard box, some black paint and aluminum foil.

Lorna Li is the Editor-in-Chief of GreenMarketingTV, where she regularly reports on renewable technologies and entrepreneurs in the home solar industry.

Read Lorna’s take on solar panels here.

This year we’ve had some air-conditioning issues. Namely, it hasn’t been working. This led me to do some research on energy-efficient ways to cool our home, and I’ve found an intriguing alternative to conventional air conditioners: an evaporative cooler.

Because evaporative coolers add moisture to the air and blow it around, they are sometimes known as “swamp coolers.” I’m not sure if it would be a viable option in our region of the country, but it’s an interesting substitute.

An evaporative cooler provides effective cooling by combining water evaporation with a simple air-moving system. Outside air is pulled through moist pads where it is cooled by evaporation and circulated throughout a house or building by a large blower. As this happens, the temperature of the outside air can be lowered as much as 30º.

Simply put, evaporative coolers are eco-friendly, energy-efficient coolers that use the simple power of evaporation to provide cooling comfort.

Some evaporative cooling benefits:

• Lower installation costs. Conventional air conditioners can be three to four times more expensive to install.
• Lower operating cost (110 volts). Conventional air conditioners require 240-volt power and power usage can be three to four times more expensive depending upon the efficiency of the unit.
• Easy maintenance. Conventional air conditioners must be serviced by a qualified technician.
• Quick, whole-house air replacement. Fresh air enters and stale air is pushed out. Conventional air conditioners recirculate indoor air.

Evaporative coolers also add moisture to your indoor air, which is a good thing if you’re in a dry area. But it’s not so good if you’re in an area that has hot, humid summers. As the humidity increases, the ability for them to cool the air effectively decreases.

If an evaporative cooler isn’t an option for your neck of the woods, check out the EPA’s Energy Star site for information on energy-efficient products. According to the EPA, products with the Energy Star label can save homeowners 10% to 40% on their heating and cooling bills every year. Purchasing an energy-efficient air conditioning system will help you to save on energy costs and assist the environment at the same time.

As I prepare to move back to my air-conditioning-loving homeland of Tennessee, I think it’s important to brush up on air conditioning efficiency. What can we do to make our air conditioners work smarter, not harder?

How often are you supposed to change your air filters?

Energy Star recommends changing your air filters every month, especially during peak seasons (summer and winter). In lower-usage months, you can go up to three months with one filter, but changing it out will help your air conditioner work more efficiently.

When you’re not at home…

Use programmable settings to raise the temperature when you are away. If you work a regular 9-to-5, you are not even home when the daytime temperatures are hottest. Raising the temperature with programmed settings gives your air conditioner a break during the warmer hours while the A/C at work cools you down.

Make sure your A/C ducts are well sealed and that your home is properly insulated. If air is leaking through gaps in your windows, your A/C is likely working much harder than it should. Check your windows and doors to make sure that air is sealed tightly in your home. You may have to replace some windows, but the difference is worth it in the long run.

Use ceiling or floor fans to circulate the air in your home. Turn off lights that aren’t necessary, and you’ll stay cooler (and save a few bucks on your electric bill). Take a look at your more powerful appliances (the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer) and try not to run those until the evening, when the temperature is cooler. Your air conditioning will have to work much harder if you choose to run all these appliances at noon in July rather than at 8 p.m.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has some great tips to increase the efficiency of your A/C unit. Keep your windows shaded during the hotter months, and your home will stay cooler. You could plant a tree near a particularly bright window, or you could keep blinds closed during the summer. Search your home for energy hogs like inefficient appliances and high-wattage light bulbs; these could be making your home hotter. Unplug your electronics when you aren’t using them.

Another remodeling and efficiency tip that the ACEEE offers is to consider Energy Star roof products (or at least a light-colored paint or siding). Energy Star claims that reflective roofing products can lower “peak cooling demand” by 10% to 15%.

Most of these steps are ridiculously easy. Turn on your fans, run your dishwasher at night, seal your windows and cool down your home efficiently!

Lorna Li

Anything solar powered generally gets a big thumbs up from both green consumers and regulatory bodies that are trying to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy security.

Relying on the sun to power our homes and businesses is infinitely cleaner, safer and, believe it or not, cheaper than fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Oil, gas and nuclear energy all require an immense amount of energy to capture and utilize, not to mention that they put humans and the environment at great risk.

Thanks to solar leasing and other innovative financing options, the solar industry has experienced unprecedented growth in the past few years, which means more people and businesses are using solar arrays to reduce their energy bills and contribute clean energy to the grid. Unfortunately, few people think about what will happen when those panels become outdated (this is happening already), or simply need to be replaced 10, 15 or 20 years down the road.

Here is something I bet you didn’t know: There is no mandatory program in place to make sure that the highly valuable materials in photovoltaic panels are recycled when they reach the end of their life cycle.

The Silicon Valley Toxics Commission (SVTC), an organization that formed in 1982 when groundwater contamination was discovered throughout Silicon Valley near high-tech manufacturing facilities, has recently turned its attention to this impending problem.

Dustin Mulvaney, the technical advisor for SVTC and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California – Berkeley, recently spoke about the necessity of preventing an e-waste crisis from solar panels. He also pointed out the PV materials that can be recycled, such as glass, silicon wafers, silver, indium, tin, moly, nickel, zinc, copper, aluminum, zinc, plastics, CdTe filter cake and CIGS filter cake (GreenTechMedia).

“Most recycling laws are enacted when there’s a marooned garbage barge in the New York harbor or 10-year-olds dying from breaking up toxic electronics with hammers,” said SVTC Executive Director Sheila Davis. Because solar is still a fledgling industry, Davis feels that America has an opportunity to get ready to meet solar recycling needs before it becomes a problem.

Because solar panels do contain some toxic elements, like tellurium and indium, it will never be possible to simply add them to curbside collections. Instead, they’ll have to be treated like electronic waste, which as we all know is difficult and inconvenient to recycle.

But, say experts, can avoid the toxic-export disaster of the e-waste industry if efficient systems for recovering and recycling spent solar panels are set up by manufactures sooner instead of later.

To help those interested in home solar choose the most responsible manufactures, SVTC published an annual solar scorecard that ranks top companies by extended producer responsibility (EPR) and takeback, supply chain monitoring and green jobs, chemical use and life cycle analysis as well as disclosure. Some of the higher scoring solar firms on the solar scorecard are SolarWorld, First Solar, REC, Trina Solar, SunPower and Yingli Solar.

Lorna Li is the Editor in Chief of Green Marketing TV, Entrepreneurs for a Change and Lifestyle Design Artist. She specializes in Internet marketing for socially responsible businesses and enjoys writing about green business, social enterprise and location-independent lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter: @lornali.

Here’s a quick test: Tonight, turn off the television and all the lights in your living room. Look around. See all those glowing, blinking lights? That’s energy going down the drain, even though everything’s switched off!

You’re probably not going to get rid of all your gadgets and gizmos anytime soon, so the next best thing is to purchase devices that manage energy usage more efficiently.

Televisions

The best and fastest way to tell how much energy your future TV will use is to look for the Energy Star label (same thing is true for all appliances in your home). Televisions qualified to carry this label use about 40% less energy than standard units. In the EU, consumers can look for the European eco-label to find products that not only have a high energy-efficiency rating, but also that the product has been produced in and can be disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Video game consoles

A recent study conducted by Energy Circle compared the energy use of the three most popular gaming consoles: Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation 3.

The Playstation 3 doubles as a DVD and Blu-ray player, but it guzzles up energy in the process.

The winner for least power consumed when in use was the Wii, and given the fact that games for this console typically include simpler graphics, the 20W per hour it uses make sense when compared to the 189W/hr used by the Xbox 360 or the 193.6W/hr used by the PS3. The same standings also emerged when the consoles were compared in the idle position, but it was the standby mode that returned some surprising results.

DVD/Blu-ray players

Aside from searching for an Energy Star-rated model, there’s not too much you can do to make your DVD player any greener. Why not save money and use your computer? There are even guides online that will help you connect your computer to your TV. You can also use video game systems to play DVDs, but watch out — they consume far more power playing DVDs than regular DVD players do.

If you don’t have a computer that can be used this way, consider upgrading to a Blu-ray player instead. Most models have been shown to be more efficient, and they’ll still play all your traditional-format DVDs (in a slightly crisper resolution to boot!).

Quick fix

When looking for an eco-friendly lighting system, you should examine two things: the energy efficiency of the fixture and the recycled content/recyclability of the fixture. It may be hard to pinpoint the recycled content and recyclability of the lamp, but asking sales associates or specifically searching for such items should give you an idea of what to expect. These days, newer lighting fixtures that meet energy requirements are marked Energy Star certified, so keep your eyes peeled for that label.

Lamps

Green with Glamour offers made-to-order table lamps (and several chandeliers) made from natural clay and nontoxic glazes made by LightenUp Design. The company also operates a carbon-neutral website, and it is also a member of 1% For the Planet, an alliance that gives 1% of its profits annually to environmental causes.

This cork-and-recycled-paper lamp serves lighting and organizational purposes.

Want to utilize some power from the sun? Check out this solar-powered lamp. Charge it outdoors (it’s waterproof, and upside down it looks sort of like a flowerpot), and then bring it in to light up your room. Here’s another mason jar solar-powered light that uses LED bulbs and the generous power of the sun.

Efrain E. Velez designed this Krank lamp that you wind yourself. Crank it for one minute and you’ll have light for 20 to 30 minutes. From the website, the description reads: “this manual LED fixture uses the principle of magnetic induction.” This is great, especially if your kids don’t mind cranking it up for you!

Make your own lamp from fun recycled materials. Instructables shows you how to turn a blender into a table lamp. Scout out your local thrift store for used teacups, and you can make this nifty lamp, which is also a great conversation piece!

Or…

Invite some natural light into your space! Learn how to maximize natural light in your home.

Reflective window coatings

The author's attempt at peel-and-stick reflective window coatings.

Last summer, in a fit of desperation, I ended up at Home Depot trying to find a DIY reflective window coating. After conducting some in-store research, I ended up purchasing the Gila Advanced Energy Saving Titanium peel-and-stick product to try.

I’m not the handiest person, but this looked easy enough. Unfortunately, it was harder than it looked. I ended up with a bubble-filled layer of window coating on two of my western-facing windows. It looked ugly, but it was on the back of the house, so I didn’t really care. I think it helped cool my room down, but perhaps I just thought it did.

Portable fans

During one particularly hot summer, I decided to try a stand fan. I have a ceiling fan and use it religiously, but I needed more air circulating in the room.

Unfortunately, the portable fan was not very energy efficient and was rather loud. To make matters worse, something shorted inside the fan and a piece actually caught fire. It took several days for the toxic smell of burnt metal to clear the room. Portable fans just aren’t the long-term solution I was looking for.

Awnings

One option I haven’t tried is an awning. I know that you can purchase both fixed and retractable awnings for the house that block the setting sun from shining in your windows. I have never tried this because of the price factor. I didn’t want to delve into a more permanent and pricey solution before I’d tried other remedies.

Exterior screens

Fixed exterior screens are an alternative to reflective window coatings. This is typically a less obtrusive option than an awning and depending on how many windows you have, it may even be less expensive. You also won’t have to deal with the ugly bubbles from a botched DIY job.

Although I’ve lived in this house for nine years, I never found the solution to cooling off my master suite. I think that there are two main factors that I never considered: the insulation of the house and the fact that the master suite is the last stop for the air conditioner. While an awning or an exterior screen would have certainly helped, there are probably other factors that would have limited the overall success of a given solution.

The good news is that I won’t be spending another summer in this house. My family is moving to a new house in just a few short months. The new house has a more efficient air conditioning system, better insulation and it has a north/south orientation, so I won’t have the setting sun heating up my master suite.

Have you found any effective solutions to keep your home cool in the warmer months? Share them in the comments section!

Our circadian rhythm is sensitive to light, which in turns helps us wake up in the morning, so if you want to ensure a restful sleep at night or even a quick nap in the afternoon, it’s beneficial to have blackout blinds. These types of blinds are also effective for improving your home’s energy efficiency — lower utility bills might help prevent those restless nights as well!

Installing blackout blinds in the bedroom is a wise decision for uninterrupted sleep, because any car lights, security lights and other light pollution is blocked from your view. In addition, these blinds provide thermal protection and reduce heat loss throughout the seasons. When the blinds are open, the sun shines through, which in turn heats up the home and makes your air-conditioned environment less effective. In the wintertime, heat from inside your home can be lost through the windows as well. A bare window isn’t cost effective for your heating and cooling system.

There is a wide range of window coverings available, but the most eco-friendly ones are PVC- and VOC-free. Some blinds have fiberglass or acrylic foamed backing, which you don’t want to breathe in, but EarthShade has a line of safe, environmentally responsible shades. Blinds made from natural and renewable sources like grass, reed, bamboo and hemp can be beautiful and useful for blocking out light.

Blackout blinds have recently been created with a cellular or honeycomb design. These have become popular among homeowners with modern décor, but this new style is more efficient at blocking out light — some are capable of blocking out up to 99% of light. The additional layers in the honeycomb pattern provide more insulation than traditional designs, which can save you money on your electric bill in the long run.

From standard size to mini blackout blinds, there are eco-friendly options out there for your bedroom so you can catch up on your sleep. Light pollution can quickly disturb your REM cycle, but you can fight back with a green and energy-efficient solution.