The Best Green Products of 2009

Welcome to the second annual 1GreenProduct.com roundup of my favorite Green products I had a chance to review in 2009:

Cut on recycled cardboard? You betcha.

1. Epicurean Cutting Boards, particularly those made from recycled cardboard.

2. Sylvania Living Spaces CFL bulbs. Affordable bulbs offering the usual CFL energy savings with better-quality light. What's not to like?

3. prAna's tough but lightweight men's Sutra Pant, woven from a combination of hemp and recycled PET. I have a feeling these pants will last for a long time. I'm pretty impressed with prAna's total clothing line, which incorporates lots of bamboo, hemp and recycled fabric while using quality workmanship and cool designs.

4. Green Pieces affordable, biodegradable puzzles made from recycled paper and implanted with wildflower seeds. Great idea!

5. It wasn't specifically marketed as a 'green product', but after six months of use I'm still super-impressed with the performance, size and especially the energy efficiency of my new desktop PC, the Compaq Presario CQ2009F. Of course, it was so affordable and efficient that Compaq discontinued it (grrrr...) but you can probably find similarly small and efficient PCs from various manufacturers now. If you've been using an older PC and you upgrade to one of these mini desktop machines, you could your computing energy usage by 60-70 percent!

The incredibly efficient GeoBulb-II is now much more affordable.

6. The incredibly energy-efficient GeoBulb-II LED light bulb. Using just 7.5 watts of electricity, the cool white version of the bulb is designed to deliver as much illumination as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Note that the price of this bulb has dropped by 50% in just five months since I first reviewed this product. It's now somewhat more affordable at $49.95. Meanwhile, the next generation GeoBulb-3 has hit the shelves, costing $99.95, but apparently using a tiny bit less energy (7 watts) to deliver more luminosity and last nearly twice as long (50,000 hours)!

7. A2B Electric Two-Wheeler. I rode several electric bikes in 2009. If price were no object, this is the one that I would buy. It was the most fun, the best-looking and offered the most comfortable ride. (If you look around a little, it seems like some dealers are now offering the A2B for a few hundred dollars under MSRP - i.e. around $2500.)

8. Reynolds Wrap 100% Recycled Aluminum Foil - works just as well as the non-recycled kind, but requires much less energy to produce and keeps trash out of landfills. Brilliant.

9. Soft, comfortable, durable and eco-friendly bamboo clothing from Ivee. For yoga, fitness or just lounging around, Ivee Bamboo Clothing has got you covered.

10. Dr. Oetker Organic Muffin Mix and If You Care unbleached baking cups. A muffin mix on the top 10 list? Oh yeah, these are some tasty eco-friendly muffins :)
And that's all folks for 2009. Have a very merry holiday season and a wonderful New Year's celebration. I'll do my best to bring you reviews of lots more exciting Green products in 2010.

Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for making this site better, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I welcome your ideas for making 1GreenProduct.com even better in the year ahead.

Thank you for reading and for caring.

- Aaron Dalton, Editor, 1GreenProduct.com

GeoBulb LED light bulb

GeoBulb II by C. Crane

You might look at the GeoBulb® II design as being sexy and sculptural.

Or it may look a little exoskeletal to you.

But either way, it is the low energy consumption of this LED light bulb that should really catch your eye.

In its Cool White form, the GeoBulb II delivers claims to deliver approximately the same illumination as a 60-watt incandescent light bulb while using only 7.5 watts of power! That's almost an 87% energy savings!

With a projected life span of 30,000 hours, GeoBulb II's manufacturer C. Crane says the bulb should last for 10 years of 8-hours-per-day usage. The bulb also comes with a comforting 3-year warranty.

As for the light quality, like many LEDs, the light is very white, with almost a bluish tint. That may sound unappealing, and you probably wouldn't want to use the GeoBulb II for mood lighting, but the fact is that the GeoBulb II is actually fantastic for use as a reading light. Somehow it makes reading printed materials much easier and seemed to reduce eye strain, at least for me.

GeoBulb II by C. Crane

(If you don't want such a blue-white light, C. Crane does sell Soft White and Warm White varieties of its GeoBulb II bulbs, but those are only rated as equivalent to 50-watt and 40-watt incandescent bulbs respectively. We presume these other varieties have some sort of coating on the bulb that 'softens' or 'warms' the light but also cuts down on blocks some of the luminescence.)

The only drawback I can see here is still price. Even after a 15% price reduction, the GeoBulb II will still set you back $99.95. Yowzers!

It's true that the GeoBulb II will save you a lot in energy costs over the long run, but it's still hard to imagine too many folks shelling out $100 per bulb when it's possible to buy a 12-pack of Sylvania CFL bulbs at Amazon for around $24. True, the CFL bulbs use almost twice as much electricity (13 watts) as the GeoBulb II to produce the same amount of lumens (60-watt incandescent equivalent), but on the other hand the GeoBulb II is about 50-times more expensive.

How many light bulbs do you have in your home? I have about 15 in my apartment. That means I could light the whole apartment for $48 with the Sylvania CFLs and have plenty of leftover replacement bulbs. Or I could light the apartment for $1500 with GeoBulb IIs.

$1500 vs. $48. I love the GeoBulb technology - and LED light bulb technology in general - but it's going to have to come down in price to penetrate beyond the millionaire/billionaire demographic.

Hopefully, LED bulbs will get more affordable. Most technology seems to progress down an affordability curve. Only a few year ago, CFL bulbs were rather pricey too. Now they're easily affordable. Hopefully in a couple of years, we'll be seeing multipacks of GeoBulbs for a fraction of the current price.

Where to Buy:

You can order a GeoBulb II direct from C. Crane for $99.95. Interestingly, you can get a GeoBulb for a bit more affordable price ($89.95) if you order through Amazon.com.

If your recession-era budget doesn't have room for the GeoBulb II, remember that you can still get a Pharox 4-watt LED (40-watt incandescent equivalent) at Amazon for $34.99 or the EarthLED ZetaLux for $49.99 (6-7 watts of power consumption, 50-60 watt incandescent equivalent).

Eco-Travel - Nashville (Hutton Hotel, aloft Nashville-Cool Springs)

View of Tennessee State Capitol from Nashville's Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park

Last month, I had the pleasure of taking a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. What a fun place! From its beautiful countryside and charming residents to the thriving music scene, Nashville makes an excellent, affordable vacation destination.

But how about from an eco-travel perspective? Well, I didn't have time to bike around Nashville, but I did see quite a few bike lanes and they were getting some use by the locals.

My initial assessment is that the existing bike paths will need to be expanded and connected to give Nashville a true alternative to car commuting, but the city is compact enough that a better bike infrastructure could make Nashville a wonderful biking city. Nashville does have a Strategic Plan to create an integrated bikeway network, so hopefully the system will become more comprehensive in the years ahead.

I didn't have a chance to ride public transit either, but the uncrowded buses seemed to run pretty frequently.

There is no light rail within Nashville, but a rail line (the Music City Star) recently started service from Nashville to points east. The downtown Nashville station looked spiffy and new.

(For what it's worth, I don't think it would make financial or logistical sense for a city the size of Nashville to put in light rail, but a trolley system of the sort prevalent in Vienna or Prague could work quite well here.)

Bamboo-filled lobby at Hutton Hotel (photo via hotel website)

Eco-travelers have a couple of exciting options in terms of lodging when visiting Nashville. Right near Vanderbilt University and convenient to Downtown is the Hutton Hotel, which just opened earlier this year. The Hutton has some serious eco credentials having just hosted the North American Summit of former Vice President Al Gore's Climate Project.

Built inside the completely gutted and renovated shell of a former office building, the Hutton is chock full of eco-friendly amenities. For instance, the lobby and guestrooms use bamboo flooring and furniture. Interior and exterior lighting uses energy-efficient LED and compact fluorescent fixtures. Remarkable Kone EcoDisc elevators use a low-friction, gearless design to reportedly achieve 70% energy savings over traditional elevators.

Dual flush toilets in the guestrooms (designed by a local company called Baden Bath) and waterless urinals in the public restrooms help save water. Soap dispensers in the guest rooms cut down on the use of plastic bottles.

Hutton employs the key card system prevalent in Europe where guests must insert a card into a slot when entering their guestroom in order to active the room's lights. When guests take their card on exiting the room, the lights automatically shut off 30 seconds later, saving even more energy.

Meanwhile, the hotel's restaurant 1808 Grille has gotten rave reviews in the local press. The restaurant has made a commitment to serve locally-produced wines and beers and Whole Trade coffee (from Allegro Coffee Company, which also provides organic tea bags in the Hutton's guest rooms). I believe the restaurant also places an emphasis on sustainable seafood and using organic ingredients when possible. Some of the restaurant's furnishings involve the use of reclaimed wood, saving natural resources.

While it's certainly possible to walk from the Hutton to Vanderbilt and even to Downtown Nashville, the Hutton also offers a hybrid courtesy car for use within 3 miles of the hotel. That 3 mile range easily covers trips to the convention center and nightlife in the downtown District.

Meanwhile, for Nashville visitors who prefer a bit of distance from the downtown hubbub, the Aloft-Nashville Cool Springs hotel located about 20 minutes south of the city offers another good eco-friendly option.

Owned by Starwood and associated with the W Hotel brand, Aloft Cool Springs has a number of eco-friendly touches including the use of cork building materials, sustainably-sourced wood venees and in-shower soap and shampoo dispensers (cutting down on the use of disposable plastic bottles). Various online sources indicate that Aloft hotels use biodegradable, eco-friendly cleaning products both within the rooms and on the hotels' pools.

If you do choose to stay at the Aloft Cool Springs, you'll be right nearby the town of Franklin, recently honored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a 2009 Distinctive Destination.

One more note for bicyclists - the area near Nashville is home to the northern terminus of the Natchez-Trace Parkway, a 444-mile road maintained by the National Park service that offers a beautiful and relatively safe bicycling option from middle Tennessee to the far Southwestern corner of Mississippi. We wanted to bike a little bit of the Parkway, but ended up only having about 30 minutes to drive a tiny piece of the road. In that time, we saw only about five cars and an equal number of bicyclists. Seems like a lovely route for long-distance cyclists.

PS - Nashville has a great zoo that helps spearhead conservation efforts for endangered animals like the clouded leopard. In addition, I was surprised and pleased to find out that zoo's cafeteria  has eschewed petroleum-based plastics in favor of renewable and biodegradable plates, cups and utensils made from such materials as sugarcane, corn and potato! Handy signs (like the one pictured in the unfortunately dark photo above) explain to zoo visitors that all plates/cups/utensils are compostable, biodegradable and designed to 'return to nature' in 45-60 days. Pretty cool.

Sylvania Living Spaces CFL bulbs + DOT it LED lights

I'm a big fan of CFL bulbs.

How can you not like a product that uses 1/4 of the electricity of incandescent bulbs to cast the same amount of light? Using less energy not only saves money, it also reduces the demand on the electrical grid and lessens the urgency of building new power plants.

Add in the fact that CFL bulbs are rated to last around 12-times longer than incandescents (approximately 12,000 hours for CFLs versus 1,000 hours for incandescents) and the argument in favor of CFLs becomes even stronger.

Many hotel chains and stores have recognized the benefits of CFLs and made the switch. So why are some consumers holding back?

1) Price. CFL bulbs used to be much more expensive than incandescents, but prices have been falling. CFLs will still cost more at the register, but when you factor in replacement costs and energy savings, CFLs definitely make sense from a pocketbook perspective.

2) Mercury. This is a valid point. Mercury is an extremely hazardous substance and CFLs do contain mercury while incandescents don't. On the other hand, CFL manufacturers have been working hard to reduce the amount of mercury in their bulbs. Last year, we covered the Sylvania Micro-Mini Twist, which contains just 1.5 milligrams of mercury. For comparison sake, we linked to Gaiam, which pointed out that the old mercury thermometers many of us used to use in our homes contained 500 milligrams of mercury. Still, you do need to be careful if a bulb should happen to break (PDF) and you can't just dispose of the bulbs by throwing them in the trash when they do eventually wear out. You wouldn't want that mercury to leak into a landfill. Fortunately, many major retailers have programs to accept old CFL bulbs free of charge for proper disposal.

(Here's some more info from TreeHugger and the US EPA on what to do if a mercury-containing CFL bulb breaks in your home.)

3) Light quality. This is the big one for many people and it's one with which I can sympathize. CFL bulbs have been belittled for having an unpleasantly cold or bluish light. Personally, I think these concerns have been a bit overblown too, but if you've been worried that CFLs will plunge you into depression, fear no more. Sylvania has recently come out with a new series of Living Spaces(TM) CFL bulbs that provide what Sylvania (accurately) calls "Cozy, Comfortable Lighting(TM)".

Honestly, I didn't realize that my old CFL bulbs were not cozy or comfortable, but when I swapped in the new Living Spaces 23-watt bulbs (slightly fewer lumens than a 100-watt incandescent), I immediately noticed the difference.

Frankly, the new bulb did perk up my demeanor and make me want to skip around the apartment a little. Yep, it was like having a cheerful petit ball of sunshine in my home.

I also liked the fact that the packaging is made of 100% recyclable paperboard.

By the way, in case you're wondering how Sylvania gets such a warm light from its CFL bulbs, the company attributes the difference to "enhanced phosphors".

Note that these new Living Spaces bulbs still have the small dimensions of the Micro-Mini Twist. They also still contain less than 1.5 milligrams of mercury each, according to Sylvania.

Caveat - Sylvania warns that these bulbs are not designed to be used in dimmable lamps, but if you have a lamp with a dimmer, Sylvania has introduced a new line of Mini Twist Dimmable bulbs.

FYI, Sylvania doesn't just make CFL bulbs. In fact, the company has taken the exciting step of introducing a number of LED-powered lighting solutions. Since LEDs are even more efficient than CFLs (i.e. use less power to produce an equivalent amount of lumens), this is an exciting step.

LED bulbs are still rather expensive, but we had a chance to test two Sylvania LED products - the DOT-it(R) Solar and the DOT-it Linear Swivel.

As the name suggests, the DOT-it Solar is solar-powered. Sylvania has very cleverly designed the light with a suction cup so you can stick it your window where the solar-panel will suck up plenty of power to help the 3 LEDs shine for a long time.

The DOT-it Linear Swivel runs on batteries (three AAAs) and can be mounted in numerous ways (velcro, magnetic, adhesive) under a cabinet, in a garage or anywhere else you might need some really bright, tightly-focused light. And here's an idea: you can use rechargeable AAA batteries to reduce landfill waste and make your lighting even more efficient!

These DOT-it products seem like a nice option if you need a bit of extra light someplace and want an efficient solution that doesn't involve any wiring.

Incidentally, the DOT-it Linear Swivel features a very cool on-off mechanism where you lightly run your finger over a "touch sensor" to control the light. Not exactly sure how that works, but it is (as they say in California, "hella cool").

Also, a slight warning about the power of these LEDs: Don't look directly into the light. The DOT-it Swivel is meant to shine down onto a countertop or workspace, but while testing it, I had it pointed up so I could examine it more closely. I accidentally looked at the light saw spots for a while afterwards. Conclusion - these puppies are bright.

Where to buy:

Shop the Sylvania online store for a full selection of DOT-it lights including the DOT-it Solar ($14.99) and the DOT-it Linear Swivel ($9.99).

Sylvania says the Living Spaces bulbs are available at Lowe's ($13-15 for 2-pack), but we were unable to find them in Lowe's online store. Call your local Lowe's store to see if they bulbs are in stock.

You can also find many Sylvania DOT-it products (complete with customer reviews) at Amazon.com.

Do the (Micro-Mini) Twist

Chubby Checker made "The Twist" famous with his gyration-celebrating song in 1960, but the coolest twist today may be Osram Sylvania's new micro-mini Twist CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb).

True, "micro" and "mini" are often associated in men's minds with va-va-voom skirt styles, but in this case the words accurately describe a bulb 30 percent smaller than standard CFLs. (The illustration to the left shows a micro-mini alongside one of Sylvania's regular CFL bulbs.)

Like all CFLs, the Sylvania micro-mini Twist uses far less energy than an incandescent bulb. You would need a 60-watt incandescent bulb to get the same lighting power as a 13-watt micro-mini CFL.

In the case of CFLs, helping to save the planet with your lighting choices can save you a little money too, particularly as energy costs keep rising. Since CFLs generally have a longer lifespan than incandescent bulbs, Sylvania calculates that replacing the purchase and usage costs of 12 60-watt incandescent bulbs (1000 hours each) with one 13-watt CFL (12,000 hours) could save $56 over the long run.

Early generations of CFL bulbs often suffered from an annoying brief lag time between when a switch was flipped and the lamp came on. Newer CFLs like the micro-mini Twist now feature Instant-On technology so that the lag time (if it still exists) is unnoticeable. And thanks to its 'Soft White' coating, the light quality of the micro-mini Twist seems comparable to that of an incandescent.

Why buy a Sylvania micro-mini CFL instead of any other CFL on the market? Well, perhaps you own a tiny lamp and need a bulb that fits? More generally, smaller usually equals better from an environmental perspective. Smaller bulbs require fewer raw materials than larger bulbs. So less size equals more environmental benefits.

One drawback to CFLs is that they contain the toxic compound mercury. Most CFLs contains around 5 milligrams of mercury (which Gaiam helpfully compares to the 500 milligrams of mercury typically contained in an old-fashioned thermometer). The smaller micro-mini Twist contains even less mercury - just 1.5 milligrams. Minimizing mercury helps us keep all from becoming Mad Hatters.

Of course, smaller products also requires less packaging. Sylvania has done a good job encasing the micro-mini Twist in 100% recycled paperboard.

Sylvania's micro-mini Twist CFLs come in 13, 20 and 23-watt versions designed respectively to replace 60, 75 and 100-watt incandescent bulbs. You can find 2-packs of the bulbs online at Amazon.com or offline at Lowe's or other hardware and grocery stores.