Target, will be transforming vinyl from their Times Square billboard into 1,600 limited edition bags designed by Anna Sui.

The world’s tallest wooden building is being constructed in Kirkines, Norway, and will serve as the town’s cultural center in addition to housing energy-efficient offices for the Barents Secretariat.

Using the logic that everything can be recycled into something new, Japanese underwear manufacturer Wacol recently launched a bra recycling campaign. The collected bras were processed and recycled into solid fuel.
The company explains:
“From February to April, we distributed plastic bags to our customers in the hope that they would bring them back full of their old used bras. We have since received 350 bags and around 35,900 items,” indicated the company’s public relations department.
The amount collected, if hooked together, would be three times the height of Mt Everest. Total weight, approximately 3.59 tons.
[via Japan Today]

The “Emo” Recycle kit by Harac of Tokyo is comprised of three tools to help make the recycling process easier. It contains a “bottle cap ring remover” that cuts off plastic caps from glass bottles (i. e. vinegar and salad dressing or oil bottles which often have tight plastic caps) and carton scissors, to ease the flattening of milk or juice cartons. Aerosols can be punctured by the “Spray can gas remover” and afterwards discarded in the recycle bin. All of these functional and simple tools are made from stainless steel with resin handles.

Imagine riding through Picadily Circus and all you hear and see are people talking and birds in the sky. This was the guiding vision of this year’s winners at the Future City Mobility competition for designers to envision how London’s transportation could look in 2030.

While cynics would be quick to say that every Tom, Dick, and Harry is jumping on the eco/sustainability bandwagon these days, it’s still possible to be surprised by who’s attaching their name new green products. Most recently punk-fashion Queen Vivienne Westwood, famed cartoon rabbit Bugs Bunny, and jeans innovator Evisu, are just some of the brands working with AmazonLife to create a line of bags whose proceeds will go to promoting the importance of protecting the Amazon Basin from further deforestation.
According to Treehugger:
Caoutchouc, linen, jute, coconut, straw, denim, camouflage army shirts, dresses, and old foulards have been used to create [...]

First, it was cleaning products, then houses. Now, the newest trend in environmentally conscious design is biodegradable suits made from recycled plastic materials. Last year, US retail giant Sears rolled out their $200 EcoGIR suit for men and, now, UK-based Debenhams is offering an $80 women’s suit combo made from melted-down plastic woven into a durable polyester fabric. While many applaud the chain’s commitment to environmentally conscious fashion, some claim that the fabric itself won’t be appearing on many runways soon due to its stiffness and the rough texture of the polyester. Though a plastic/fabric hybrid may be a ways [...]

Amidst the doom and gloom of the credit crunch, Inhabitat points us to the news that Sarah Featherstone’s eco-friendly house on the Lower Mill Estate in the UK has sold for £7.2 million. We thought that property prices were going down, but this sale flips that argument on its head. More importantly though, it is an indication of the trend that is seeing people willing to spend more for buildings and materials that are friendly to the environment, keeping their long-term viability in mind. This can only be a good thing.
[via Inhabitat]

In these lean times, eBay is hoping to persuade you to spend some of your hard earned dollars with them by pushing a more sustainable model of shopping they’re marketing as part of their project Green Team, though you might not initially realize it upon visiting their website. Despite the 1,000 plus employees that are helping to make this eco-initiative possible, the invitation to visit the Green Team site is only given a small tab on the upper right hand corner of the eBay home page – hardly a stunning endorsement on the part of the management. Still, once you manage [...]

We’re starting to see more fast-food concepts embrace eco-friendly business practices. Danku is a good example we found in NYC. And now there’s Sno:la, a frozen yogurt shop with a commitment to operating with limited impact on the environment. With a prototype store in Beverly Hills firmly established, recently a second shop in Kyoto, Japan has opened.

Sno:la’s owner Masako Kawashima specifically chose Kyoto as a symbolic nod to the protocol agreement to reduce international greenhouse gas emissions. AkarStudios developed the design which uses reclaimed lumber locally sourced from demolished buildings. They also installed soy-painted concrete floors. Much of  the furniture [...]

There has been a continuous evolution of wine packaging throughout the years from bottles to cardboard boxes, corks to screw tops and more recently the emergence of Tetra Paks – essentially box 2.0 with less environmental impact.  And now South Africa’s The Company of Wine People have unveiled their new eco-friendly design, the wine pouch, a product that on first glance resembles a Capri Sun for grown-ups.
Treehugger examines this newest entrant as part of their ongoing debate on which design is the best choice from the standpoint of its sustainability as well as its overall practicality.  The wine pouch gets points [...]

The Macau pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is a whimsical looking, high tech construction. Designed by Carlos Marreios architects, the building takes the form of a giant jade rabbit lantern (inspired by the lanterns popular in ancient China’s mid-autumn festival.) Large balloons make up the head and tail of the rabbit, which can be raised into the air to attract visitors. The exterior structure is made up of a glass membrane wrapped with fluorescent screens to project content and signage to attendees on the outside. Keeping with the “better city, better life” theme of the expo, the Macau [...]

Ink and toner cartridges are expensive and extremely difficult to recycle – making ink conservation a smart way to cut costs and help the environment. From an agency that sounds a bit like a 1960’s NASA coup comes a solution that makes a lot of sense when you take a closer look: Dutch designers SPRANQ creative communications have developed a font that uses up to 20% less ink by omitting parts of the letter’s fillings. Ecofont is based on the open source type face Vera Sans, and prints best at 9 or 10 pt on laser printers. It is is [...]