By Mike T Martin

Purchasing an Environmentally Friendly Laptop to Save the Earth

Purchasing a laptop is a smart environmental decision when compared with purchasing a desktop pc. The main reason being that a notebook is smaller than a desktop so there is less of an environmental impact at the time of disposal. The slim size of the flat laptop means that there are smaller and less hazardous parts to be disposed of, such as hard drives, cd/dvd drives, flash card readers, usb ports, etc. The manufacturing of smaller and smaller laptop computers also has in indirect effect, in that the processing plants produce less harmful emissions into the environment. Another factor that makes laptops a better environmental decision is the fact that most laptops now comply with European regulations on lead-free computing, such as the WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) and RoHS (Restrictions of Hazardous Substances), which are mandated disposal codes in Europe. Lead is used primarily to solder parts together on a computer, but these regulations encourage companies to use other methods for building a PC.

An interesting player in the eco-friendly laptop market is the “one Laptop Per Child” project. Their missions is to produce a low cost laptop - the “XO Laptop” - in order to revolutionize the way the world’s children are educated. The purpose of the project is to get laptops in the hands of people in third world countries that would not otherwise have access to this technology. But the project is also proving that laptops can be produced for a very low cost - laptops which weigh less than one kilogram and rely on no electricity.

But despite the advances in the world of green laptops, there are still many issues that need to be addressed in order to manufacture an even more eco-friendly laptop. In the 2009, sales of laptops worldwide are expected to surpass desktop pcs for the first time ever. The average person will keep a laptop for only three years before it is tossed in the closet or tossed in the garbage, which presses the issue for an even more recyclable laptop. Some issues that still need addressed and some possible solutions:

1. Problem: Petroleum-filled plastic. Solution: Produce laptops from corn using bioplastic-polymers. The main issue at the point is creating a heat resistant polymer that can withstand the heat from a laptop.

2. Problem: Power Supply. Solution: Use the power of the sun the recharge your laptop. Solar powered chargers are in the works.

3. Problem: Lead products in the waste. Solution: As mentioned above, the European Union has enacted legal restrictions on lead. President Bush has also followed suit with standards for American lead use.

4. Problem: Spinning hard drives. Solution: Future laptops could reduce their energy use up to 10 percent by replacing hard drives with flash memory, which has no watt-hungry moving parts. Dell debuted a laptop with a 32-gigabyte solid-state drive this year.

Some recent awards winners for laptops that are friendly to the environment include: XO Laptop, Toshiba Portege R500, HP 2710p, Lenovo Thinkpad X300, and the Dell D630.

Mike Martin is a computer programmer and website designer. http://www.flatlaptops.com - Purchase discount eco-friendly green laptops and notebooks, including the MacBook Air and new ThinkPad X300.

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By Bruce Kellby

More and more companies are beginning to see the benefits of having energy efficient buildings and physical plants. Cleaner, more efficient office buildings and work spaces not only help the environment but also save the company money. One organization helps the companies to realize the benefits of greener building.

The Green Building and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating systems were developed and implemented by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). This nonprofit organization’s stated purpose is to support and advance buildings that are environmentally friendly and also profitable and healthy for its inhabitants. This system grades existing buildings on their capability for sustainable operations.

LEED is awarded to buildings that have been planned, developed and built to be high-performance, environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. Leed charlotte has rated many buildings as environmental friendly. LEED is an environmental performance benchmark used by many developers in comparing their buildings relative to others.

More than 5,500 companies and organizations are members of this council, which had certified more than 200 million sq. ft. of commercial space as LEED certified. Companies that are certified by USGBC are then able to flaunt their environmental stewardship, and also will save money in the long run for having built cleaner operating, more energy efficient buildings.

Green homes incorporates smart design, technology, construction and maintenance elements to significantly reduce the negative impact of the home on the environment and improve the health of the people who live inside. No matter your location or living situation, the opportunities for living a greener life at home are restricted only by your imagination.

Turning your home into a greener place is a commitment you make, not just to yourself and your family, but to your community and the world. Moreover, it is also a learning process. Keeping abreast of new developments and scientific breakthroughs in technologies and products for green homes will ensure that you obtain the most benefit out of your efforts.

Less water, energy and natural resources are used in a green home where there is less of waste. It is healthier for those people who live in a green home as compared to those living in a standard home. While constructing a home it can be made green or can be converted green later on. The green process can be done at one time or can be made as a continuing process. The home can be made green from front to back, top to bottom, inside and outside and an energy efficient kitchen. A person can be guided as there are several green developers.

The benefits of residing in a green home are numerous. Eco-friendly homes are better for your health, sturdier, and affordable. In addition, people can qualify for rebates, tax breaks and other incentives from the government, utility companies and other nationwide sources when they choose to live in a more eco-friendly manner.

The [http://www.thejagcompanies.com/ ]green homes incorporate smart design, technology, construction and maintenance elements to significantly reduce the negative impact of the home on the environment and improve the health of the people who live inside. No matter your location or living situation, the opportunities for living a greener life at a home built by a Green developer are restricted only by your imagination. LEED certification is awarded to buildings that have carefully planned, developed, and designed a building as environmentally as possible. At the same time, they are profitable and healthy places to live or work. [http://www.thejagcompanies.com/ ]LEED Charlotte rates many buildings.

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By Vanessa A. Doctor

The green building trend that has taken hold across the US in the past few years, and is surprisingly evolving toward a whole new level. Whereas before when there were only a few green real estate developments, today this trend in sustainable development has expanded to whole communities and neighborhoods as well.

The west coast city of Portland has been well known as an urban-design innovator, particularly for its transit-oriented developments, and is noted to be among the pioneers of green building and design.

Single-Family Home Builders Are Now Joining The Trend

The basic tenets behind green building- energy and water-efficient buildings that have features that stress the natural over the chemical, the recycled over the new and the renewable over the finite- have now become firmly mainstream.

According to environmental and real estate consultants, big developers today are slow to move, but they still see a using eco-friendly designs and materials green building. Even in the suburbs, which are home to large-scale builders of single-family homes, there is a lot more consumer interest swelling. In a McGraw-Hill Construction survey done in March of 2006, it forecasted that green building would reach a “tipping point” in 2007 and that two-thirds of US builders will be constructing greener homes.

Why Home Builders See The Need To Go Green

Home builders and real estate developers and are not simply riding the green building trend purely out of a sense that it’s the right thing to do. The housing and development industry knows that they can’t afford to be left behind. By 2007, it is expected that at least 6% of the nation’s non-residential construction, which represents a $15 billion slice of the industry, will be green, according to green-building experts, as six years ago it was less than 1%. More real estate developers are finding that using green technologies and construction materials adds no more than 1%-2% to total costs, which area easily recovered through energy savings.

Offering Incentives For Developers To Go Green

At present, the federal government, 15 states and 46 cities now require new public buildings to fully comply with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), that requires the use of non-toxic building materials, among other things.

Four states and 17 cities now offer incentives for LEED-rated private buildings. The Green Building Council has certified nearly 550 buildings across the country since 2002, and recent real estate developments have adopted eco-friendly standards by creating greener multi-structure projects, such as South Waterfront in Portland, Oregon. The Green Building Council is also working on creating LEED standards for single-family homes as well.

The corporate world was the first to see the value of going green that are way beyond energy savings. Businesses and companies now notice less absenteeism among workers, less time lost to asthma, allergies and other illnesses aggravated by mold, stale air and chemicals found in many conventional buildings.

However, to large corporations like Ford, Bank of America, Target, Toyota, Honda, Starbucks,Adobe and others, going green also was about image-building as well as cleaning up the environment and cutting costs. Many corporate giants know are aware that aside from image-building, the products they make should also be green, along with their manufacturing processes and factories as well.

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