As cellphone contracts come up for renewal most people look for a new phone to replace their last one.  One of the top phones to consider is the iPhone and when you purchase a new phone, you always have to get a new case.  INature has developed a fashionable protective case out of biodegradable plastic.

A store in Vietnam came up with a great way to use old cell phones this holiday season.  It created a Christmas tree out of old used phones.  It took 10 workers two weeks to create the tree.

You wouldn’t go swimming in a cesspool and surfers don’t like surfing among trash. Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), located in the UK, decided to make the point during Christmas to venders who were leaving trash behind on beaches.  So they carefully constructed a couple of Christmas plans to get their point across.

Just about everyone knows that tossing light bulbs, especially CFLs, and batteries into the trash is a no-no.  Batteries and light bulbs have dangerous elements that need to be disposed of properly.  Throwing burned out CFL light bulbs in the trash can break them releasing dangerous mercury vapors that can damage you and your pets.  ReVend Recycling has come up with an easy way to dispose of all of that hazardous waste while giving you a little something in return.

Scientists and engineers at the University of Leeds and Durham University have developed a method of creating the perfect plastic for specific purposes.  The new method also makes recycling easier and can be modified for use with both oil based and bio-polymer based plastics.

So they may not be all the rage but they are kind of cool.  There is one radio that is built to be recycled and other radios that have been built out of recycled parts.  Then there is the opportunity to recycle old working radios that are still hanging around in your house. 

Wildpoldsried, Germany is a little farming town that decided over a decade ago that they were going to move towards a green community without incurring debt.  Fourteen years later they have a diverse portfolio of renewable energy installations, new community buildings and more energy than the town needs.  By selling the excess energy, Wildpoldsried has eliminated all the towns debt and generates 4.0 million Euro (US $5.7 million) in annual income.

Parts of the United States are suffering through a terrible heat wave.  Other parts of the United States are also suffering from a severe drought.  Last year was one of the hottest summers on record, but this summer isn’t over.  It is just a continuation of severe weather that has encompassed record numbers of tornados and floods, and now heat and drought.

ASUS has decided to provide a cardboard computer case to those who purchase their motherboards.  The idea is to cut down on waste while providing a way for DIY computer makers a low cost way of building and testing components prior to buying that really rad case to house it all in.

MIT students won a $3,000 prize in last year’s IDEAS competition  for their Green Grease project.  The service project was designed to improve the lives of the Brazilian catadores (waste pickers) by cutting down on their fuel costs and using their skills.