So Apple responded to their customers’ disapproval by rejoining EPEAT. That still doesn’t change the fact that their laptops are basically unrecyclable.

• Apple and the Environment – Apple.com. Apple emphasizes that they make energy-efficient computers, but they should still consider the full product life cycle.
• How a Cellphone’s Case Can Imitate Its Maker – New York Times. Not surprisingly, Google phones are easy to open and repair, while Apple’s are nearly impossible.
• Should I buy a refurbished laptop for college? – Grist. In a word, yes.
• U.S. leads the world in cutting CO2 emissions — so why aren’t we talking about it? – Grist. It’s mostly due to the recession and natural gas fracking.But contrary to popular belief, the economy has still grown while carbon emissions have been reduced.
• Car-free commuting push pays off in Kendall Square – Boston Globe. “Despite the rapid expansion in and around Kendall Square in the last ­decade — the neighborhood absorbed a 40 percent increase in commercial and institutional space — automobile traffic actually dropped on major streets, with vehicle counts falling as much as 14 percent.”
• How Much Food Would it Take to Power Your Life? – Energy Circle. It’s interesting to think of the energy we use in terms of food calories. It really emphasizes how much work fossil fuels are doing for us.
• Corn for Food, Not Fuel – New York Times. About 40% of U.S. corn is used to feed livestock, another 40% to make ethanol, and the rest for food (mostly high-fructose corn syrup). What a waste.
• Will Drought Cause the Next Blackout? – New York Times. “About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants.”
• Boston’s Green Business Award Winners – Boston Green Scene. The most surprising to me: Crown Uniform & Linen and Fresh Hair.
• A bottle business pick-up – Boston Globe. I don’t understand why anyone would be against the bottle bill. Bottles with deposits are recycled more than 70% of the time, compared to less than 40% for bottles without deposits.
• These Women’s Stories Tell the Cookstove Story – UN Foundation. It’s amazing to think that something so simple—having an efficient cookstove with few emissions—has such a huge impact on the life of someone in the developing world.
• Coping with Summer’s Bounty of Vegetables – New York Times. This article takes a while to get to the point—how to keep and process all the veggies you’re saddled with during the summer—but when it does it has some good tips.

That’s all for this week. If you come across anything interesting this week, send it along.

I just saw this today: an Amazon Local deal for half off Okabashi sandals. They’re already cheap, so for $30 you could get three pair. Personally, I have four pair of the cross-straps, and they’re pretty comfy for backless sandals. I’ve hardly worn anything else all summer, and I walk a lot.

My Okabashi

And when they do eventually die, you can send them back to Okabashi to recycle into new sandals. I’m impressed that the company has considered the full life cycle of their product.

A guest post by classic car enthusiast Jack Payton.

My first experience with the now growing trend of retrofitting older vehicles with electric engines occurred during an eco-brew fest in Boise, Idaho a few years ago. The beer fest is always a fun time, with neighboring microbreweries specializing in green operations and organic ingredients. But the event is not only for breweries. It’s also an opportunity for other local green industries and organizations to showcase their efforts—one of which was the Green Car Club of Boise. At the time, there were only a few cars in town that had received the retrofit modification, so the exhibit drew a great deal of attention. Furthermore, the cars that had been modified were classic cars—the sort you would never expect to see running on electric power.

This weekend, the cars made another appearance at an annual car show—one that is known for top restorations and high performance muscle. As a fan of history, I really enjoy these artifacts, but I was thrilled to see the eco-rides in this environment. Once again, the small corner where these rides sat drew an impressive crowd. Gearheads and eco-fans alike flocked around the scene, asking questions and sparking conversation. Perhaps the most impressive of the rides was a modified 1967 Chevy Blazer. Fire engine red, this vehicle has always seemed the epitome of poor fuel economy, yet here she stood with the other eco-cars. The back bed of the Blazer was, of course, filled with batteries.

The 1967 Chevy Blazer

Over the years the owners had really taken the time to clean up the process. What was once a mess of wires and random batteries was now a neat, clean display of organized tubing and colorful, well-placed batteries. The engines looked solid, and the cars themselves appeared to be in great condition. It really seemed as though the group’s appearance at the eco-beer fest had highlighted the experimental process of their work; now they have refined the task and can retrofit these old cars with the expertise of professionals.

A look under the hood.

I took some time to talk with Bob, who owns the Blazer, about his experience converting his classic ride into a modern eco-machine. Not surprisingly, Bob notes the issue of weight as the biggest challenge in converting a car. This is not just an issue of packing weight, but more of a balancing act. While it is certainly true that adding the ten-plus batteries needed will put more weight on the back end than usual, and the front-end risks being too light without the engine, the major issue is equally dispersing the weight so that the wheels receive it proportionately enough to avoid steering difficulties and tire wear.

Bob was very candid in admitting that the conversion really is not something you should be doing if saving money is your goal. With a cost of $8,000–$11,000 for a DIY job—excluding the cost of the car itself—and the $2,000–$5,000 of replacing the batteries every two to five years, there is no way you will make back the investment in fuel savings. Bob has no regrets about his decision, however, as he feels it’s worth it to do his part to cut down on carbon emissions while at the same time driving the classic Blazer he has wanted since he was a child.

Bob advises avoiding the use of a kit, which you often see advertised. He told me that usually the kits include only the easy-to-find necessities, while leaving out many of the trickier pieces. Kits never include the batteries, and they ignore the fact that these conversions really require more than just adding parts to an existing body. The kit, basically, is just the result of someone doing your shopping for you with a huge markup. And if you decide to have the conversion performed for you by an expert, the kit is useless.

Bob told me that the best part about converting a car from gas to electric—apart from knowing you are investing in a green lifestyle—is that it brings people together, regardless of where they stand in regard to the environmental movement.  The car show is a good example. Many of the folks stopping by are high-octane gearheads who know lower MPG is more power, yet they love the ingenuity required to put something like the Blazer together. They stop to chat, asking questions and admiring the work. This is a powerful thing; there is nothing better for the earth than communication between people.

While I doubt I will ever be in a position where I can afford to convert my car to electric, I love the idea of it. Folks like Bob who take the time and invest the capital to achieve something as wonderful as his Blazer are generous, because what they have done benefits all of us. Clubs and groups that center on electric conversions exist all over. If you are interested in learning more about the process, or just want to see what other folks are working on, check to see if there are any in your area. In the end, it’s all about having fun and sharing experiences with people who care.

Jack Payton is a car nut in the purest form. He loves to write about everything gear related and rebuilt his first engine at 15. He works as the online publisher for the tire retailer tires-easy.com. In his spare time he enjoys cruising, attending car shows, and collecting vinyl.

A guest post from our resident coffee addict, Jason!

I’m the only coffee drinker in our house, so making a full pot of coffee always seems like a waste. That’s why I find that, at least from a convenience standpoint, Keurig’s single serving coffee makers are pretty much perfect. From a waste standpoint, however, they leave a lot to be desired. All those little plastic cups filling landfills give my ethical side fits. Luckily, there are a number of cheap, refillable coffee filters on the market now, and I’ve tried out a few of them. Reap the benefits of my trial and error.

Solofill, My K-cup, Ekobrew

• Solofill Cup Filter Cup for Keurig Brewers:
• Construction: I purchased this cup the most recently, but I’m already voting it most likely to break, because it’s made of a shiny, cheap-feeling plastic. It’s a cylindrical cup with what looks almost like a nipple on the bottom. The top has a hinged lid (the hinge is where it’s going to break, I’m sure) that releases water into the coffee through vertical slits. It’s designed to slide into the standard k-cup housing with the pins in the bottom.
• Cleaning: This one is mostly straightforward. Just dump the old grounds, scrub it a bit on the inside and outside to get rid of the oils, and it’s good. The little nipple rinses right out with a sink sprayer.
• Coffee: Of the three, this one seems to hold the least amount of coffee, which is both economical and its chief failing. Because of the vertical slits in the top, it seems to squirt more water past the coffee (instead of through it) than any of the others. I may need to experiment with the grind of my coffee a bit more to get this to work properly but, with a standard store-bought grind, it makes a pretty weak cup of coffee.

• EkoBrew Cup
  • Construction: I’ve had this cup about nine months, and I’m quite pleased with it. It’s very similar to the Solofill, except that the whole cup is constructed of a much sturdier plastic and has a slightly better design, with more holes directing the water flow over a larger area of coffee. Also no nipple.
  • Cleaning: This one is pretty hard to clean. The coffee gets packed in around the bottom and forces you to poke it with tools (a chopstick works!) in order to get the grounds dumped out. Additionally, you’ve got to spray it longer to get the last few grounds rinsed out of the bottom.
  • Coffee: This cup takes almost as much coffee as the My K-Cup and definitely more than the SoloFill. It’s a good trade-off, however, because it makes a very good cup of coffee. I’ve experimented with a couple of different levels of grind, and it’s always great.

• Keurig My K-Cup
• Construction: I’ve had this cup the longest (probably about a year and a half), and the cup itself is still in great shape, mostly because of its design. The coffee-holding part of the cup looks like one of the standard single-use k-cups with the foil pulled off the top and a very fine mesh covering the sides from top to bottom. The big difference between this cup and the others is that it comes in three pieces: the mesh coffee holder, a torpedo-shaped tube that slides into the brewer, and a screw-on cover. To use it, you take the cup with coffee in it and load it into the big gray torpedo delivery system, then screw the cap down onto the top. This tube slides down into the machine in place of the standard holder with the pins in it. Be careful before purchasing this one, because not all Keurig machines allow you to remove the standard holder, as I learned to my chagrin after I bought this filter to use in the machine at work. That said, if this works for you, it will basically last forever, because none of the pieces have any parts that are going to break easily.
• Cleaning: This one is very simple to clean. Just tap out the grinds, rinse it, stick a bottle brush in, and you’re done. There are three separate pieces, but they’re all really easy.
• Coffee: This cup takes the most coffee of any of three. I’d say probably a little too much coffee, because I find that when I empty the grinds the coffee at the bottom of the cup is usually dry. Unfortunately, if you choose not to fill it all the way to the top, you get straight water leaking into the brew that’s never passed through any coffee grounds. However, if you do learn to fill it to the right level and use a finer grind (standard store-bought grind is only OK), this does make a good cup of coffee.

The winner for me in this competition is definitely the EkoBrew Cup, mostly because it makes the best, most foolproof cup of coffee of the three. I’m often only half awake when I try to fill these things up, and it gets big points from me because I don’t have to think about it at all. As a bonus, it’s also the cheapest.

Have you tried these? Or a different brand? What did you think?

I’m so disappointed in Apple. They’ve glued the motherboards and batteries to the cases in their new Macbook Pro and Air models, so they can’t be taken apart for recycling.

• Apple Pulls Mac Lineup from EPEAT Certification – Mac Observer. Apple has taken themselves out of the running for the environmental certification that they helped create, because the MacBook Pro and Air are unrecyclable.
• The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable – Wired. Not only is it unrecyclable, it’s unfixable, too. Disgusting.
• Energy Information Design – Energy Circle. Best use I’ve ever seen for Pinterest. Who knew there were so many infographics out there?
• Got Milk? You Don’t Need It – New York Times. “Sugar—in the form of lactose—contributes about 55 percent of skim milk’s calories, giving it ounce for ounce the same calorie load as soda.” (Thanks, Sophie!)
• Boston’’s Summer of Sun – Boston Globe. The Solarize Mass program makes solar energy more affordable for Boston residents.
• The battle for environmental labels is on – Slate. The Sustainability Consortium (funded by Wal-Mart) is trying to figure out how to make life-cycle assessments for thousands of products.
• More Than Half of Campus Waste Recyled – UMass Lowell. Jason’s (new) alma mater! I think their results are even more impressive for being mostly a commuter school.
• How Green is a Disney Vacation? – Green Lifestyle Consulting. Maybe more than you think. (For Sharon!)
• Using A Stainless Steel Lunch Box – Green Lifestyle Consulting. Can you tell this is my new favorite blog? I’ve always wanted to try a tiffin.

That’s all for now. If you read anything interesting this week, send it my way.