Every time it rains, water runs off of your house, yard and paving. That water will eventually end up in rivers, lakes or oceans, and on its journey it can pick up a variety of pollutants ranging from fertilizer-based nutrients to trash to animal waste. What starts as clean rainwater can end up a toxic soup that contaminates our waterways and harms both people and wildlife (you can read more on this topic here).

Rain gardens are a great and beautiful way to reduce this problem. What exactly is a rain garden, you might ask? Well, it’s pretty much the same as a regular garden, with several key differences:

– It is slightly depressed, so that it can fill up with water during a rain storm;
– It contains plants that can deal with being “soaked” every once in awhile;
– It is strategically located to intercept water coming from your property, and
– It is specially designed to drain any stored water over a several day period.

If designed correctly, a rain garden can beautify your yard AND nearly eliminate your contribution to polluted runoff. Here are some simple steps to trying one of your own:

1. Determine the size of the area from which you’ll intercept runoff. Determine the size of hard-surfaced area (roof, driveway, etc) that will drain to your rain garden. Remember that your roof drains through downspouts, so only count that portion of a roof where the gutters can be conducted to your garden.
2. Pick a location that is on the downhill side of your property where water is likely to flow into. Make sure it isn’t near foundations or on a hillside, as underground water can cause problems. And, watch out for utilities.
3. Determine your soil type. The three main categories you should look for are sandy soil, loam, or clayey soil. For more information on how to figure out your soil type, click on this link from HGTV.
4. Figure out the rain garden size. Any size rain garden will help, but ideally you will size it to hold all runoff from the area you measured above. To do this, simply multiply the area you measured by 20% if you have sandy soil, 30% if you have loam, or 50% if you have soils with lots of clay. Sandy soils will drain fast and thus need less surface area, while clayey soils drain very slowly and will need to store more water.
5. Create a design. Now the fun part begins! Put your latent landscape design skills to work and sketch out your garden. We find that using a piece of graph paper helps to get the measurements right. This link shows a number of rain garden designs - the plants are specific to the Mid-Atlantic region, but the designs can work anywhere.
6. Choose plants. Plants native to your region, and especially those that are intended for areas with wetter soils, are perfect for rain gardens. This is because they are already adapted to your climate conditions. We’ve organized some resources that list rain garden plants for different regions here.
7. Lay out garden. Using your design, stake out your garden and get ready to dig!
8. Dig the garden. At a minimum, dig your garden so that it is approximately 8” deep in the middle. Mix 2-3” of compost into the remaining soil. If you find that your soils are compacted (generally true if you’re having trouble digging them!), or if you have heavy clay soils, then dig another foot of soil out as well. Discard or move this soil and replace with sand (50%), topsoil (25%) and compost (25%), and put it back in the hole.
9. Plant. Lay out your plants according to your design, and then plant them.
10. Mulch. Mulch is the wonder material for any garden, and especially so for rain gardens. It keeps moisture in, weeds out, and your plants nice and cozy. Put 3-4” of mulch on top of your soil, making sure to leave a small circle bare around all of your plants.
11. Water. Your plants will need water to get established. If it doesn’t rain, water your plants at least twice a week for a month or so. Remember to water deeply so that your plants develop a healthy, deep root system.
12. Arrange downspouts. Now, you have to make sure water gets from where it falls to your rain garden. Arrange your downspouts so that they flow to your rain garden. If it is far, or to deal with path or driveway runoff, you might want to dig a small trench and fill it with either gravel or a pipe to conduct water into your garden. With some creative landscaping, you can make this small trench appear to be the tiny riverbed that it is!
13. Enjoy! Your new rain garden should now give you years of beauty and peace of mind knowing that you’re helping your local waterways. With any luck, your garden will turn into a buzzing centerpiece that attracts animals and your neighbors alike!

Original post by Hank Green

When you go to the grocery store or drug store these days every food or beauty product seems to shout at you “I’m organic!” or “I’m all natural!” But as you likely suspect, some of these products are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The Organic Consumer’s Association has recently started a “Coming Clean Campaign” in which they are hoping to drive greater integrity and clarity in the body-care products segment. As they point out, the word “organic” is not well regulated in the personal care products segment, and lots of products using the word do not pass the standards of the USDA National Organic Program. Click on the link above to learn more about which ingredients and brands to avoid.

Another excellent resource we use often here at Low Impact Living is the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products that is maintained by researchers at the Environmental Working Group. You can look up individual brands and products and find out if they contain any ingredients that may harm your health. They rate shampoos, makeup, soaps, lotions– almost everything. Unfortunately many brands produce both safe and un-safe products, so you really have to do your research. And Skin Deep is an invaluable help!

Original post by Hank Green

Earlier this year, Chinese company Build Your Dream (BYD Auto) announced the launch of the F6DM, a car that might possibly emerge as the first plug-in hybrid on the market (though not available outside China). Now the Shenzen-based outfit has revealed plans to build a smaller, less expensive, follow up.

The F3DM, with its design cues taken from the Toyota Corolla, was showcased at this year’s Geneva Motor Show. The car allows drivers to switch between full-electric and hybrid modes. In full-electric mode it has a fairly impressive range of 80 miles between charges. There is also a small conventional engine enabling the car to function like a regular gasoline-electric hybrid.

The model will be rolled out in China by the end of this year, via a test fleet of 200 taxicabs in home town Shenzen. The company hopes to sell cars in Europe in 3 years and the US in 3-5 years. We’re not getting our hopes up, though; so far Chinese auto makers have had a hard time jumping into the emissions and safety standards of the U.S. and E.U.

Via Treehugger and Greencarcongress

Original post by Andrew Williams

The world’s most prestigious furniture fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, in Milan, Italy, starts in two days! And we’ve got three Inhabitat correspondents on their way to Milan to scope out the green design on this year’s international scene. Cate Trotter, Ariana Mouyiaris and new Inhabitat writer/photographer Antonia Halse are headed to Salone to bring back the best photos and coverage of the most interesting new furniture, lighting, products and presentations from Milan - all through a sustainable lens of course. We are hitting the ground running and, starting Wednesday this week, Inhabitat will be your source for green design at Milan Salone 2008!

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Original post by Andrew Williams

A team of academics based at the University of Washington have announced an exciting breakthrough in dye-sensitized solar cell technology.

Researchers studying solar cell configurations discovered that by using a design based on a popcorn ball (tiny spheres grouped into bigger porous spheres), efficiency in cheap solar cells was more than doubled.

The advances were detailed in a paper presented at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans. According to lead author Guozhong Cao, a UW professor of materials science and engineering, “we think this can lead to a significant breakthrough in dye-sensitized solar cells.”

Each gram of the new material contains 1000 square feet of light absorbing pigment. The complex design also means that light gets trapped inside the materials, leading to a remarkable increase in absorption. So far, they’ve only done this with zinc-oxide dyes, which are much less efficient than titanium oxide dyes. The next step in the process is to see if they can reproduce the technique with high-efficiency dies, and still get that 250% spike in efficiency.

Dye-sensitive cells have been around since the early 90s and have so far peaked at about 11% efficiency. But if this new technique works with the more efficient titanium oxide pigments as it does with the less efficienct zinc oxide, then we could see more than 25% efficiency. That would make these cells considerably more efficient than current thin-film cells, like ones being produced by Nanosolar. Though dye cells have many of the same advantages as thin film solar, being light-weight, flexible, and possibly printable, so far thin film has beat them in cost per watt.

But that was before nano-popcorn-balls came along. Now we’ll just have to wait and see.

Source: Dailytech.com

Original post by Andrew Williams