Gizmodo: biodegradable

Pop A Squat Anywhere, Anytime With Environmentally-Friendly Shit Box

Jack Loftus — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Next time you're camping, instead of digging a hole or using one of those suspect comfort castle port-a-johns to dispense with No. 2, why not infuse a little portability into nature's call with the Shit Box? It's completely cardboard, fully biodegradable, and utterly ridiculous. And yet, I'm drawn to it. I want to see if it can hold my weight (170 lbs., colon empty). I want to know why designer Richard Wharton named his talking poo mascot "Little Jack," and how the hell a company like this gets away with a returns policy page. But most of all, as a writer named Jack who also happens to go to the bathroom in the woods, I want to test one.

If you're at all confused about how this product works, The Shit Box has an instruction manual:
I hear these are big in Russia. [The Shit Box]

Biodegradable Plastic Bag Disappears in Four Months, Along With Your Earth-Killing Guilt

matt buchanan — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EDT

The reason plastic is awesome is that it's super durable, so it lasts forever, which is an issue when we want it to go away and take its place in the circle life. Biodegradable plastics aren't new, but in the past they've been pretty weak and expensive. Eco-geeks at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have come up with the anti-daywalker of plastic: All of its strengths, but it disintegrates in four months. They've got different plastic polymer cocktails depending on use—one for water bottles, another for grocery sacks—with varying bio-based fillers that'll break down easier.

One possible filler is glycerol, which is a waste product of making biodiesel. Another is polylactic acid, which is made by fermenting starches, and breaks down in just 60 days—it's a possible candidate for water bottle plastics. The bio-based fillers in the polymers will make it cheaper than past biogradegradables, but still fairly strong.

Course, you could use a polycarbonate or steel bottle over and over again, and cloth grocery bags, and skip the plastic entirely, but someone's gotta take out those bastard sea gulls. [PhysOrg via PopSci via New Launches, Image via Flickr]

Biodegradable Source Toothbrush Saves The World One Head At A Time

kthompson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:27:10 EDT

In their quest to save our dying planet, ecologically concerned people are often forced to make sacrifices. If you're compelled to join them, you can start by getting rid of that fancy superstore toothbrush and replace it with the Source Toothbrush, an environmentally friendly hygienic tool constructed from wood fiber and a special plastic made from Nebraska corn. Its replaceable heads also feature the world's first "radial bristling" for maximum plaque-busting power. Nobody says you have to have bad breath to be a tree hugging hippie. $7.95 [Source Toothbrush via UberReview]

High-Tech Fabric Perfect for Sexy Underwear: Made of Wood

Charlie White — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 11:18:23 EST

We're always on the lookout for the latest high-technology innovations in sexy ladies underwear, and although this Lenpur fabric is made of white pine wood scraps, it offers "the comfort of silk, the feel of cashmere and the coolness of linen. The resulting pieces acquire surprising thermal regulating and anti-stress properties." Yeah, we're stressed and could use a break.

The line of underwear is created by French designer Sophie Young and her company she calls g=9.8, a nod to physicists who know that g=9.81m/s2 is the equation for gravitational acceleration. An added bonus is that you can buy these unmentionables guilt-free because they're made of wood, making them biodegradable. And now that we've seen this buxom and randy-looking model, we're now feeling some kind of gravitational acceleration, and are made out of wood, too. – Charlie White

g=9.8: Sexy Lingerie from Tree Pruning Scraps [treehugger]

Uono Cocoon Coffin

gizmodo.com — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:17:31 EDT

If everything you've done in life, you've done in style, why go to your grave in an unattractive box? For $3,500 you can get yourself the high gloss Uono Cocoon Coffin, in your choice of fourteen standard colors (or you can use their Haute Couture service if you'd like to pick another) . Even crunchy granola types can love this thing without guilt—it's biodegradable, made from jute and coated with a water-based varnish.

Uono Coffins
Uono Cocoon Coffin [2006 Bottom Line Design Awards]

The Bios Urn, Turning You Into a Tree

gizguest — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 11:10:07 EDT

The thing about dying, and subsequently being buried, is that you stand a good chance of eventually being turned into worm poop. Now, while this thought may sit well with some of you, I prefer the more romantic notion of being reborn as a tree of some sort.

That's exactly the concept behind Mart n Ruiz de Az a's as-yet-to-be-produced creation: The Bios Urn. Made from compacted coconut shells mixed with a layer of organic fertilizer, it also contains a tree seed which will presumably germinate posthumously. Simply insert ashes into urn, bury said urn, and wait for tree. The fact that it's made from biodegradable materials insures the tree will not simply, well, not grow. -DP

Bios Urn: Body [Index2005 via Productdose]