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(Credit: 11th Hour Action Network)

Those worried about the future of the planet needn't look much further than 12-year-old Elizabeth Rintels and friends for reassurance that young people aren't just aware of eco-challenges, they're putting their minds to solving them.

Rintels, of Keswick, Va., created a smart device designed to measure and monitor water usage in the shower. On Thursday, youth marketing and media company By Kids For Kids announced that her invention nabbed the grand prize in BKFK's "Going Green Challenge," which called on America's youth to come up with new eco-ideas for a changing world.

The young innovator was driven to create the "Water Watcher" after learning that cutting her shower time by one minute would save approximately 1,000 gallons of water per year. The product can be fastened to any faucet, signaling a red light and sounding a beep every time a half-gallon of water is used.

By Kids For Kids, based in Stamford, Conn., sponsors all manner of creative competitions. It launched the Going Green Challenge in October 2007, with The Weather Channel as a sponsor and actor Ed Begley Jr., a green activist, as a celebrity judge. The contest drew thousands of entries.

In addition to a $10,000 cash prize, Rintels also will get to spend a day "shadowing" one of the eco-experts from Leonardo DiCaprio's 11th Hour Action Web site, which, inspired by the actor's movie, advocates sustainable-living practices on the local, regional, and national levels.

Other inventions in the "Going Green Challenge" finalist category include:

•  The "Recycle Frog," a large, amphibian-shaped plastic recycling bin that can be programmed to convey encouraging messages to kids about reuse.

•  "Trash Duo," a portable, reusable, washable bag that has two, built-in compartments: one for trash and one for recyclables. That way, people can recycle on the go more easily.

•  "Take The Bus! Reward Tokens" that kids can exchange for prizes, or even a party, whenever they take public transit to school instead of hitching a ride with mom and dad.

In honor of Earth Day, let's look at a once-commonplace feature that has almost entirely disappeared from today's consumer electronics. To illustrate my point, here's a picture from my gadget archive, a perfectly ordinary Sony radio Walkman of mid-90's vintage:

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

What does this have to do with Earth Day? A couple of things:

1. Screws facilitate repairability

Screws allow easy disassembly without potential for breaking housing parts. Without disassembly, easy repair or replacement of internal parts is more difficult, and pretty much impossible for the everyday user. What do you think that does to the likelihood the product will get repaired, or parts of it re-used for another product?

(Nerd note: Most CE devices today are either snapped together (and snaps are purposefully hard to take apart without breaking), or are fastened with a process known as ultrasonic welding. Essentially the plastic parts are vibrated together at very high speed causing the plastic at the edges to melt and fuse together, making a very strong bond. This also makes them impossible to get into, kind of like that clear plastic "blister" packaging that a lot of small products come in where you have to take a chainsaw to get it open and you destroy it in the process.)

2. Shift from "fix it" to "junk it"

Looking beyond individual products, screws are symptomatic of a gradual but persistent shift away from the mentality of repairing products, both for manufacturers and consumers. Products just get thrown "away", but of course there really is no "away", it's just out of sight and out of mind.

On the Walkman shown here the screws are clearly illustrated with arrows that almost encourage one to get into the guts. Today the equivalent product -- the iPod -- is hermetically sealed and we are explicitly kept out of understanding how it works or from thinking that it can be repaired.

Companies only profit when we buy new things, not when we get them repaired. And the costs of repairing or servicing old CE devices have approached so close to the ever-reducing cost of new ones, thanks to Moore's Law, global supply chains, and constant price pressure from mega retailers. Many people, for example, buy a new inkjet printer whenever they need to replace the ink, since the cost of the printers themselves (often sold at or below cost since profits are made on the cartridges) is barely above the new cartridges. Therefore most consumer electronics are designed be disposable, not repairable.

This is an unsustainable system. We have to break ourselves (as consumers) from the disposable thinking, and manufacturers also have to find ways to facilitate and profit from repairs, not just new product sales.

I moved to New York about a month ago and now that the apartment hunt is over, my next project is to get all the necessary junk to fill my room. The first thing I need (read: want) is an alarm clock, and I am a CNETeer (read: nerd), so I've been looking into unique iPod alarm clock radios.

(Credit: Design Public)

In my search, I stumbled upon a batch of wooden radios designed by Singgih Kartono. They're made of sustainable ebony wood and crafted by local Indonesian carpenters in areas of high unemployment. The radios come in three sizes, each with a slightly different shape but all with the same modernist innovation aesthetic, reminiscent of George Nelson or Paul McCobb.

The models feature an AM/FM radio, two shortwave bands, and a line-out port for connecting an external audio source. Kartono also includes an external radio antenna with a wooden washer on the end that helps to increase radio reception. Also, the radio can be powered by AA batteries. It would have been nice to have an analog clock over the speaker cover, but I can respect the Ramsian "Weniger, aber besser" (less, but better) approach.

The radios are $200, $250, and $300, and can be purchased at Design Public.

(Credit: Design Public)

By 2010, Wal-Mart and its suppliers are going to be a lot more energy efficient.

The retailing giant has set a goal of getting suppliers to increase the energy efficiency of its products by 25 percent in three years. For some suppliers, the standards are a little more stringent. By 2010, the company will only sell Energy Star-rated air conditioners. Flat panel TVs will have to be 30 percent more energy efficient than they are now.

"If we achieved our 25 percent goal just in the U.S. we would save enough electricity to power 3 million homes per year or the equivalent of 10 million barrels of oil," said CEO Lee Scott in a speech to employees earlier this week. "We do not know exactly how we will get there. We do not even now if our suppliers can make times like hair dryers that user 25 percent less energy. But we do know that our approach works--to partner with suppliers, to help customers make better decisions, and to use our business model to drive out waste."

The company might also start building charging stations (powered by solar panels) so that customers can charge up their plug-in hybrids or electric cars, Scott said. General Motors has been working with Wal-Mart to install ethanol pumps, which ordinary gas stations recoil from. Families in the U.S., he asserted, spend on average 17 percent of their income on energy.

Wal-Mart has been one of the leaders among large corporations to cut its carbon footprint. The company, for instance, has tested out solar lighting and electricity at certain stores and is swapping out conventional lights for LEDs in freezer cases. It saved a $1 million a year in power bills just by taking out the light bulbs in coke machines.

It has also encouraged suppliers to change their packaging and distribution techniques to cut energy consumption as well. Wal-Mart's mandates don't work. A few years ago it told suppliers to start using RFID tags or else, and only some have. Still, the company can have a big impact because of the sheer number of products that flow through its doors.

The company's also not shy about telling its suppliers about its goals. "We will favor--and in some cases even pay more--for suppliers that meet our standards and share our commitment to quality and sustainability," Scott said.

Wal-Mart, he further added, will also try to keep the price of energy-efficient cost-competitive with standard products. The company, for instance, cut the price of some 3M air filters by $2.

"Our goal is to double the sale of products that help make home more energy efficient," he said.

Is your family burned out on Webkinz and Club Penguin? Are you ready for a new online "game" with a purpose?

The public radio producer American Public Media has launched an interactive game called Consumer Consequences that allows users to model their own ecological footprints. The game prompts users to describe their lifestyles in terms of house size, car travel, energy use, food and shopping consumption, and the mathematical model behind the game translates the information into an easy-to-understand visual summary.

The bottom-line result tells you how many "Earths" of natural resources it would take to sustain all 6.6 billion humans...if everyone lived like you.

Carmanah's solar power for NEC monitors

(Credit: NEC)

File this in the "not there yet" folder. A bunch of blogs have covered a new, solar-powered system for NEC monitors, yet none show how it looks. My mind's eye pictured a tidy, laptop-size solar panel. But when I received this photo from NEC, I couldn't stifle a chuckle. Who wants to claw their way to a corporate window seat only to have mammoth solar panels block the view? Oh, and try not to kick that battery pack.

The equipment is designed for big businesses that aim to cut costs with clean, off-the-grid energy sources, but the $1,999 (monitor not included) price tag seems hard to swallow. NEC maintains that the 800-watts-per-day panels, made by Carmanah Technologies, are "very light" at 32 pounds each and "do not distract [from] any work space." A company could install them on a roof, for instance. Maybe the picture doesn't show the best use. Even so, why would you want solar power only for a monitor? You could probably run a connected computer at the same time, but not very well if you're seriously multitasking. In a power outage, you'd have a bright display but no guarantee that the computer would stay on.

Meanwhile, inroads in display technology are creating a new class of energy-sipping monitors. Those with LEDs or OLEDs are especially efficient; running them on a clunky solar system would be hard to justify. Why not install a comprehensive system of rooftop solar panels for the entire office building instead? Plus, in the coming decade, thinner, more compact solar panels that maximize available sunlight are likely to come to market. Solar roof tiles are neat, for example, and holographic technology could be promising. On a smaller scale, lots of portable solar gizmos charge handhelds, laptops, and even headsets.

NEC has demonstrated a commitment to ecologically sustainable technologies, but this product needs more time and trimming before it can look convenient.