Friday, December 4, 2009

The Cardboard Christmas Tree

Instead of a real tree, try a tree from recycled cardboard.


"The Cardboard Christmas Tree was designed and developed by Cloud Gate Design LLC, a Chicago based design house. Cloud Gate Design was started in 2006 by two friends, Nick Ng and Dan Greene, as a way to bring their environmentally conscious product alternatives to market.

One of these products is the Cardboard Christmas Tree, which helps extend the life of existing cardboard by using recycled corrugated cardboard for both the tree and its packaging.

In addition, a portion of the profits from the Cardboard Christmas Tree sales are donated to the Arbor Day Foundation's Trees for America program. Through this program, for every one dollar donated one tree will be planted in a damaged forest."

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Houston Resident Design Cardboard Computer Case

The cardboard-housed computer, born of his graduate thesis at the University of Houston, is an extreme example of implementing sustainable design to the entire life cycle of a product, he says.

Aside from using a recyclable material, the case requires less time, labor and parts to produce. And when it's time to trash it, he says, there will be fewer parts to send to landfills.

The cardboard case, which can be assembled without fasteners and screws, eliminates the need for those parts and the manufacturing processes used to create them.

“We don't realize how much effort it takes to do. A computer is something that will be disposed of and we'll dispose of it because of its finite life, so why do we put so much effort into producing it?” he asked.

And the quick disassembly makes it easy to separate items from other components and toss them in the recycling bin, eliminating the need to separate screws, metals, plastics and other materials that can go into a case, he notes.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Build a Sturdy DIY Cardboard Laptop Stand

We've put cardboard to good use as a laptop stand once before, but if that corrugated stand just didn't seem quite sturdy enough to trust with your laptop, this alternate version offers a more robust alternative.

click to see pictures

DIY iPhone 3GS Box Dock

Since the new iPhones do not come with a dock,"Vince Tang employed the dock plate included with his 3GS, along with his docking cable and a fair share of glue" and used his iPhone box to make a dock.

Click for picture