ClamshellPackaging
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: fly like a bird, bend batteries in half, and spray clothing from a can
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week saw several amazing feats of aeronautics as we showcased the world's first continuous flight of a human-powered ornithopter and the sun-powered Solar Impulse plane embarked upon an incredible voyage across Switzerland. We also watched transportation take off as BMW unveiled a zippy new electric scooter, Sanitov launched a GPS enabled cargo tricycle in London, and this week's Green Overdrive show took us off-roading on a souped-up e-bike! Renewable energy tech also energized the globe as several countries in Central America launched plans to tap volcanoes for power and China developed the world's first directly solar-powered air conditioning unit. Energy storage also got a big boost as Stanford researchers unveiled a new type of bendable battery made out of paper - just the thing to power the flexible e-readers of the future. In other news, this week we brought you exclusive coverage of the greatest green designs from this year's London Design Festival and we showcased the latest in wearable tech - instant spray-on clothing in a can! Finally, we tackled an issue that has plagued tech junkies forever - those impossible-to-open clamshell plastic packages.
Amazon announces next wave of Frustration-Free Packaging
Now, this one we can all probably get behind. Amazon -- which announced its "Frustration-Free Packaging" initiative back in November of last year, promising to kill clamshell plastic casings and the like -- is making good on its word and stepping up the effort again. Joining the ranks of partners Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend, Amazon's announced that Kingston Technologies is throwing its weight behind the drive to end our sadness and frustration as well. David Sun, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kingston also pointed out the eco-friendliness of such measures -- which surely won't be lost upon any of us, either. Kudos!
Wave of mutilation ends as Best Buy, Sony and Microsoft take a stab at clamshell-free packaging initiative
It looks like Amazon started a trend last week when they announced their "Frustration Free Packaging" initiative, which boils down to the elimination of clamshell-style packaging for a lot of their top-sellers, and the introduction of more eco-friendly materials, like good old-fashioned (recycled) cardboard. According to The New York Times, a number of other companies, including Best Buy, Sony, and Microsoft are joining the club in eschewing heavy duty materials in favor of less aggressive ones. Anything that reduces our level of annoyance with the retail experience while pitching in to help out our increasingly threatened Mother Earth is something we'll gladly get behind. And we're pretty sure our dentist will agree.
