EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

Stalking pedestrians in parking lots all the way to their parking spaces. Adding a quarter-hour extra time for finding a meter. Amassing tickets for crowding residential driveways... All to avoid walking two blocks in the city. Why?

Instead, I'm walking in L.A., I'm walking in L.A.! As the Missing Persons sing the outlaw irony of “Nobody walks in L.A.” But I figure that I'm fit and young and my legs are powerful and pain-free. I don’t avoid walking. Someday it may hurt and I may use a cane. But that's not today and every step reminds me of how grateful and efficient I am.

In fact, I'm so powerful that I am a full-on alternative-energy source. Thirty of us race through spinning class at the gym, and with the right converter, we could all be charging our iPods, or powering the cooling fans, or feeding the building's light grid. Human power is the most renewable, sustainable, common-sense source of electricity available. With a massive personal-application energy-converter market waiting to be claimed by some green entrepreneur, solar power and human power are my bets on the future.

Some green product innovators are already tackling this niche and my home is turning into a human-powered urban utopia. I have a Z Star hand-crank juicer, with two powerful magnets that marry crushers for wheatgrass, apples, melon, greens and cucumbers (I'd keep the carrots out of this one). Or my Vortex hand-crank blender that clamps onto a countertop or rear bumper, so when you finish whipping up a blueberry/banana/apricot-stone kernel smoothie, you can throw down in the concert-stadium parking lot. Tailgating and eco-innovation: it's just common sense.

So long as one has a bicep, one can power a hand-crank kitchen appliance. But what if one desires complete liquefying or a long-extraction kava/coconut-water cocktail? Perhaps the bicep is not enough... but a three-speed bike and hefty legs are! The Fender Blender is a blender that attaches to and is removable from a bicycle. It works when the bike is stationary on stands and even while you are in motion.

Imagine blending your favorite fruit drinks while riding to the yoga studio. No child in the park will choose cotton candy over this fun. People will take photos. You will generate free electricity. And your bicep and hamstrings will look and feel like you are a human power source. So you can continue to be grateful when walking two blocks from your parking space. Heck, you may even start leaving the car at home!

[See a complete list of writing by Tonya Kay on EcoHearth.com or visit her Clean and Green Everyday blog. - Ed.]

Further recommended reading:
Eco-design and Human-powered Products
Rock the Bike

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