Designer Mathieu Lehanneur has given the concept of a locavore, the collaborative effort to build more locally based and self-reliant food economies, a beautiful new twist. His River Plant Aquarium takes inspiration from the natural ecosystem found within a river by using hydroponics and a refrigerated aquarium as a hatchery for freshwater fish.
All the while vegetables grow on top in glass pods. These vegetables use the water from the fish tank for sustenance, thus filtering and purifying the water for the fish below.
Thus “Local River aims to replace the decorative ‘TV aquarium’ by an equally decorative but also functional ‘refrigerator-aquarium’. In this scenario, fish and greens cohabit for a short time in a home storage unit before being eaten by their keepers, the end-players in an exchange cycle within a controlled ecosystem.”
For those who don’t have the space to grow their own food outside, this may be an effective solution to cut the amount of miles food has to travel before it hits our plates. If you like this, check out Lehanneur’s Living Air Filter!
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Macworld has spotted a new page over on Apple’s website highlighting their dedication to making their products as environmentally healthy as possible. We’ve seen this pitch from Apple within the past few years — they’ve recently slimmed down their packaging and started using recyclable materials in making their computers. It’s pretty interesting to see them making such a push on this issue, but then again it not only helps them sell computers (assuming they don’t have to raise prices too high due to the new policies), but of course helps the culture and the Earth at large in terms of making sure our environmental footprints are as small as possible. The new site includes information about the impact of Apple’s products both during manufacture and during usage, as well as reports on product performance, as well as a blog on what they’re doing lately. They also have a link to their recycling program so that when you’re done with whatever Apple products you’re using, you can make sure that those recyclable products are actually recycled.
