Eco-Innovation Articles From Around the World
Fresh Food for All
Source: onearth.org Published: September 26, 2012 Local farmers could revolutionize how millions of New Yorkers eat. Never have so many individuals, nonprofits, and local...
Goats to Trim the Grass
Source: dailymail.co.uk Published: September 15, 2012 By Snejana Farberov A major international airport like Chicago’s O’Hare needs a large staff to take care of everything from security to maintenance, and now the major aviation hub is looking to hire some...
Bee Boulevard: An Urban Corridor Becomes A Haven for Native Pollinators
Source: grist.org Published: September 19, 2012 By Claire Thompson Sarah Bergmann does not see herself as a political artist. Promoting social causes, raising awareness — that stuff doesn’t appeal to her. But she likes asking questions. Doing so, she says, “allows me...
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP – EXHIBIT – The Skin Of Trees, An Intimate View of Bark, by Cedric Pollet – 2006
Brooklyn Botanical Garden Art Gallery 2006 This tree's bark naturally grows lips Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for this eco-educational project in New York. With an artistic vision, Cedric Pollet looks closely at trees, revealing the spectacular beauty of the...
FILM – The Fuel Film – Documentary 2007– 2009
2009 ACADEMY AWARDS QUALIFIED AND WINNER OF 2008 AUDIENCE AWARD AT SUNDANCE Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for Josh Tickell's Veggie Van.org from 2003 to 2009 when it received its own public charity status. Josh knows oil and how it is the lifeblood of...
FILM – United Nations Environment Program – World Environment Day – 2005
Matter of Trust was invited to join the San Francisco Department of the Environment in organizing festivities involving international and local participants. The United Nation's Environment Programme asks that its annual World Environment Day (WED) be hosted by a...
FILM – OTX West – Marcus Foster’s Oakland Technology Exchange – 2003
Matter of Trust was the fiscal agent for this excellent documentary by Chantal Buard on the step-by-step method for developing a computer-repair, distribution, and recycling system. The video has two parts. Part 1 Part 2
FILM – Nourishment Is A Birthright – Documentary – Haight Ashbury Food Program – Original and Update 2002 – 2003
The twenty-minute mini-documentary highlights the community kitchen that reclaims hundred tons of almost expired food from stores and prepares meals for the homeless of San Francisco. Total Raised: $5000 Direct Program Expenses: $5000 = 100% Eco-educational =...
Should We Change the Colour of Our Streets?
Source: newscenter.lbl.gov Published: September 13, 2012 Feature Story Julie Chao (510) 486-6491 Berkeley Lab researchers showcase cool pavement technology to combat urban heat islands. Sharon Chen and Ana Paula Werle of the Berkeley Lab Heat Island Group use a...
Apple’s Massive Solar Farm from The Sky
Source: gigaom.com Published: September 13, 2012 Katie Fehrenbacher Image courtesy of WCNC-TV. I did an interview with North Carolina’s TV Station WCNC-TV this morning about the data center cluster in their state. After the interview they kindly sent me these aerial...
Sun Ovens
Source: sunoven.com Published: September 13, 2012 The Ultimate Solar Appliance The GLOBAL SUN OVEN® has been devised to meet up to 70% of the needs of a family of 6 to 8 people in a developing country, entirely with the power of the sun. Even though it is called an...
How Oil Spills Could Be Cleaned Up with Magnets
Source: guardian.co.uk Published: September 12, 2012 Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new technique for magnetically separating oil and water. Here, they...
DISASTER RELIEF – Hair Booms BP Gulf Spill Photos – Renewable Resources – 2010
PRESS: Yes! You can use any of our videos/photos. Please post noted credits, otherwise credit: Matteroftrust.org Also see MORE PHOTOS Orange Beach Alabama - June 24, 2010 oil plume comes up in black waves onto white beaches Lisa Gautier of Matter...
The Future of Wind Power: 9 Cool Innovations
Source: treehugger.com Published: April 4, 2012 TreeHugger/Screen capture Derek Markham derekmarkha ...
Spinach Gives Solar Tech Some Muscle
Source: nbcnews.com Published: September 6, 2012 Silicon wafers doped in positively charged atoms and coated in a protein extracted from spinach give a boost to so-called biohybrid solar cell technology. Silicon wafers coated in a protein extracted from spinach...
Water-Filled Glass Orbs Might Be the Next Step in Solar Power
Source: takepart.com Published: September 5, 2012 Solar power isn’t a new concept in alternative energy―in fact, it may be one of the oldest. But for Barcelona-based design firm Rawlemon, architecting a new way to harness that energy led to the creation of what it...
Underwater Robots To ‘Repair’ Scotland’s Coral Reefs
Source: bbc.co.uk Published: August 28, 2012 By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News The robots will have built-in video and image-processing tools...
Wearable Technology, Pollution-Detecting T-Shirt Warns of High Carbon Monoxide Levels
Source: ecouterre.com Published: August 31, 2012 Carbon monoxide is known as the “silent killer” because it’s colorless, odorless, tasteless, and extremely dangerous. Take it from someone who has experienced the symptoms of carbon-monoxide poisoning; it’s a...
Oriental Hornet: Expert Solar Power Harvester
Source: alternative-energy-news.info Published: April 29, 2012 Do you know who is the most competent solar power expert, according to a research team from Tel Aviv University? It is the humble common Oriental hornet found in our gardens! Much to the astonishment of...
A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil
Source: kanopy.com Published: August 29, 2012 The original "green" city, A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil is an informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities...
In Utah, Affordable Green Homes Teach Green Build Skills
Source: earthtechling.com Published: August 27, 2012 By Susan DeFreitas image via Community Rebuilds In Moab, Utah, interns from all over the world are gaining an education in people-powered, sustainable housing, while helping to put a green roof over the heads of...
Sunflower-Inspired Solar Panels Track Sun Without Motors
Source: mnn.com Published: August 17, 2012 InnovationNewsDaily Staff Developed by an engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the system allows the panels to collect more solar energy without using additional electricity. Credit: Shutterstock A new,...
Free Energy – Solar Powered Stirling Engine
Source: auto.howstuffworks.com Published: August 23, 2012 by Karim Nice The Stirling engine is a heat engine that is vastly different from the internal-combustion engine in your car. Invented by Robert Stirling in 1816, the Stirling engine has the potential to be much...
Solar-Powered Still Turns Salty Ocean Water Fresh
Source: earthtechling.com Published: August 18, 2012 By Beth Buczynski Image via Gabriele Diamanti/Core 77 Without access to fresh, clean drinking water, millions of...
Solar Device Brings Natural Light to Workers
Source: youtube.com Published: August 8, 2012 Fluorescent lights are often seen as the brunt of an artificial working environment, but office workers around the world could soon have sunnier dispositions. Harnessing the power of the sun, Canadian researchers are...
Japanese Breakthrough Will Make Wind Power Cheaper Than Nuclear
Source: mnn.com Published: August 29, 2011 Karl Burkart A surprising aerodynamic innovation in wind turbine design called the ‘wind lens’ could triple the output of a typical wind turbine, making it less costly than nuclear power. Snapshot from video NOTE: Some major...
Seeking Water from the Sun
Source: whitewolfpack.com Published: July 15, 2012 Many Navajo Nation residents must drive 45 minutes to water towers such as these for daily...
Cesar Harada: A Novel Idea for Cleaning Up Oil Spills
Source: siew.sg Published: July 5, 2012 When TED Senior Fellow Cesar Harada heard about the devastating effects of the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, he quit his dream job and moved to New Orleans to...
Grey2Green
Source: youtube Published: July 20, 2010 The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance serves children and families of San Francisco by promoting and supporting green schoolyards. We provide resources, training, and advocacy to school communities to help them create and...
How to Start A Home Rain Barrel Project
Source: mnn.com Published: March 22, 2010 By Chris Baskind Water is precious and becoming more scarce. Try a rain barrel in your yard to use ‘free’ water for irrigation and limit what you run from the tap. A rain barrel not only provides you with a renewable source of...
Water Power in Your Home
Source: earthtechling.com Published: July 7, 2012 By Beth Buczynski Image via Ryan Jongwoo Choi Waterwheel turns your faucet into a tiny power plant. This nifty gadget is already a finalist in the Industrial Designers Society of America’s 2012 International Design...
How to Make a Solar Cooker
Source: solarcooking.org Published: July 31, 2012 Kristi Jerger’s 5th grade class Dublin, Ohio Public Schools provided this lesson plan. This is a great project with easy to follow step by step instructions. See How to Make a Solar Cooker.pdf 20120731 How to Make a...
How to Build a DIY Solar Air Heater from Old Soda Cans
Source: treehugger.com Published: July 10, 2012 Fair Companies/Video screen capture Sami Grover samigrover Solar space heating is tricky. Air is harder to keep warm than water, and while most of us need a shower on a hot day—we tend to want space heating when the sun...
Just How Much Water Is Your Home Wasting Per Day?
Source: takepart.com Published: July 31, 2012 How to Save 150 Gallons of Water Per Day Without Leaving Your Home. Fresh water accounts for less than one percent of all the water on the planet, making it a very...
How to Make A Solar Bottle Bulb
Source: pinoybisnes.com Published: July 10, 2012 Light up dark areas in your home during daytime using this green and sustainable concept. Recycle used clear plastic soda bottles, add water+bleach, then install. After installation this solar light bulb can provide...
Summer Programs – Hair Boom Oil Demo -Click and Watch
Source: youtube.com Published: May 11, 2010 Click the link below for a video demonstration of hair mats absorbing oil. ...
Summer Project – How to Make A Fake Oil Spill
Source: youtube.com Published: July 27, 2011 Oil spills affect and harm the entire environment.There are several ways to clean those up (with chemicals, biological agents and mechanically).Here you’ll find the recipe to create fake oil for your experiments and...
Composting Human Hair: Earth-Friendly Disposal of Hair Clippings
Source: voices.yahoo.com Published: June 14, 2012 Many of our great volunteers collected so much hair that, unfortunately, we cannot use all of it right now for oil spills. We are always on the lookout for new ways to recycle the hair. Click on the link to...
Some Inventive People Have Come Up with New Ways to Recycle Human Hair, Check Out Links Below
Published: June 8, 2012 http://www.treehugger.com/eco-friendly-furniture/furniture-made-plastic-bottles-and-human-hair-comfy-and-creepy.html http://www.treehugger.com/style/100-percent-biodegradable-eyeglasses-made-from-human-hair.html 20120608 Some Inventive People...
EXHIBIT – Earth Day San Francisco – Earth Day’s A-Maze – 2012
Matter of Trust will be featuring an interactive bamboo maze decorated by hundreds of students' artwork at Civic Center on Sunday, April 22, 2012. People will wander through the maze while answering fun and clever questions about the environment and recycling. Wrong...
AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM – Youth Media Lab Project – 2005
Matter of Trust is the fiscal agent for Youth Media Lab (YML), an organization dedicated to providing media training to educators, youth service providers, youth and their parents. YML conducts after-school television and digital video production classes for Oakland...
FILM – Excess Access Linking Society’s Surplus With Nonprofit Needs – 1999
This 15-minute mini-documentary shows how Matter of Trust and Excess Access began and how they work. Copies are available upon request; it has been displayed on YouTube since March 2009. ©1999
CONFERENCE – Women’s Green Global Action Network – Mexico City – 2004 – 2005
Matter of Trust was the fiscal agent for Women's Global Green Action Network (WGGAN) until they were eligible to be under the umbrella of our friends at Earth Island Institute in 2006. WGGAN cultivates global partnerships of grassroots women environmental leaders for...
PROGRAM – Fungi + Oil Spill Hair Mat Treatability Study Renewable Resources – 2002 – 2008
Hair mats used in oil spill cleanup, like all traditional cleanup materials are incinerated or landfilled by hazmat teams. In 2002, Matter of Trust and Fungi.com joined forces to do lab research on---if fungus could breakdown mats made from human hair soaked in toxic...
DISASTER RELIEF – Hair Booms BP Horizon Oil Spill – 2010
A huge International Natural Fiber Recycling mobilization took place to help get hair booms to the Gulf Coast Spill. We had donated to warehouses spread along Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida that received hair, fur, fleece, and nylons from donors...
EXHIBIT – Solar Power Renewable Resources – 2006 – 2014
Since 2006, Matter of Trust has been the fiscal agent for this innovative solar-power-promoting and clean energy. In partnership with David Vasquez, author of Sun Train © 2011, this is a long-term collaborative project that involves gathering several experts and...
Algae Blooms Used for Biofuels Production Feasibility Study
Since 2006, Matter of Trust has been the coordinator of this long-term research project studying the potential benefits of collecting suffocating algae blooms and using the lipids they contain for biofuels. We have partnered with Randall von Wedel, PhD, BioSolar Group...
RESEARCH – Compost + SF Oil Spill Hair Mat Bioremediation Renewable Resources P. II – 2008 – 2009
Phase 2 - Thermophilic Composting Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for this bioremediation research program. Compostable waste is available all over the world. Composting can help to bioremediate wherever oil spill waste happened. After the Cosco Busan oil spill,...
IN-KIND – Music Team SF – Manmade Surplus – 2011 – 2014
Matter of Trust has partnered with Music Team SF in San Francisco, California. This organization is also seeking gently used instruments of all kinds for the children in their after-school inner city youth orchestra program. Music Team SF is founded on the El Sistema...
IN-KIND – Orchards International – 2004
Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for Orchards International Projects, run by Doug Franco (James Franco's Father). Doug coordinates with many logistics partners to get goods such as rice and clothing to children in Kabul. Thanks to Doug and his team, we also...
IN-KIND DISASTER RELIEF – Parkas for Pakistan – 2010
Matter of Trust partnered with the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse (EBDCR) to help victims of the October 2010 flooding in Pakistan. Through our program Excess Access and the community collected parkas and sleeping bags to send to those affected. Linda Levitsky (in...
IN-KIND DISASTER RELIEF – Katrina Relief with VeggieVan.org – 2005
Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for Veggie Van.org, whose founder, Josh Tickell, is from Louisiana. After the hurricane struck, thanks to the coordinating efforts of Josh and many volunteers, biodiesel providers got fuel to supply boats and diesel trucks when...
DISASTER RELIEF – Katrina Benefit for MISS and NOLA – 2005
Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for Anne Galjour's benefit performance for the play "Hurricane," which draws inspiration from the peculiarities of daily life in Louisiana's Cajun community. Shawn Rosenmoss coordinated the grassroots fundraiser and transported...
FISCAL SPONSOR – Music in Schools Today (MUST) – 1999 – 2000
This program is a joint fundraising project between Music in Schools Today (MuST) and Matter of Trust, using our Excess Access online matching program to match gently used instruments with kids and schools that need them. The fundraising event succeeded in collecting...
CONFERENCE – Environmental Leadership Forum – 2008 – 2010
Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for Holly B. Shepard and Evan Henrich's Environmental Leadership Forum. Their mission was to accelerate the social movement towards a sustainable and just world. Their Forum / Training series focused on Food / Water / Energy and...
EXHIBIT – Earth From Above USA – 2008 – 2010
A breathtaking collection of large-scale aerial photography by world-renowned French environmentalist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Matter of Trust was a fiscal sponsor for the planning stages of Earth From Above - USA Exhibit and Educational Program in New York. From field...
EXHIBIT – Solar Peace Sculpture – 2007
Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for the planning stages of Fred George’s Solar Peace Sculpture, which appeals to the global citizen as well as politicians around the world. In addition to the commentary on current wars, this piece represents symbolically a call...
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP – Biofuels4Schools.org – 2007 – 2010
Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor for Lindsay Hassett's Biofuels4Schools. This was an eco-educational program dedicated to the immediate shift from fossil fuels to alternative fuels. It focused on school bus clean air awareness programs as they relate to...
AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM – Gold Coast Environmental Awareness In Partnership with Mad Science – 2004
Matter of Trust was the fiscal agent for this after-school project on the environment. In partnership with Mad Science Gold Coast Educators, the semester-long course showed kids how nature reveals itself through science.
DISASTER RELIEF – Hair Mats SF Oil Spill Cosco Busan – 2007
On November 7, 2007, a cargo ship named Cosco Busan accidentally hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of Bunker C fuel. Within 48 hours hundreds of concerned citizens poured onto Bay Area beaches and helped soak up oil using mats made from human...
RESEARCH – Fungi + SF Oil Spill Hair Mats Bioremediation Renewable Resources P. I – 2007 – 2008
Phase 1 – Fungi When the Cosco Busan container ship hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge and leaked 53,569 gallons of bunker fuel, Matter of Trust came out to the beaches with hair mats (made from human hair clippings) to soak up the oil coming ashore. Joining forces with...
RESEARCH – Worms + SF Oil Spill Hair Mats Bioremediation P. III – 2009 – 2010
Section 4 - Worms Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for this bioremediation research program. Microbes, worms, compostable waste are available all over the world and wherever oil spills occur. In the final stage of this experiment, we were able to prove that...
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP – Veggie Van.org Biodiesel – 2003 – 2009
Matter of Trust was the fiscal sponsor (2003--2009) for Veggie Van.org, whose Founder, Josh Tickell, recycles used vegetable grease from restaurants into biodiesel fuel. He showed us how we can reduce dependence on petroleum by driving his biodiesel van...
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP – Biodiesel For SF MUNI Buses Feasibility Study with CytoCulture – 2005 – 2006
Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for the San Francisco Department of the Environment Feasibility Study "Biodiesel for MUNI Buses" research project in partnership with CytoCulture. The goal is to have the entire San Francisco bus fleet running on B20 (20%...
PROGRAM – Biodiesel for School Buses – Renewable Resources Oakland CA – 2003
Matter of Trust orchestrated a Biodiesel Collaborative. Oakland school buses proactively reduced their exhaust pipe emissions, thanks to Michael's Transportation Services (MTS) leading the trend towards using a biodiesel blend. Less pollution means healthier kids....
PROGRAM – Blue Box Used Phone Recycling – 2011 – 2015
Old cell phones and electronics are e-waste and very toxic to the environment when they are just chucked in the garbage. Since 2011, we have been providing attractive collection boxes to help people dispose of their old gadgets efficiently. To bring a blue box to your...