Midwest Eco-Design - Your home for eco-friendly construction, remodeling & housing choices including prefrabricated homes, cabins and other sustainable material choices.

Looking to reduce your hydro bill and your impact on the environment? Unplugging often-used appliances and electronics will solve the problem, but isn’t always the most convenient solution.

Check out the SmartStrip Power Saving Surge Protector, which detects when a device is plugged in, and automatically cuts off power to its peripherals.

Not only does it save electricity, but it also protects electronics from power surges. The design has multiple plugs in mind, with generous spacing between each outlet, making it customizable to fit your needs. And once plugged in, the angled plug doesn’t cover the other outlets.

It’s available in seven- and ten-outlet models, provides 1225 joules of surge protection, and includes a 30-day unconditional return policy and two year guarantee. It also includes a lifetime return policy if, indeed, there is a power surge.

How can you go wrong? Although it’s a little pricier than most (about $22 for a single strip and $34 for a double), the average home can save about 260 watts of electricity per hour, or 113 kilowatts per month (about $30), reimbursing your cost in just 1 month.

Check them out at CableOrganizer.com and Amazon.com.

You need something that can get messy without messing up the planet.  Recycled glass is a gorgeous, durable, and stainproof option.

EnviroGLAS's EnviroSLAB countertop

Bio-Glass makes solid surfacing for countertops, walls, or anywhere else you want to slap it down.  Want something with a bit more pizzazz?  EnviroGLAS makes recycled terrazzo with glass from discarded bottles, and porcelain from recycled sinks.  IceStone and Vetrazzo area two more terrazzolike options made with at least 75% recycled glass (Vetrazzo used old traffic lights, windshields, and more!).  Eleek makes slick metallic counter tiles out of 100% recycled aluminum.

Sounds crazy but you can also get counters made with recycled paper that can actually stand up to kitchen use;  two sources are paperstoneproducts.com and shetkastone.com.  And keep your eyes out for butcher block surfaces made with reclaimed and local FSC wood, as well as bamboo.  Just note that wood doesn’t hold up as well over time and durability is a cornerstone of sustainable renovations.

Wheatboard Cabinets

Whether you’re trying to cover up your mismatched beer stein collection or you’re showing off your matching china, you’ll need cabinets to hold it all.  Stay away from anything made of pressed sawdust and wood shavings, like medium-density fiberboard (MDF) and particleboard.  They sound eco-friendly because they should be made with by-products from the wood-cutting process, but they actually use up to 80% virgin tree content, according to Green Seal.  Plus, all that sawdust is bound together with the probable human carcinogen urea formaldehyde, which offgasses air-polluting, headache-inducing fumes into your home.  So even if you’re buying regular cabinets from mainstream stores, avoid MDF and particleboard unless you know they’re formaldehyde-free or have only trace amounts, like IKEA’s cabinetry.

Looking for something in a deeper shade of green?  You’ve got a few options.  One is strawboard or wheatboard cabinets.  Made of compressed waste straw or wheat stems, they’re basically bio-based particleboard, or MDF, made without formaldehyde and often finished with a pretty veneer of sustainable wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).  Humabuilt and CitiLog both offer cabinets made with formaldehyde-free wheatboard with certified wood exteriors.  EcoCraft uses FSC veneers on urea formaldehyde-free fiberboard.

Eco-Craft Kitchen Cabinets

Wherever you end up buying, be sure to ask for water-based finishes, low-VOC stains or paints, or natural oils.  Otherwise, get them unfinished and stain them yourself.

Green gadgets are becoming increasingly at our attention, but charging our new toys with conventional batteries isn’t keeping it eco-friendly.Fuji has introduced their new EnviroMAX, a new eco-conscious, high performance battery.

Not only do they equal (and often exceed) the performance of equivalent conventional versions, there is nothing inside the battery itself that depletes our earth.

You won’t see any mercury or cadmium in these mini-powerhouses, along with other ozone-depleting compounds. Their packaging it free of PVC plastics; instead they utilize recycled paper and recyclable PET plastic.

They arrived in stores in April, and have recently earned the 2009 Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center.

Fuji EnviroMAX batteries are available in Super Alkaline AA, AAA, C, and D (MSRP $3.99), and Digital Alkaline, AA and AAA (MSRP $5.99).

Consumers can find them at ACO and ACE Hardware stores; select Sears, Target, Do It Best and Tru Value Hardware stores; Dick’s Sporting Goods, and other chains. The batteries can also be ordered online at Amazon.com , and direct from the company at www.greenfuji.com.