Go green for Earth Day!

The Gadget Show  Wednesday 22 April 2009

It's Earth Day. Here are five bits of tech to turn down your CO2 emissions...

“Ah, ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhahahahahhhhhhhhh ooooooooohhhh…” That, as if you didn’t know, was part of Michael Jackson’s Earth Song. We only bring that up, because today is in fact Earth Day – a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the world we live in. Forget for a minute that Earth Day was founded by someone called Gaylord Nelson, and think about this little group of eco-gadgets that could potentially help save the Earth…

For your pocket: Samsung Blue Earth (£TBC) The Samsung Blue Earth is a solar-powered mobile that’s made from recycled materials. Just leave the handset in the sun and 10-14 hours later the photovoltaic cell will have enough battery power for a four hour-long call to the girlfriend. The beauty here is that it eliminates mains charging. So if the tech went mainstream, we’d be looking at a world-saver!

For the kitchen: Bosch KGH 36S52 (£500) Fidge-freezers have never been one of Mother Nature’s biggest fans. Not until the Bosch KGH 36S52 came on the cool box scene that is. This chiller is available in a number of colours, from cool black to sexy red. But it’s the green credentials we’re interested in. This 303-litre fridge has an A+ energy rating, burns just 277kWh per year and will remain frost-free at all times!

For the lounge: Samsung UE46B7000WW (£1,600) The Samsung UE46B7000WW is 46-inch LCD television with backlight control, which is made up from LEDs rather than fluorescent tubes. It’s claimed that this gives you an energy saving of a whopping 40 per cent! But almost as important, the Full-HD picture quality’s awesome.

For killing standby: Bye Bye Standby (£23) Does what it says on the tin. The Bye Bye Standby is an energy-saving, standby-busting multi-plug that cuts off the power to plugged devices when they’re not in use. So, when your TV, stereo, and speaker system aren’t in use, this merely shuts them down completely, cutting energy consumption without affecting performance.

For your garage: Honda FCX Clarity ($600 per month hire) The Honda FCX Clarity is a state-of-the-art hydrogen-fuelled, fuel cell car. It won the World Green Car Award for 2009 and has been available for hire in Japan and the US since summer last year. The beauty here is that there are no exhaust emissions – just good old H20 that’s so clean you could drink it. But you probably wouldn’t want to.