When traveling to remote areas, charging your phone or tablet can be quite a hassle. But the portable solar charger SunJack, which was created by Harold Tan, can make this problem go away. The solar charger is also a great emergency kit addition for off-the-grid travel. SunJack is very portable, as it folds up to the size of an iPad. The creator will also be donating a part of the sales to help give the villagers in Papua New Guinea healthy, access to non-toxic lighting, since in these areas the people still use lighting that is quite hazardous.
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Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, recently developed a new and highly efficient composting toilet called Blue Diversion. Human waste has significant value, since it can provide fertilizer and phosphorus and the Blue Diversion toilet is able to successfully harvest both. These byproducts can also be sold at a profit, so this toilet does more than just provide water efficiency or off-the-grid-living.
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Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel has developed a table that is able to transform sunlight into enough energy to charge your gadgets. The Current Table, as it is called, is capable of performing in this way due to a special process that is very similar to photosynthesis in plants. More specifically, the table is covered by glass panels that contain a dye-synthesized solar cell, which utilizes color properties to generate an electrical current, in much the same way that plants use green chlorophyll to transform sunlight into energy.
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