·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full post at Lifehacker.

A small addition to your shower head can save you time, money, and water: a simple shutoff valve can toggle the water flow off and on without undoing your carefully-calibrated mix of hot and cold on the faucet itself. When you want to save water (and money on your water bill), you can quick switch off the water while you soap up or leave conditioner in using a shower head shutoff valve. Last summer we covered how the Navy Shower prevents waste water and decreases your water bill. A shutoff valve can have the same effect, and it’s dead simple to install. Here’s how I did it in my shower.

Over at Instructables, blightdesign demonstrates how to transform cereal and other similar boxes into gift boxes. Thanks to Lifehacker for the pointer.

Read the full post at Lifehacker.

The various yellow and white pages organizations deliver a whopping 540 million unsolicited books every year, and web site YellowPagesGoesGreen aims to prevent this gigantic and obsolete waste of paper from landing at your doorstep.

DCEO’s Illinois Recycling Grants Program is now accepting applications for traditional and e-waste recycling. Application deadline is December 22, 2008. Visit http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/dceo/Bureaus/Energy_Recycling/Recycling/ for more information.

The Center for a New American Dream has developed a bottled water cost calculator. See how much energy and money you can save by switching to reusable containers of tap water.

Read the full story from HealthDay.

Recently discovered so-called free radicals that are attached to small particles of air pollution could cause lung damage and perhaps even lung cancer, researchers report.

If confirmed through further research, the finding could help to explain why nonsmokers develop tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer, said lead researcher H. Barry Dellinger, the Patrick F. Taylor Chair of environmental chemistry at Louisiana State University.

It has been known for years that free radicals exist in the atmosphere, and these atoms, molecules and fragments of molecules can damage cells. It had been thought that these particles, which can be produced by combustion, exist for less than a second and then disappear.

Read the full story from HealthDay.

High levels of arsenic in urine may be linked with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, researchers report.

The findings, published in the Aug. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, are the first to link low-level exposure to arsenic with type 2 diabetes prevalence in the United States.

Read the full story in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s News Blog.

Ben Shneiderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland at College Park, says he was happy to give a guest lecture at Stanford University this past spring, but he was concerned about the environmental impact of his flight across the country to get there.

So when he submitted his receipts for reimbursement by Stanford’s Symbolic Systems Program, the group that had invited him, he included a charge for a small donation to the Carbonfund.org Foundation to offset the trip’s impact.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

There are plenty of ways to cut your carbon footprint, whether it’s driving less or buying an energy-efficient refrigerator. But the British Medical Journal, in an editorial last month, urged a more controversial one: having fewer children.

The latest issue of Renewable Energy Weekly is now available. Highlights include:

• Hydrogen Projects Finding Mixed Funding Sources
• Renewable Energy Collectors May Be Right Under Our Feet
• US Government Investing up to US $24M To Bring Solar Energy Online
• The Transition to Second Generation Ethanol
• Mileage Costs of Plug-in Hybrids
• US Geothermal Development Up 20% in 2008
• An Attractive Option