Cut up a disposable water bottle and keep the neck and top, as in photo. Insert the plastic bag through the neck and screw the top – to seal. The bottle is made to be air-tight, such that water will not leak, the secret lies with the top and screw! This is a great idea to share. Good for us and the environment… Read more
From www.rubbishfree.co.nz: This site has emerged out of a year long challenge we set ourselves that became known as the Rubbish Free Year. From 1st Febuary 2008 through to 1st February 2009 we tried to avoid creating any landfill waste from our home in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. The average couple living in NZ sends about 1.5 tons of rubbish to landfills every year, but through composting, recycling, and careful purchasing we accumulated only 2kg of landfill waste between us! The aim was to create new habits in order to further our journey towards living lightly on… Read more
Before you read to the end, does anybody know what the main ingredient of WD-40 is? Don’t lie and don’t cheat. WD-40. Who knew; I had a neighbor who bought a new pickup. I got up very early one Sunday morning and saw that someone had spray painted red all around the sides of this beige truck (for some unknown reason). I went over, woke him up, and told him the bad news. He was very upset and was trying to figure out what to do…. probably nothing until Monday morning, since nothing was open. Another neighbor came out and told him to get his WD-40 and clean it off. It removed… Read more
Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton, is primarily the invention of two men, Richard Little and Robert Irving (Pictured from left to right), who have been close friends since they first met at high school over 20 years ago in Fort William, Scotland. Sharing a love for cars and tinkering with machines, the two friends left school to study engineering and went on to work together at various times and in various climates throughout their careers until they both decided to emigrate to New Zealand in the early 1990s. With already so much in common, the two friends also had first-hand knowledge… Read more
DID YOU KNOW? 1. Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to Pick the little ‘stringy things’ off of it. That’s how the primates do it. 2. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster. 3. Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminium foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mould! 4. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking. 5. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help… Read more
CLEAN-AIR FOCUS: Neville D’Herville says his chimney device burns the carbon before it is released into the atmosphere. Nelson engineer Neville D’Herville reckons he has a simple answer to the city’s smoke problem allowing people to keep their home fires burning. A low-pollutant factory he saw in Mauritius and new air quality laws have inspired him to invent a zero-emissions chimney. The city council banned the use of open fires in Nelson at the start of the year under the first stage of an air quality plan. National environmental standards for air quality mean local… Read more
31 May, 2006 TV2 Young Inventors Get Patents Three young inventors have been granted patents for the inventions they created for TV2s Lets Get Inventin show. The inventions are an in-car coffee machine, a gadget that stops kids being scared of that horrible noise the bath makes when you let the water out, and a crayfish pot designed to stop people pinching your catch. And, there may be more patents to come – the New Zealand Patents Office says another seven inventors may also qualify. The shows inventions will be on display from this weekend at the Museum of Transport and Technology… Read more
WELLINGTON — A Chinese company is to manufacture an engine whose New Zealand inventors say outperforms conventional rivals by virtually every measure. “This engine scores on every single aspect you measure engines on — it’s lighter in weight, it’s easy and very cheap to make, it’s incredibly powerful, it’s very low on emissions and it’s extremely fuel-efficient,” the engine’s co-inventor Graeme Jenkins said. World patents and licensing rights are owned by a tiny New Zealand company, Continuous Cycle Engine Development. In what Mr Jenkins described as a multi-million dollar deal, CCED has… Read more
After decades of roaming the globe and seeking the wisdom of elders, I have discovered the secret of happiness: Hot water. If you can start the day with a cup of tea and end it by cleaning up, almost anything in between is bearable. It weighs three pounds, so it’s not for backpacking when weight and bulk are critical. But when you’re camping by canoe, sled, horse, car, or airplane, this wood-burning gizmo is the best way to get hot water. It out-performs the similar but better-known Kelly Kettle. A double-handful of pine cones, twigs, trash or dried horse manure (no, it doesn’t smell) will… Read more
A nine-year-old New Zealand boy has won a major patent prize by inventing an eco-friendly unit that turns food scraps into fertiliser without anyone having to leave the kitchen. Ryan Nicholls of Glenfield, Auckland, came up with his ‘Waste-Away’ invention because he hated the chore of taking the family food scraps out to the composting bin. So he invented an automatic system to save him the job and is now NZ$10,000 richer. He is also thought to have become New Zealand’s youngest patent applicant. Down the drain Ryan’s system takes scraps that are chopped in the waste disposal grinder attached… Read more
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