Contest Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. There were great ideas. It was difficult to pick winners so I put all the best ones in a hat and pulled out five names. Here they are:

Andrew Hazelden – RepRap machines. So beyond my technical understanding. Self-replicating robots? I need Andrew to tell me how these things work and what products you can make from them.

Greg Smith – Suggests the counterintuitive idea of paying people to return plastic bags. I like the idea, except that we’d also have to charge for bags (which I’m in favour of since it’s proven to reduce their use by up to 90%) so new ones weren’t being returned unused for the cash.

Stephanie Dearing – Low impact, self-sufficient. I likes. Reduce, reduce, reduce. If you can’t reduce, then reuse and repurpose. Being an avid gardener myself, her suggestion for repurposing pop bottles as mini cloches for her lettuce plants resonates.

Michael Petryk – Incinerating plastic at high heat. Incineration has always had a bad rap. I picture billowing black smoke from a backyard firepit. Yuck. I look forward to learning more about this. We all use oil for fuel (for heating and transportation) so this might just make sense.

Chiasmus – Had two suggestions. Here’s a moving video showing the kind of ingenuity we need to solve this monumental problem: Pop bottles used as power-free light bulbs

Now, winners, I need you to somehow send me your snail mail addresses so I can get a copy of The Rest Is Silence into your innovative hands.