MNN - Mother Nature Network

There are only four more days to vote for the top ten gadgets in the 2009 Green Gadgets Design Competition. Voting ends on Feb. 20.

 

Last week, MNN’s home blogger Matt gave his top ten choices for the 2009 Green Gadgets Design Competition. I took a look at the list of 50 finalists for the competition to see what’s in it for the kitchen. There are several devices that help regulate the amount of energy that is being taken from an electric socket that could be used in any room including the kitchen, but there are a few gadgets that are even more kitchen specific. Let’s take a look at them.

 

Bware Water Meter – Bware is attached to your kitchen faucet (or it could be attached to a shower faucet) and uses the power of the water stream to record how much water is used. Once it is installed, users can challenge themselves to use less water than they did last time. An advance kit will have Wi-Fi connection and software to keep track of usage on the computer. While not the most attractive thing to have hooked on to your kitchen faucet, it sure would be useful.

 

CompostAll – A replacement for a garbage disposal, the CompostAll chops up food like a garbage disposal but then stores it out of the way until it can be taken to the compost pile. Since the food is already chopped up, when it does hit the compost pile, it will turn into compost more quickly. I think people would need to be educated on what can and cannot be composted before using this gadget. Not everything that can go in a garbage disposal, meat for instance, should go into compost.

 

Take-Away Sink – To be honest, I’m not so sure about this one. Instead of having a traditional sink, you’d have a big bucket that rests on a fairly flat surface with a drain in it. The bucket can be removed so you can reuse the water in the sink to water plants or in some other way. I think that having a traditional sink and placing a bucket inside of it to do the same thing would be more useful than just having this gadget.

 

Urban Fan – A ceiling fan in the kitchen can really be helpful in regulating the temperature and saving energy. Ceiling fans are cumbersome to install however, and those who rent aren’t always able to install them. The Urban Fan screws directly into the light bulb socket of a ceiling light, so it installs easily without altering the ceiling in any way. It can be removed and the original lighting fixture replaced with no disturbance.