Well, they always said the rich are different. For the seriously rich a down-market solar backpack is not going to do – after all the brand is all for the fashion conscious. So if you have big bucks and want to flaunt your wealth and your commitment to the environment, what better way to do it that carry your Ralph Lauren Solar Backpack which will charge you expensive gadgets, including your latest iphone using solar power?

It is made of water resistant fabric, and apart from being carried on your back, it also has a handle which you can use to carry it in your hand. The solar charger needs to be in the sunlight to charge your gadgets, so is good for outdoors in sunny weather, for instance on the beach (okay it may not be your ordinary plebian beach, but where the glitterati are to be found), or a private yacht.

The backpack is available in orange or black, so you may be seriously hampered by the color choices, particularly if you wear color coordinated clothes. It generates 3.5 watts of electricity. With a price tag of $795, this one is meant for those who are seriously in the money.

In modern times, the eco-friendly and green cars are either all electrics or hybrids. In some places compressed natural gas is used as fuel, since it has lower emissions and is a relatively cleaner fuel. Taking all this one step further is the Ventile, designed by Thierry Dumaine, a French car designer and artist. He has designed this concept car so that the car is energy efficient.

When you see the picture you see a marriage of the modern and the traditional by way of looks. The car features huge wheels for a reason – so that wind can enter the base of the car. Air which comes in drives the fan to generate juice. The mini generator is near the wheel bases and serves to store the wind power to fuel the car. The wheels use very small tires and between them is another fan.

The Ventile has two separate motors, one which is electric and the other which uses fuel. Both motors are connected to the large fan. The body of the car is made of translucent material which is very light in weight. In fact the whole car weighs less than 350 kilos. Dumaine has already exhibited and demonstrated the Ventile at the 2011 Michelin’s Challenge Design exhibition, so it is not just a concept on paper.

When you buy a laptop/notebook or any other portable computer, you also have to buy many accessories to go with. As many laptops have vents at odd places, sometimes even at the bottom, it stands to reason that they get very hot. This affects their performance as well. And if you are working for long hours on your laptop, particularly in one place, you really ought to get a laptop stand with built in cooling fans to dissipate the heat. The bamboo laptop stand is eco-friendly as it is made of bamboo which is a sustainable and renewable resource.

Among the bamboo laptop stands are Macally’s Ecofanpro. It comes with two fans which are attached via USB to the laptop and which work to reduce the heat. It also has three adjustable heights, so you can change the height to one which is comfortable for you. It comes in a natural bamboo color so it gives you the warmth of wood as well as reducing the carbon footprint.

The Ecofanpro has mixed reviews. While most people love it, there are some who have had a bad experience with the quality of fans used. If you like bamboo, and your laptop fans work for sometime, great. Otherwise you can always replace the fans quite cheaply and easily.

In the US alone, more than 50 billion bottles of water are consumed each day. As most of these bottles are made of plastic, they end up in landfills and pollute the environment.

While the trend for the green consumer is to go in for reusable water bottles which can be refilled and last a long time, there are times when a person will need to have a bottle which can be thrown away. If you are traveling for example, on the road or walking around, you may not want to be lugging around a reusable bottle and want to have something you can throw away. At such times, Re:newal premium spring water is a compostable bottle is the answer.

You get fresh and clean spring water from a natural source, which then goes through ultra-violet to get disinfected. And the bottle it comes in looks like a plastic disposable bottle, but is made from plants. Sugars are taken from the easy to grow plants and transformed into Ingeo polymer which mimics plastic. The plants are natural and 100 percent renewable and the bottle composts in particular municipal and industrial facilities into carbon dioxide, water and humus.

As a consumer you get two benefits – you get to drink pure spring water, instead of tap water which has been sterilized. And you use a compostable and biodegradable bottle, so you are reducing your carbon footprint and being eco-friendly.

Many parts of India are off grid because they are in deep country, in rural areas where there is little or no connectivity. There are many villages which are without electricity. And even in cities and large towns, there are often power outages. It also gets extremely hot in India in summer. At such times, the sales of cold drinks are on the rise, but nobody really wants to spend money to buy a warm drink. So Coca Cola came up with and environmentally friendly solar cooler, called eKOCool.

This is a chest type cooler which has been developed in collaboration with Western Refrigeration in Mumbai. This cooler uses solar energy to chill the beverages, which take approximately four hours to overnight to cool. It can hold up to 48 bottles of 300 ml each, or two crates of the soft drink. What’s more the solar cooler can also charge your mobile phone and provide light for your home.

Solar power is plentiful in India. The company has already set up a pilot project in Agra and seen sales of its products increase. Africa is another country which has power shortages and many places are off grid there, too. In fact, Africa has already places orders for these coolers.

While Coca Cola has developed this cooler for its beverages, there is no doubt that potential for such coolers exists in many parts of the world without electricity, particularly if temperatures of stored products can remain stable. As long the price point of the cooler is affordable, people can even use them to store perishables like milk and other necessities without electricity.

The iPhone is very popular, particularly in its later avatar. It is no wonder then that it has spawned innumerable accessories and peripherals which are exclusive to iPhones. One of the new green accessories is the bamboo speaker for the iPhone. It is very simple, involves no wires, plastics/acrylics/metals and is made from a renewable and sustainable source, the bamboo. It is a hollow tube of bamboo, just a foot long, with a slot on the top to hold the iPhone.

It does not provide a charging dock or two external speakers. The two ends of the bamboo serve as speakers and amplify the sound. If your iPhone has good sound quality, you will hear serviceable sound, which comes from a green source. In fact each piece of bamboo is unique and will provide a slightly different sound. It is also precision cut and finished by hand, so you will not be buying a mass produced item.

The bamboo speaker is 100 percent recyclable and is environmentally friendly. You could, of course, make your own, but if you pre-order one – and it costs only $25 – you will actually help make the project a reality as the company is waiting to reach a goal of $10,000 before starting on making these. In fact the designer, Anatoliy Omelchenko, is also offering other accessories, should you pledge a higher amount. He is all for raising eco awareness and making the planet eco-friendly.

General Motors has taken going green to another level by starting its solar charging station at Genesee County. The Al Serra Auto Plaza in Grand Blanc is among the first in the country with GM’s solar charging station. This is a test run for the more than 2,000 station GM hopes to have in place. The station, which has just opened, has the capacity to charge 12 Chevy Volt’s at one time when all slots will be working, though currently its capacity is four vehicles.

The benefit of the charging station is that it provides 240 volts of power to enable the car to fully charge in four hours. There is no cost to the user for charging, so the user is able to run his vehicle without paying for power.The stations are produced by California-based Sunlogics for GM and each costs more than $200,000, but they are leased to the dealers on an annual payment.

What is more, the extra electricity, which is generated by solar power and not used, will go back to the power grid and result in a payment credit to the owner of the station. The Chevy Volt is a fast selling car, which cost only $33,500, given the tax credit given to the buyer. The hybrid car which runs for 50 miles on battery power before switching over to gas, will now be more eco-friendly than before, particularly when more charging stations come up and people use free energy to charge their vehicles.

In different parts of world various concepts and eco-friendly gadgets, devices and concepts are bearing fruit as the people get more aware of the eco-friendly and green movement. Everybody wants to come up with something new. Now Lito in Montreal, Canada, has produced an eco-friendly superbike which is electric, but is a motorcycle nonetheless. Most electric vehicles, particularly two wheelers have a problem of speed, but Sora has a top speed of 125 mph and a range of 185 miles on a full charge.

Dubbed a superbike, the company’s website says that it is a zero-compromise superbike that is eco-efficient without sacrificing speed, power or performance. With cutting-edge design, seamless handling, instant torque and cannon-like acceleration, the Sora is a unique and exhilarating riding experience.

The Sora also uses regenerative braking, uses aircraft grade materials, has an aluminum frame and is very sleek and stylish to appeal to mobike lovers. It seat is adjustable so that the rider can shift it according to his height and comfort and have an ergonomical ride.

A very technologically advanced model, it has features like an advanced communication and power management system. You punch in your destination and the bike will calculate the power needed for the journey and use the available resources more efficiently so that you don’t run out in the middle on your journey.

While it takes time to recharge – 8 hours – it sends you an email when it is ready to go! It also offers GPS navigation, a place to store your necessary items and more. When on sale, it is expected to have a price of around $44,000 – so it is pricey.

When there are many parts of India without electricity or when there are power cuts and outages every now and then for long hours, it becomes difficult to carry out the activities of daily life. Whether it is students who need to study or housewives who need to cook, light is needed for every activity when it is dusk. Seeing this two engineering graduates, N. Nagarajan, 25, and G. Karthick, 28, developed a four-in-one solar lamp.

Now this lamp which works on solar power not only functions as a source of light but also has an FM radio, an MP3 player and a mobile charger – even Indian in villages and small towns are conversant with technology. The duo started off with a loan of less than $4,500 from the Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation under their entrepreneurial scheme.

Their green gadget is flying off the shelves and has been bought by government offices and private companies. They have also made other devices like a solar inverter which harnesses sunlight during the day and uses it during the night to power devices as also solar street lights.

The duo is also socially conscious as they have employed a school drop outs and a physically challenged person two work with them. They also work from a small 8 foot by 8 foot workplace and have no aspirations of becoming big business people, but rather work for the poor people.

Perhaps when you were young, you may have played with papier mache and learnt how to recycle paper. Kids are very impressionable and can learn a lot when they are young. What better time than that to teach them about the environment. You can do that by getting them solar and other educational kits. The Paper Recycling Studio is another kit which teaches them how to recycle paper.

The kit is an all-in-one, ready to use one. You only need to provide paper to start with. It comes with paper blender which works manually, so is safe for kids, plastic tray, paper mesh and paper presser among other items. You can also add small craft items from the house to make decorative paper.

It is meant for kids above 8 years old, though reviewers say that even younger kids have been able to use it. The paper recycling studio kit is a good learning experience for kids and will also appeal to those who are interested in crafts.