Eco-Camping with some Green Gadgets

A great way to have a fantastic holiday, enjoy fresh air and nature, and massively reduce your travel carbon footprint is to go camping. So here are a selection of interesting and odd gadgets that will make your camping trip that little more eco-friendly!

So you're in the middle of no-where and your mobile phone runs out of juice? Maybe it's an emergency, or maybe it's not? Everyone has hit the issue of a dead battery at some inconvenient time, and that's where the Solar-Powered Mobile Phone Charger comes to the rescue! The charger has an internal battery, that when topped up via solar energy, can charge a range of devices, such as digital cameras, MP3 players and mobile phones!

If you want to escape the mobile phone, but want to keep in touch with the kids or family as they go wandering off, then this Hand-powered 2-way Radio will do the trick. A few cranks of the handle to charge it up, and then talk away! You can also listen to the AM/FM radio if you want to chill out to a little music too.

Now if you're camping, you've got to eat. If you don't want to take a load of picnicware with you on your journey, then this Bio-degradable Picnic Set can be discarded and it'll break down in a matter of weeks. No mess, no hassle and it doesn't harm the environment either!

This gadget is a real cracker. It's called the Sh*t Box. When nature calls, this collapsible cardboard-based toilet has special bags that go inside the box to allow you to discard the waste safely. You simply bury the bag and the waste, and it will biodegrade in a fairly short period of time. It saves using harmful chemicals too! Great for those music festivals I think.

So there you go, interesting and useful eco-friendly gadgets for your next camping trip!

This guest post was written by Daniel Harrison from Daily Eco Tips and EnviroGadget.com. Dan's a great fan of cool gadgets that actually benefit the planet. Dan also likes to help others to take a greener path in their life.

Less Taxes More Eco

I wonder whether adding compulsory eco taxes to our shop and hotel bills in holiday hotspots is really the answer. Lately I have had this experience in a number of shops in mainland Europe where the price on the label is “touched-up” at the till to include an eco incentive.

Obviously, I have no particular objection to the gathering of funds for green projects; I just think that overall this could be done in a more sensible and less forceful way. It is true that in holiday destinations where there is an obvious duty to protect the environment, this money is needed, but it is also true that very seldom we get told where the money is going. How much of it will benefit the environment? How much of it will go to local projects? It does make you wonder how the whole process can be rendered more transparent and certainly less pushy. When the eco-tax made its way to the Balearic Islands for instance, and money started to pour in, there wasn’t even an obligation to talk about where it would eventually go; in some cases it hadn’t even been decided.

I think that sometimes people do make the right decisions and genuinely want to help green projects, but local governments should really try and think of more creative ways of doing this other than just slapping miscellaneous charges onto our bills. The truth is that this type of activity actually does not benefit the green movement in the long run as people paying these extras begin to associate the word ECO with the word TAX!