Upon entering the home of my friend Gary I noticed he proudly displayed large gallon jugs of booze. The jugs were of course empty, and served as a pleasant reminder of his conquests. Gary isn’t the only friend of mine who proudly displays his empty bottles like trophies. A lot of people do. Maybe my friends are just alcoholics, maybe its a college thing. Whatever the reason, I’ve prepared a useful how-to on turning those empty bottles in surround sound speakers. With a good sound system in place, and plenty of alcohol at hand this is one how-to thats sure to land you in the sack!

Alright first things first. Gather six empty one gallon glass bottles. They don’t have to be wine/liquor bottles but hey why not, plus I could think of a few creative uses for the booze! Alright now that you got the bottles in place, and most likely a hangover lets get started on building these speakers!

The How-to Part

1. Take working speakers out of old ugly speaker boxes you found on the side of the road/inherited from your Uncle Ned.
2. Alright now utilizing a professional glass cutting kit or a professional glass cutter, cut holes in the bottom of each speaker.
3. A fix said old speakers to inside of bottle using silicone.

How you chose to mount your speakers is your choice. You can easily create a base by buying some plastic tubing, and mounting the tubes onto a sturdy object. From here simply call over some friends, get drunk, and well have a good time!

via: Carlo Rossi

When applying pesticides the wind can carry these harmful chemicals as far as 14.5 miles allowing them to settle in your pool, on your lawn furniture, or on your children’s toys. Upon settling these pesticides can then be easily tracked inside your home by both people, and pets. Once inside your home these chemicals can be absorbed through your skin, or inhaled leading to such adverse effects as birth defects in children, allergies, and even a decreased sperm count.

The Problem

Slugs pose a major threat to any garden, not only do they deplete your soil of vital nutrients but they also consume plant material which can lead to the death of a plant. Removing of the slugs by hand is both tedious and at times ineffective. With no other alternatives to turn to many gardeners use pesticides to rid their garden of slugs.

The Solution

Instead of using pesticides the solution below offer a viable alternative.  It’s simple, effective, and environmentally friendly! Best of all you only need a can of beer, and some empty glass jars to follow through on it. Even better you can use the left over beer to make fertilizer.

How To Do It

1. Pour some beer into an empty jar or can. Jelly jars work perfect.
2. Place the jar into the soil, with the rim of the jar at ground level.
3. The slugs will plop in for a drink but won’t be able to escape.

How It Works

The slugs are lured in by the sweet aroma of the beer, they crawl or slide into the glass thus meeting their demise.

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Hydroponics, besides being a popular 311 song is also an ideal method for growing plants indoors using minerals and nutrient rich solutions instead of soil. The use of hydroponics by the Babylonians actually dates as far back as the 12th century. The hydroponics system were going to create today will actually put all those plastic, paper, and styrofoam cups you you pick up on your midnight munchie runs to good use.

Why You Should Do This

Over 1 million styrofoam cups are used per day in the US alone, that almost as bad all those tires stock piled at your local junkyard. These cups can take up to 50 years to decompose, and worst of all as they decompose they release toxic methane gas termed biogas into the air that has 21 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide.

Gather the following items

• A container like the black one pictured above
• Stryfoam cups (15-20 would be ideal)
• A sheet of stryofoam
• A pocket knife to cut the holes out with
• Water
• Jiffy peat pellets, you can find these at a hardware store
• Miracle grow, again at a hardware store
• Seeds, what kind you use is up to you…

How to build this

1. Create a template to cut your holes out with. Place your template over your Stryofoam sheet and cut out our your holes.

2. Tear holes in the bottom corner of each cup.

3. Drop your peat pellets into each cup.

4. Mix the miracle grow as stated on the directions

5. Alright now pour the miracle grow into your container. Next place your Stryofoam sheet on top of the solution (it will kind of float). Next place yours cups with the peat pellets in each hole.

6. Alright wait an hour for the peat pellets to swell then sprinkle your seeds in each cup.

Final Thoughts

Going green should be fun. How you plan to use your hydroponic system is up to you. Personally I plan on putting some praying mantis in mine just because I think they are sweet. Send me your photo’s of your setup, I’d love to see them and will post them on my site. This article helped me put together this piece, and I would suggest it as an additional source of information on hydroponics.

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In 2003 alone the U.S. generated more then 290 million tires. With an average lifespan of about five years unless recycled these tires will end up in the trash dump where they will take thousands of years to decompose. As the tires do decompose they will release harmful methane gas into the air, and worst of all create a toxic sludge that could seep into our waterways like your poop. With such an abundance of used tires why not use them for something useful like making a pair of sandals?

Why You Should Do This

1. The pair I test drove are far more comfortable then any store bought pair I have ever owned.
2. Why drop $80 bucks on a pair of Teva’s when you can make your own for free!
3. Your doing your part to reduce waste and make this world a better place. For that you earn my green seal of approval.

You’ll Need These Items

• An old tire, truck tires work best and should be wide enough to create a shoe even for Shaq (get the kind without steel cables running through it)
• A newspaper and pencil
• A knife or chisel
• A whole lot patience

Making Your Sandals

Making the sandals can be divided into three sections

1. Creating your template
2. Cutting out your sandal
3. Finishing up

Creating your Sandal Template

1. Place your foot on a newspaper and trace around it keeping your pencil upright.
2. Mark the point where your ankle starts on both the inside and outside of your foot and label it point A. Also mark the point where your big toe connects to your foot and label it point B. Likewise mark the spot where your little toe connects to your foot and label it point B as well.
3. Trace around your foot. Leave about 3/8 inch of leeway on the sides and in front of the toes. In the back of your foot the line should connect with outline of your foot.
4. Using a ruler find the middle of your foot and draw a line through it, extend it three inches past the outline of your foot. Also connect point A to point A and point B to point B. Extend these lines 3 inches past your outline as well.
5. Finally sketch the tabs of the sandal as shown in the diagram. Also sketch the buckle. Click on the image to zoom in on it.
6. Finally cut out your template.

Cutting your sandal

1. Alright place your template inside of a tire. I suggest gluing it down to hold it in place while you cut it out. You can also trace it with chalk or a white sharpie.
2. Next cut the template out. There are a few ways of doing this, by far the best way is to cut as much as you can using a bandsaw or jigsaw. From there use a pocket knife of chisel to carefully mold the shape of your sandals.

Finishing Up

1. Sand down any ruff areas. If your tabs don’t flex inward slice away at the point where the tab meets the insole to allow it to flew.
2. Grab some straps from your local hardware store or Office supply store and thread it through your tabs. I actually suggest using velcro straps which can be purchased at an arts and crafts stores.
3. Finally repeat for the other foot!

Final Thoughts

I referenced this article while putting together this post, if you have any other questions here would be a good place to start. Your new sandals should now be ready to use. Let me know how they turned out.

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During rainstorms chemical fertilizers wash off your lawn and drain into streams and rivers. Once in our waterways these fertilizers over-promote algae growth that rob our streams and rivers of vital oxygen resulting in the death of fish and other aquatic life. Even worse those chemicals can end up in our beaches or drinking water. Unlike their toxic counterparts your homemade fertilizer made with beer will not only save you cash but will also help the environment, plus it works really good. So grab the following ingredients and get started!

Gather Up The Ingredients

• A watering can (like the ones old ladies use to water their flowers)
• A cup of Epsom salt. You should be able to pick some up at your local pharmacy.
• A six pack of beer. You only need one can to make the fertilizer but I figured why not pick up some extras for that solar powered heater made of beer cans your already building.
• One cup of ammonia
• Some water. Duh.

The Mix

Alright now that you’ve got your ingredients and a good buzz going from the beer its time to start mixing it all together. Trust me its easier then making that pair of sandals.

1. Mix 1 can of beer, 1 cup of Epsom salt, 1 cup of ammonia, and 2 cups of water together in your watering can. If you’ve got a bigger lawn make sure you get one of those watering cans with a spray head so you can just spray the stuff on your lawn instead of walking up and down your lawn.
2. Stir your concoction with a stick, baseball bat, or any odd stirring device you have at your disposal.
3. Finally spray or pour your homemade fertilizer on to your lawn and or plants. Personally I wore a pair of cut off jeans and had AC/DC blaring in the background while I was fertilizing my plants but feel free to wear what you wish.

How It works

The beer actually helps feed the plants roots, while the Epsom salt will break up the ground near the plant helping it breathe. On top of that the ammonia will kill off any fungus or bacteria in the soil.

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What You’ll Need

• 50 aluminum cans. I know I didn’t have fifty cans lying around my house so I suggest you either stock pile up on cans for the next few weeks or head to your local liquor store and just buy them from the store clerk.
• A can of black spray paint. Feel free to test your graffiti skills on a basement wall whiles your at it. Note vegthreads will not be held responsible for your poor graffiti skills.
• Plastic tubing. Grab at least five feet from your local hardware store, more if you plan on pipping the heat your ugh beer heater generates further.
• Wood. Not that kind of wood! Two by fours and some plywood are what you want here.
• Something to make a hole in the cans with about the size of your thumb. A pocket knife works just fine here.

Alright guys now on to the fun part, drinking the beer! Ugh I mean building this beer heater generator thing.

How To Build it.

1. First use your wood to construct a wooden frame. The frame should roughly be about 50 inches by 15 inches. Next cut a piece of plywood this size and nail it to the back of the frame. what you should now have is something that looks like a shoe box missing its lid.
2. Alright next grab some caulk and run it along the edges to create a tight seal.
3. Now take your cans and create a hole about the size of your thumb in the bottom of 45 cans. Also remove the tab. For the remaining five cans poke a hole the same size right in the middle of the can where the Pepsi/Coke logo is. These cans will go on your bottom rack and will draw the air in.
4. Alright now start placing your cans inside the frame. Use caulk or super glue to hold them in place. Remember to put the five cans with holes in the middle on the bottom row. Likewise try to line up the hole in a cans bottom with the opening at the top of the can. When you get to the top row make sure you leave an inch of two of space so the air can flow to your outlet hole which you will drill next.
5. Alright almost done. Drill an outlet at the top of the frame the diameter of your plastic tubing and run the tubing to whatever location you want the heat to go.
6. This is the point where I spray painted by cans. You really can spray paint the cans at whatever stage you like but I chose this point because all the cans were already nicely in place and I could easily spray paint the frame while I was at.
7. Your done! Just put your heater unit out in the sun and enjoy heated goodness to wherever you ran your pipping.

How It Works

Alright guys I no scientists but I sure the majority of you already know how this works. For those of you who don’t I’ll explain in 3 simple steps:

1. The air is drawn into the mechanism through the openings in the five bottom cans.
2. The sun heats the can and this heat is ultimately sealed at least somewhat inside of the can by the black paint. As the air passes through the cans the air in turn is heated as well.
3. Finally warm air rises so as the air heats up it travels out of heating mechanism to your desired location. Nifty eh?

What To Expect

If you thought our homemade Poop Composter performed great wait till you experience the rush of warm air put out by your beer solar heater thing a ma jigger. Typically you can expect the air to be about 15 degrees fahrenheit warmer then the air outside. Not bad eh? I have mine piped to warm my feet while I’m at my computer. The best part about all of this is your using useless items that would have ended up in the dump to make some useful. That’s ingenuity baby!

Additional Help

If you need anymore help just contact me or for a detailed how-to including photo’s just click here.

In the ever consumer driven society we live in people feel the need to define themselves by the products they purchase more and more. Well, I’m here to tell you something difference. You won’t find happiness in a bottle, and the best and easiest way to go green is to cut back on your consumption.

My recent article How To Compost Your Own Poop turned out to a big hit. That article has now been viewed by over 2,000 people. It turns out people must be very interested in learning ways they can compost their own poop eh? So sticking with our DIY nature todays article features ways to make all natural toothpaste with simple ingredients you already have lying around your house.

Gather the Following Ingredients

• Baking Soda
• Table Salt
• Water (note Designer Water not needed)
• Peppermint oil for taste (optional)
• Gylcerine (you can pick this stuff up from your local pharmacy or meth lab)

What To do

1. Mix three parts of baking soda with one part of table salt.
2. For every 1/4 cup of dry mixture made add 3 teaspoons of Gylcerine
3. Add enough water to make a thick paste (think caramel thick…mmm caramel). If your not into trying new things throw in a few drops of peppermint oil in to make your mixture taste like everything else on the store shelfs.
4. Now for the fun part, slap some of your new toothpaste on your brush and give it a whirl. Now you really don’t have an excuse for nasty chompers eh?
5. You can store you mixture like you would any old toothpaste.

Brush Those Teeth

Your finally done, now just get started on brushing those chompers. Should you have any questions about your new ultra sweet toothpaste feel free to Contact Me.

OK so maybe spring isn’t all that bad. Below you’ll find recipes to make green cleaning products with simple ingredients you probably already have at your house. So unless your outside pooping in your can lets get started!

Your Weapons of Choice

• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• Lemon Juice
• Ammonia
• Salt
• Borax
• Vegetable/Olive Oil
• Club Soda
• Tooth Paste
• Spray Bottles

Words Of Warning

• Always mix in a well ventilated area
• Always test a small area of cleaner on a product before you douse the whole thing with your green mix
• DON’T MIX BLEACH AND AMMONIA (the two combine to form chlorine gas which will lead to a slow and painful death if inhaled)

Shaking Things Up A Bit

Touchable Undies
- Do away with Febreze just add some vinegar to your rinse cycle

Clean Your Nuke-O-Matic
- Exploded Raman Noodles? No problem! Just mix 2 tablespoons of baking soda or lemon juice and 1 cup water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for five minutes or until the liquid boils and condensation builds up inside the microwave. Next wipe down with little brothes favorite shirt.
Waxing your Hog
- Polishing your pipes eh? Well squirt some toothpaste on em to make your chrome shine.

Dirty China?
- Add 1 1/2 cups of vinegar to the rinse compartment of your dishwasher and you finally might be able to see your reflection in that spoon.

Kick Butt Concoctions

Glass Cleaner
Has your girlfriend attempted to claim her territory by smudging in her name on to your car window? Remind her who boss by mixing 1 gallon of water, 1/2 cup white vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish detergent in a spray bottle to remove her tracks

Hit the Deck Mate
Mix a 1/2 cup white vinegar with a 1/2 cup vegetable oil for floor so smooth you’ll be able to do the moonwalk!

Polish That Fake Wood Chair From IKEA
In a spray bottle mix 1 cup vegetable or olive oil1/2 cup lemon juice and add some elbow grease and an old AC/DC tee-shirt and you just might fool someone into thinking its real wood.

The Best Multi-Purpose Deep Cleaner Ever
Just mix 1 cup household ammonia, 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup baking soda, and 1 gallon warm water in a five gallon bucket to reach cleaning nirvana.

Cell phones are a growing problem, not a growing problem like that zit on your nose. Rather a growing problem like the fact that in 2005 over 130 million cell phones ended up in the dump. If you whip out your abacus to do the math that’s over 65,000 tons of waste per year. The sad part is currently only 2% of cell phones are recycled.

Why Its a Problem

Cell phones contain hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic, and you thought your Uncle Eddies Moonshine was some potent stuff. If you throw your old cell phone in the trash its destined for the incinerator where upon combustion dangerous gases will be spewed into our atmosphere. Even worse, your cellphone could end up in a landfill where those harmful chemicals will leak into the soil and ultimately contaminate our groundwater.

What You Can Do About It

The good news is you can make a difference. Unlike the election of 2004 your vote actually does count in these matters. By recycling your old cell phone you can do your part to reduce waste, and avoid adding anymore toxic substances to the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Where To Recycle

If you type recycle my cell phone into Google you will get thousands of hits. Like everything else recycling unfortunately has become a big business. Be wary of companies that will only recycle specific makes or models of cell phones, these companies are most likely only out to make a buck.

Also be sure to ask the question what happens to my cell phone? If the recycling agency simply takes the parts they need out of your cell phone and then pitches the rest your not doing the environment any favors. Personally, I have dealt with Recycle My Cell Phone and have had a pleasant experience. They have been upfront with what they do with your old cell phone upon receiving it, and pledge to live up to the highest environmental standards possible.

Lets Hear About Your Experiences

If you’ve dealt with any cell phone recycling organizations we want to hear about it! Was the experience positive? Would you recommend the organization to others?

Why You Should Do It

Did you know each year your little [insert cute pet name here] contributes to over 10 million tons of waste? And I’m not talking about dog biscuits here either, we’re talking about poop baby. If your pets generate that much waste imagine how much humans must generate. Well I don’t have a number for ya but in Rwanda this prison powers its entire facility with human waste. If prisoners in Rwanda can generate enough poop to power their facilities I’d imagine Americans should be able to generate enough poop to power the entire Las Vegas Strip.

Composting your pets poops is especially important because typically the poop either ends up permanently embalmed in plastic bags at a garbage dumps or sits on the ground until the next rainstorm washes it to the sewer where it drifts to our rivers and beaches. Note if you poop outside then it is especially important you compost your poop as well. By composting your own poop and taking our Seven Day Challenge you’ll be well on your way to earning the title of eco-chic.

How to Do It

If the thought of swimming in poop the next time you go to your local beach kind of grosses you out then read on to learn how to compost Fido’s poop or maybe even your own!

1. First grab an old garbage can. Plastic or metal will both work fine.
2. Next drill about 12-15 holes in the side of the can. The holes should be big enough for you to fit your finger through.
3. After that cut out the bottom of the garbage can. A keyhole saw is the tool of choice here.
4. Alright now find a level patch of land where you can dig a hole for your compost can. A spot behind the garage works just fine, if your neighbor spots you inform her you haven’t killed anyone.
5. Time to get down and dirty. Whip out the shovel and dig a can sized hole. The compost can should stick out about 6 to 12 inches above ground level.
6. Put your can in the hole (duh) next throw some rocks in the bottom for drainage, you can use old cement as well. The layer of rocks should stand about 12 to 16 inches tall.
7. Now throw some poop along with some septic starter in to your hole. You can pick up the septic starter at any hardware store.

Finishing Up (Not Literally)

It takes about 48 hours for the septic starter to start working. From there you can poop in your hole daily. The waste will then biodegrade and flow back into the subsoil. Since your pets poop can often contain E. coil its not recommended that you use the manure in your garden. Make sure you put the lid back on the can as well as you wouldn’t want any of your drunken friends accidentally falling in there. Now onto the hard part, getting your girlfriend to poop in the can.