Some clever inventions and plain good ideas mean green living can be both fun and at the cutting edge of style and design. 4Homes brings you our top 5 Eco products for the home.
By Louise Matthews
Fruit Powered Clock
Digital timekeeping with no batteries but either a lemon, orange, apple or any other fresh fruit which comes to hand. Apart from looking impressive, this is a good chance to explain to any youngsters some basic scientific principles. The fruit-powered clock basically replicates the first 'experiment' which eventually gave rise to the electrical storage battery. The hidden secret is copper and zinc components - and the acid in the fruit. The clock retails at £10.95 from Ecotopia.
This award-winning, stylish machine produces the pressure needed to make cafe style coffee at home, manually. After putting your favourite coffee in the steel filter, you pour boiling water into the heat proof cylinder at the top. Then you lift the lever arms, place your coffee cup into position and lower the arms, trapping air and forcing water through the coffee at high pressure into your waiting cup. 'Press' is made from solid, polished aluminium. It is available from ecoutlet at £59.99.
If you do need to electrically boil water (for your coffee machine or anything else) then this clever kettle takes the guesswork and hassle out of only boiling as much as you need. This is important when you consider 67 per cent of UK householders habitually boil more water than is needed in the kettle says the Energy Savings Trust.
The Eco Kettle looks just like a stylish electric jug kettle in appearance but it has a special feature that allows you to fill the kettle to its maximum 1.5 litres, yet only boil one to eight cups according to your needs.
An internal reservoir holds all the water, while at the touch of a button you can release whatever quantity, from a single cupful to the lot, needed into a separate boiling chamber. You can get one from various outlets, but the cheapest we found was from the World Wildlife Fund at £29.99.
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