"Going green" seems to be all the rage these days. Stores and companies use phrases like this to promote their businesses as eco-friendly. It makes sense to try to live in a way that does not harm the environment, but is it easy to go green? In your home, for example, do you always unplug your TV when you aren't watching it? Do stores in your neighborhood always keep their doors shut when the heaters or air conditioners are on? Probably not. Some innovators have taken on the challenge of "going green," and have come up with some brilliant ideas to make "going green" easier and simpler.

Reuse: Oldies but goodies! Everyone has things that are no longer of any use, and chances are, those things will eventually get thrown away. However, some of the things that get thrown out are still useful to other people. Goedzak is a Dutch way of allowing people to get second-hand things that might otherwise be thrown away. It is a special garbage bag that can be filled with used, but still usable items. Placing the bag outside on the pavement makes whatever is in it available to anyone in the community. Goedzak's bright color attracts attention while the transparent side of the bag reveals its contents. People can help themselves to anything they like. What an idea! These transparent garbage containers have helped many Dutch people go greener by reducing the amount of trash going to landfills.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations, a third of global food production goes into trash bins annually. In Germany alone, around eleven million tons of food are wasted every year. Having been founded to tackle this problem on a local scale, the online platform, "foodsharing.de" allows extra food in your fridge or cupboard to be distributed to neighbors. The basic concept is simple: people sharing food. The only rule is not to pass anything on to others that you wouldn't eat yourself. This project may change the way people think about food: if food is not shared, it is wasted.

Using disposable cups may be convenient, but it is not necessarily eco-friendly. They are a massive source of waste. Every year, people in the U.S. use over 100 billion disposable cups, and Koreans dispose of over 15 billion cups each year. That's what drove a few novel designers to come up with edible coffee cups. A cookie forms the main structure, with a white chocolate layer on the inside and a thin layer of sugar paper on the outside. This structure allows you to drink coffee without finding yourself holding a soaked mess. You can think of it as a treat for coffee! You may have to consume extra sugar, but it will definitely create less waste.

What can you do to go green when you have 500 photocopies to make? Many green strategies focus on using less paper, like printing on both sides. Another green strategy is to use less ink, which is what many people already do. But what if you could take it a step further? That's what Ecofont is. A designer thought that if he could create fonts that have tiny holes in them, he might be able to make more efficient use of the amount of ink used. In fact, Ecofont uses about a fifth less ink than traditional fonts without ruining readability. The brilliance of Ecofont is the different perspective it takes on going green: the use of less ink by the font. An eco-friendly way of life is not about changing the entire world overnight. It is about becoming aware of your own wasteful ways and then helping others become aware of theirs. After awareness comes the process of adopting slightly different ways of doing some daily tasks. When you do these things, you are keeping your environmental bank account full. When you go one step further and help others do them too, you are an activist and big changes can happen

Every year thousands upon thousands of tons of electronics, from air conditioners to smartphones, are thrown out. This adds up to huge amounts of waste which has to be managed, especially for smaller countries like Korea. Is it possible that electronics waste is actually a resource? Like a mine in the ground, many people are beginning to think of electronics waste as "urban mines" because of the amount of gold, silver, copper, plastic, and steel that is waiting to be used again. To manufacture electronics products, resources such as gold, silver, copper, glass, plastic, and steel must be mined, purchased, or produced. As resources become harder to get, urban mines may become a more economical solution. About one ton of rock must be dug up in a mine to get around five grams of gold; however, one ton of mobile phones may contain around 300 grams of gold, in addition to other recoverable materials.

The potential value of urban mines increases when resources become expensive and waste is not recycled. Although electronics waste may be seen from an economic point of view, there is another side to this story: the environmental issue. Recycling electronics waste can lower ecological damage from traditional mines and decrease air pollution from transporting materials over long distances. Moving forward does not always mean making new things; sometimes looking at an old problem from a new perspective is the simplest solution.

On October 13, 2010, thirty three Chilean miners who had been buried inside the San Jose mine 69 days were finally rescued. It was a triumph of engineering and a victory of faith. The miners locked in below did not give up in the dark, nor did their families above ground surrender to despair. On August 5, 2010, at around lunch break, miners digging for copper and gold started to feel vibrations in the earth. Almost immediately after the vibrations began, they heard a sudden huge explosion, and the whole mine filled up with dust and rock. A massive piece of the nearby mountain had broken off, burying almost all the layers of the mine.

For seventeen days after the initial collapse, there was no word on their fate. As the days passed, Chileans grew increasingly uncertain that any of the miners had survived. A small exploratory hole was drilled on August 22, and the camera captured a message that said, "We are still alive." It was the first sign of hope. Soon, a video camera was sent down 700 meters deep and capture the first images of the miners, all clearly in good health. The discovery sparked joyful celebrations nationwide, and rescue efforts gave a light of hope that the miners could be saved.

The miners were lucky to have an air tunnel that allowed enough fresh air to reach them. They also had broken trucks from which they could charge the batteries of their head lamps. In addition, they were able to drink water from storage tanks nearby. Until the tunnel to deliver food and medicine was operational, food was the most critical issue in the shelter. They only had enough food for two days. For eighteen days, each person had to live on two spoonfuls of tuna, a mouthful of milk, bits of crackers, and a bite of canned fruit every other day. Another factor which bothered the miners severely was the high heat and humidity of the shelter. Each miner had lost an average of 8 kilograms by the time they were rescued. The miners united as a group soon after the collapse. They organized themselves into a society where each person had one vote. They all knew that if their social structure broke down, their problems would become more serious and did what they could do best. For example, Jose Henriquez, a religious man, tried to keep morale up, and Yonni Barrios, who had had some medical training, helped other miners with their health problems.

On October 9, a rescue hole was finally drilled through to the miners in their shelter. It created a tunnel large enough to lift them one by one. For this purpose, a specially designed capsule was built. More than 1,400 news reporters from all over the world, together with the family members of the miners, gathered to watch the rescue process. On October 12, the first rescue worker was sent downward to the miners, who greeted him with nervous relief. Soon, the first trapped miner was raised to the surface. One by one, the miners were brought up in the capsule to see the sunlight.

Upon leaving the capsule, each miner was enthusiastically greeted, but they could not see their families right away. They had been trapped for so long that their first priority was to get medical attention. Luis Urzua, who had taken a major role as a democratic leader while underground, was the last one to come up to the surface on October 13. The 69 days during which we tried so hard were not useless. We wanted to live for our families, and that was the greatest thing, Urzua said to the Chilean people after his rescue. Then, the rescuers and the rescued began singing the Chilean national anthem with the thousands of joyous people who came to support the operation, celebrating the heroics and the humanity of all those involved.

The rescue capsule Fenix was designed by the Chilean Navy in collaboration with NASA to rescue the 33 miners trapped underground in Chile's San Jose copper mine. Painted in the red, white, and blue colors of Chile, the Fenix looked like a military missile. The device was nearly 3.95 meters high on the outside, and the inside was 1.9 meters high and about 51 centimeters across, which was just enough room for an adult male. When mobilized by the rescue team, the Fenix was equipped with an emergency oxygen supply. The bottom of the capsule held three tanks of air, which would provide enough air for one person to breathe for about 90 minutes. This amount of air was more than needed for the 15 to 20 minutes that the trip to the surface was expected to take. It also had a communication system so that the miners could speak to the surface while being lifted up. In an emergency, such as the capsule getting stuck in the rescue hole, the bottom could be opened from the inside so that the miner could be lowered back down to the shelter. Thanks to the capsule and the organized rescue efforts, the miners put an end to their life of darkness. When thery stepped out of the capsule door to meet their loved ones, the designers of the Fenix shared in the joy; their efforts resulted in the saving of 33 lives.