Great idea! Staples are supposed to be so bad to the environment that a company decided to create a staple-free stapler. This product promises to make collation eco-friendly. Instead of using those thin metal planet-killers, the staple-free stapler “cuts out tiny strips of paper and uses the strips to stitch up to five pieces of paper together.” You can even order them customized with your corporate logo so you can, you know, brag about what your company is doing to stop the staple epidemic.

Back in Sept. a New York man was saved from certain death after jumping from a 40th floor building only to land in the back seat of a car.  And now a man who jumped out of a ninth-floor window in New York was alive on Monday after he landed in a giant heap of trash uncollected since the city’s huge snowstorm a week ago.

Vangelis Kapatos, 26, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after jumping from his apartment in midtown Manhattan on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

Sanitation workers have not collected trash since the December 26 storm dumped more than a foot and a half of snow on the city. Mounds of garbage several feet high line many sidewalks.

“Everybody is complaining that the trash hasn’t been picked up,” Kapatos’ aunt said on Monday. “But me, I’m thankful that it was never picked up.”

Police said the trash bags below broke Kapatos’ fall and that he left no suicide note before jumping.

The Department of Sanitation, which was only resuming garbage collection on Monday, estimates 77,000 tons of trash had been left uncollected since the storm.

Katharina Capatos, who spells her surname differently from her nephew, told Reuters he was severely depressed and had spent a month in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital before being released last week.

He also was worried about the possibility of being evicted from his $572-a-month rent-stabilized apartment, she said.

Kapatos’ eviction hearing was scheduled to proceed on Tuesday, according to the New York City Housing Court.

Gotta love this UK built car, the British-built Nissan Leaf which offers 2.5p a mile motoring has become the first all-electric vehicle to be crowned European ‘Car of the Year’ for 2011.

There have been some people in the green movement saying that China and it’s huge population have not been doing enough to help the environment, but this story points in the exact opposite direction.

In many academic, policy and business circles, the term “clean tech” is synonymous with renewable energy. While renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind and biofuel are a critical component of a more sustainable world, the race to lead in their development has the U.S. pulling up lame. Political games and malign neglect continue to stall comprehensive clean energy policy in the U.S., and the rest of the world is seizing the opportunity to shift the balance of green power.

A recently released Ernst & Young (E&Y) report on the attractiveness of renewable energy investment has China trumping the U.S. By almost doubling the U.S. in spending on clean energy projects, China took the reins as the world’s No. 1 country for investing in renewables. Other top-1o countries included European renewable energy stalwarts such as Germany and Spain, and India notably securing the 4th leading spot on the E&Y Index. With the ascent of China and India and a steadfast commitment to renewables throughout much of Europe, the U.S. may soon be left wondering what happened to its lunch.

read the rest of the story on reuters