Except perhaps in the bathroom, do you really need any kind of paper? These days it seems like paper is just an intermediate step or default conclusion - a copy that will eventually be scanned in or a digitally written paper printed out at the end. Still, is paperless the solution to environmental problems or simply wasteful in another way?

Some families are choosing to go entirely paperless though this choice isn’t necessarily a complete fix for the environment: paperless lists, games, educational tools and other devices still require energy to run. Also, with the virtually unlimited supply of information online and in digital form many people don’t think twice about printing out a copy for temporary use and then discarding it.

Also, while paper use is decreasing in many developed countries there are many places in the world where paper use is still on the rise, such as China and South America. Hopefully as paperless approaches become more the norm at work and at home energy efficiency can be increased and the world will begin to adjust to the new technologies without needing to print out unnecessary hard copies.

More at TreeHugger and the New York Times

When it comes to vehicles, green can mean many things. Many supposedly environmentally friendly vehicles also aren’t as green as people might assume at first glance. These three articles provide some facts, figures and humorous anecdotes about what it really means to go green.

Everything You Know about Green Cars is Wrong: Much of what you think you know about “clean cars” is wrong, misinformation spread by word of mouth and unreliable blogs (not including this one). Here are some of the prime misconceptions, with corrections applied:

More On Coskata’s $1 per Gallon Ethanol: The Coskata process that GM is promoting can use a wide range of different feedstocks to produce ethanol. Materials ranging from agricultural waste to purpose grown crops that can be raised on marginal lands (switchgrass being the most widely known example of this) to waste materials such as old tires and even municipal waste streams can all be used as the raw materials that can be turned into ethanol with very little to zero landfill waste.

Top 5 Unusually Green Vehicles of 2007: As demand for environmental alternatives grows, some green-thinking automotive designers have gone above and beyond simple hybrid or energy-efficient cars to develop radically creative green vehicles in many senses of the word. Here are five of the most interesting, innovative, strange and downright bizarre green concept vehicles developed this past year.

Electric scooters are something we’ve come to expect, just like hybrid cars and electric buses, but what about a solar airplane? Yes, the jokes about cloudy days in the sky will no doubt abound, but the endeavor is entirely serious. From concept to construction, the Solar Impulse has been hailed as a savior—the first major attempt to fly a plane without fuel, with eco-eyes set on a sun-powered trip around the globe. And for record-setting adventurer Bertrand Piccard Monday’s unveiling of its prototype was a long time coming: He showed off a mock-up of the Solar Impulse at the 2005 Paris Airshow, but now the 201-ft. plane is set for a test flight next fall. What’s next, a wind-powered submarine?

If you can’t afford to buy your own tropical island paradise, why not build your own? That is exactly what Richie Sowa did back in 1998, from over a quarter-million plastic bottles. His Spiral Island, destroyed years later by a hurricane, sported a two-story house, solar oven, self-composting toilet and multiple beaches. Better yet, he has started building another one! His ultimate goal? To build the island bigger and bigger and finally float out to sea, traveling the world from the comfort of his own private paradise.

The original Spiral Island was (as its successor will be) built upon a floating collection used plastic bottles, all netted together to support a bamboo and plywood structure above. Located in Mexico, the original was 66 by 54 feet and was able to support full-sized mangroves to provide shade and privacy, yet also able to be moved from place to place by its creator as need with a simple motorized system.

An environmentalist to the core, Sowa is also an artist and a musician. More than just the universal dream of an island retreat, Spiral Island is also his vision for low-impact sustainable living. The next version of the island will be built to withstand more treacherous weather than the first and will also be located in a more sheltered part of Mexico’s waters.

The Above Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not video is a great introduction to the island, which conjures images of Gilligan-done-right. Spiral island is able to exist and move about in Mexico in part because it is classified as a ship, not an island, like an atoll out of WaterWorld (only much much cooler). On September 7, 2007 the new Spiral Islander social network utility was opened to the public to allow visitors, Spiral Islanders and friends of Richie Sowa to connect and communicate about the history of Spiral Island and to learn more and discuss Richie Sowa’s new Spiral Island. Want more islands? See these 7 Island Wonders of the World from WebUrbanist.

The best sustainable technologies often come from the most unlikely sources, and the BituBlock is certainly no exception. Composed of post-consumer waste from glass to ash to sewage, this powerful innovation rivals concrete in its structural properties.

• The increased demand for reuse/recycling of waste materials from national regulations and EU directives, as well as the issue of sustainable utilisation of primary materials and waste requires the compliance from the construction sector. Therefore, the development and use of construction materials with high recycle content is considered essential.

• Trials investigated the production of bitumenous blocks using two different types of bitumen (50 penetration bitumen and harder H 80/90 bitumen) and waste materials such as crushed glass, pulverised fuel ash (PFA), incinerated sewage sludge ash (ISSA) and steel slag.

The BituBlock does everything a good environmental product should do: conserving resources, reducing emissions and replacing a less sustainable but widely used technology. The BituBlock was developed by Dr. John Forth of the University of Leeds and his team and, with luck, will soon become a widely used product as it becomes more trendy (and lucrative) for architects and developers to go green.