This clever kit puts all the survival gear you need for camping trips or — more hazardous yet, dorm life! — into a space that’s only 8 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Better yet, that package is a shatter-resistant, leakproof, 32-ounce water bottle (with the lid on a loop so you don’t go losing it in the wilderness.

The water bottle comes stuffed with a nice selection of emergency essentials:

• Whistle
• Flashlight with AAA batteries
• Emergency blanket
• Rain poncho
• Multi-purpose knife with blade, scissors, nail file, tweezers and toothpick
• Waterproof matches
• Nylon-pouch first-aid kit with bandages
• Sting relief pad, antiseptic towelettes and zip-lock bag
• 3″ carabiner

Not bad at all — safety and convenience, for under twenty bucks!
A nifty gift idea from EddieBauer.com.

SIGG Switzerland, the company that makes my favourite reusable beverage bottle, is turning 100 years old — and they’re planning an online celebration with a great green theme, celebrity chat, and a chance to win a trip to Hawaii.

To mark this milestone, SIGG Switzerland, along with Laurie David’s StopGlobalWarming.org, will launch www.sigg100.com and explore the 100 Top Eco-Moments of the past century.

From February 11 – April 22, 2008 (Earth Day), SIGG will unveil 10 historical eco-moments every week.

Visitors to www.sigg100.com are invited to vote on the most significant eco-moments for a chance to win a free trip to Hawaii for the Kokua Festival, with accommodations provided for by Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort and Spa.

Environmentalist celebrities will be turning up to chat with site visitors, too, through a bi-monthly Q&A series. It kicks off with the Academy Award winning producer and author Laurie David on February 12th at 2pm PST.

Other chat hosts will include actor and activist Ed Begley Jr.; the Oprah Winfrey show and NBC Nightly News environmental contributor P. Simran Sethi; the founder of EcoFabulous.com and Domino Magazine’s eco-editor Zem Joaquin; and Executive Director of Healthy Child Healthy World, Christopher Gavigan.

This is a limited-time event, remember! SIGG’s 100-year celebration starts tomorrow, 11 February, and will wrap up on Earth Day, 22 April, 2008.

You may know by now that I’m a big SIGG fan on a daily basis, but I have to confess that I am not without sin.

The hard truth is, in the real world, every so often you just end up having to buy some beverage that comes in a plastic bottle. (Big family-sized pop bottles for a birthday party, for example, or a bottle of water when you’re stuck in an airport queue for hours on end.)

And the beverage bottle issue comes up again, just now, with yet another news story about the growing waste problem caused by the North American passion for bottled water. Some municipalities are talking of a ban on bottled water, it’s that big an issue! (But what about other bottled beverages, I do wonder…?)

I don’t get many of these bottles, true, but it’s good to try to reuse the ones that do come into my hands.

Okay, then —

• Refill the empties with other beverages?

• Freeze water in them to act as a cold-pack in a picnic basket?

But then, what?

Bird feeding station

I’ve got a little gadget that converts a 2-litre bottle to a bird feeder, and that’s better than nothing — although it’s very far from being squirrel-proof, and it tends to spray birdseed around if caught in a good brisk wind.

Slow-release watering system

A more practical gadget is a spike with holes in it that screws onto the top of a soft drink bottle filled with water. You poke it into the garden or planter, and it’ll release the water down at the plant’s root zone, to keep everything green and happy when you abandon your garden for a few days away. (My mother has a half-dozen of those, for her big pots of geraniums on the sunny deck. The plants are big and bushy enough to hide a 750ml or 1-litre bottle, just fine.)

Instant watering can

Now here’s another interesting bottle conversion: Twist & Spout comes in two versions, for kitchen and garden (the difference is in the size of the spout.)

In the kitchen, the twist-on handle and spout makes a big fat beverage bottle a bit easier to handle and pour, especially for little people with small hands. In the garden (or among the house plants, for that matter) the attachment turns an old bottle into an instant watering can.

Twist & Spout fits “virtually any soda or water bottle with a screw-on cap” and goes for $5.99 at Perpetual Kid.

I’m in two minds about this kind of product, to be honest —

Should we buy another piece of plastic just to make it easier to reuse the first one? But if it kept you from buying a plastic watering can, would that balance out the plastic-consumption equation? Oh, but hey! Is the Twist & Spout made of recycled post-consumer plastic, by any chance? They don’t say on the sales page… but if it was, that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?

Sheesh.
As the frog said, “It’s not easy being green.”

[via The Green Head, who also prefers a stylish reusable aluminum bottle.]

Look no further than the Outward Hound line, if you want to keep your dog happy and comfortable on your summertime outdoor adventures — whether you’re camping in the bush or just enjoying the wilds of your own back yard.

I couldn’t do without the Port-a-Bowl, for instance, a vinyl-lined canvas bowl that crushes easily into a back pocket or knapsack, ready for use when my dogs get thirsty or ready for food. When it gets grungy, I just throw it into the washer with my jeans.

Friends who are serious hikers introduced me to Outward Hound — they swear by the doggie saddlebags, and their Lab is plenty big enough to carry his own supplies. Dog life jackets are available for the boating enthusiast, brilliantly designed fanny packs and bags, pet carriers of various sorts, and safety vests for the roadside walker’s dog.

In these hot summer days, however, I’m looking closely at several good ideas in the temperature-control line. Shade shelters, for example, are little screened tents like portable doghouses: cute and practical. There are also products they call Hydration Systems — a little water-filled backpack (the dog carries his own water supply!) with a special bite-valve for multiple uses — or the Bowl-and-Bottle bag, if you want to carry the water yourself.

My favourite hot-dog product, and the next thing on my shopping list, is Outward Bound’s Cooling Bandana, “a stylish way to keep your pet cool.” The bandana is filled with tiny non-toxic polymer beads that absorb up to 30 times their weight in cold water, and fastens around the dog’s neck with a Velcro fastener, to keep the dog cool for hours. I should have thought of this myself — I picked up the human version for myself about three years ago!