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Make your Own iPod Case
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Written by Greeniac24
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| Tuesday, 01 July 2008 | ||||
Make your Own iPod CaseReusing old clothing fabric to make a cover for your mp3 player may seem more like an arts and crafts project than an environmentally friendly action, but it can be quite helpful for the planet. Making your own cover instead purchasing one, saves resources that would otherwise be used to manufacture one in a factory. You'll also save money and lengthen the lifespan of your device! BENEFITS for the Environment: Making fabric does a lot of damage to the environment through resource depletion, pollution, and energy use. In addition, man-made fabrics like nylon, polyester, and acrylic are made up of fossil fuels, which pollute the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Recycling a little fabric can go a long way. Protecting your mp3 player is also good for the environment since making your mp3 player last as long as possible will prevent you from buying unnecessary replacements. This is important because manufacturing these electronic devices requires mining natural resources and using large amounts of energy. In addition, mp3 players contain a variety of ‘heavy' metals such as lead, cadmium, and brominated flame-retardants that are hazardous and, when disposed of improperly, are emitted into the environment. BENEFITS for Your Wallet: Many mp3 player covers and sleeves can cost from $10-$30. When you make it yourself, you only need fabric and sewing materials. And because it's completely custom-made for your particular mp3 player, you won't need to pay extra for any custom design from a retailer. BENEFITS for Your MP3 Player: You put your unprotected mp3 player in your pocket, purse, backpack, and laptop bags. Each time, they'll be put next to other objects that might scratch, dent, and even break your mp3 player. The iPod nano, for example, has notoriously had a fragile screen which easily breaks. Protecting it with a cover can help keep it unscratched and damage-free. Cost: Low Using old fabric eliminates the need for additional spending and you probably already have most of the other materials around your house. Making your own cover is a good way to reuse fabric that would otherwise be rendered useless and thrown away. Time and effort: Moderate A pouch or cover is a relatively simple thing to make. If you want to do this by hand, it can take around half an hour. If you have a sewing machine and have had experience using it, it will only take several minutes. It is important to take proper care of your possessions in order to maximize their life span and thus reducing the need for replacements. By decreasing replacements you will also be reducing waste. Making Your MP3 Cover Materials: Scissors Thread Needle (or sewing machine) Used fabric that you like the look and feel of Paper Pen Button, Velcro, Snap Buttons Ruler Iron There are two kinds of covers you can make: 1. A temporary cover is a complete pouch in which you store your mp3 player while keeping it in your pocket, purse, or other bag. If you always find scratches on it from your keys or pens next to it, this is probably the best cover for you. 2. A permanent cover leaves the screen, interface, and any openings still accessible. The advantages of this are that your mp3 player is always protected. If you tend to drop it easily, this is probably the best cover for you. How to make a pouch for your mp3 player: 1. Use the paper and pencil to trace out the outline of the mp3 player. Place the mp3 player on the corner of the paper, so you only have to draw the other two lines. Cut out the outline. 2. Measure the last unmeasured dimension of the mp3 player, the depth. If you lay the mp3 player flat on the table, this is the height off the table. 3. Lay your used cloth on a clean, flat surface. Put the inside of the fabric (duller and less colored) facing up. 4. To cut the right length of the material, consider the longer side of your paper outline as a unit. Measure two of these units along the cloth and add 2-5 inches on one of them and 1 inch on the other. Look at the depth of your mp3 player. The shorter the depth, the longer one side should be compared to the other side, in order to be as tight as possible. These will become the lengths of two pieces of fabric. Mark the lines with a ruler as parallel as possible to the other edge of the fabric. 5. To cut the width of the material, just trace the width of the outline on the cloth once and add ¾ of an inch to 1 inch. Mark this line with a ruler. 6. Now you should have an outline for the pouch. Place your mp3 player in the center of the outline. There should be about 3/8th of an inch on each side for the seam. If there is too much or too little, adjust the lines on the fabric until they seem like they'd work. 7. Cut the fabric out along the new lines. Place the shorter piece onto the longer piece, with the inside of the fabric facing outward (so the seams don't show on the outside). 8. Choose a thread that matches closely with the fabric. Sew the vertical edges together, leaving only the opening and the flap. Backstitch (sew over again in reverse direction) areas near the opening, to make it sturdier to flip inside out. 9. Flip the fabric inside out. To make it look more seamless, iron the seams thoroughly. 10. Decide how you want to fasten your pouch. If you decide to make it with velcro, you can either iron it on (with iron-on versions) or sew it on. If you decide to make it with buttons or snap buttons, you can sew these on as well. 11. Put your mp3 player inside and close the flap. Enjoy! How to make a permanent cover for your mp3 player: 1. Lay the mp3 player flat face down on the piece of paper. Using a pencil, outline the edges onto the paper. Turn the mp3 player onto one side, and outline it adjacent to the first. Lay the mp3 player flat again and turn it onto another side to outline it again. Repeat this process until there are all four rectangles around the center outline. Then, after the last turn, before turning it back flat, turn it again in the same direction onto its back. There should now be 6 rectangles. 2. To make a flap, lengthen either the top rectangle or the bottom (depending on where the ports are). Depending on the size of the mp3 player, lengthen this side by at 2-5 inches. 3. Trace the screen, buttons, wheel, or other ports on your mp3 player and trace them back onto the outline template. If your fabric is not easily stretchable, trace completely around the entire outline at a distance of a quarter of an inch around the edge. 4. Lay down the fabric on a clean, flat surface with the inside fabric (duller and less colored) facing up. Trace the entire outline onto the fabric, including any holes. Cut out the outline of the fabric. Then, cut out the holes. This can be achieved by folding over the cloth and cutting from the middle to the edge. 5. Choose a thread that matches closely with the fabric. Sew the edges together as they fit, leaving only the opening and the flap. Also stitch around the openings where the screen, buttons, wheel, and ports are, so they don't fray. Backstitch (sew again) areas near the opening, to make it sturdier. 6. Flip the fabric inside out. To make it look nice and seamless, iron the seams thoroughly. 7. Decide how you want to fasten your pouch. If you decide to make it with velcro, you can either iron it on (with iron-on versions) or sew it on. If you decide to make it with buttons or snap buttons, you can sew these on as well. 8. Put the mp3 player inside and close the flap. Enjoy!
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82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.
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The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.
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You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.
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One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.
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A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.
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In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.
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Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.
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States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.
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Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
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Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
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You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
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Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.
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A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.
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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.
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An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!
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Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.
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In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.
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Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.
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Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.
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Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.
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Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.
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Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
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It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.
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You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.
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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.
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77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.
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Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.
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American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.
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Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.
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A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
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For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.
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Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months
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Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.
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A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.


