This is a great idea. Take your worn out, chewed to death wad of gum, you know that old ABC gum(Already Been Chewed) and put it to good use, instead of under a table or on the sidewalk. Britain has launched a program to recycle your tired worn out chewing gum and “repurpose” it into tires, childrens toys and even mobile phone covers.

This government initiative runs from August 18th through September 15th and encourages people to toss their used chewing gum into special Bins at locations throughout twelve towns in the UK.

Pepsi and Waste Management are teaming up for the Dream Machine, a computerized recycling bin that gives out points for returned bottles. The internet-connected kiosks will be installed in stadiums, parks, and gas stations and will award recyclers redeemable points for every bottle returned.

That’s pretty cool. It’s not clear what the recycling points will be redeemable for, but it will encourage recycling in a big way and that’s always a good thing.

The weekend is here, you might have one thing on your mind about now, kicking back, and grabbing yourself some Heine, you know Heineken beer. Make has posted up some cool glasses made out of old beer and soda bottles.

The glasses are made by glassblower Nick Paul in Chicago. I guess needing to make the glasses is a good reason for drinking lots of beer and soda. These glasses remind me a lot of drinking out of Mason jars for some reason.

Most plastics in stores, in our homes and in our recycling bins are recyclable, but not very much of that actually gets recycled. Only about 6%. And that’s understandable. It’s hard for humans to sort through all those types of plastics. Plus we’re lazy and we tend to daydream a lot. That’s where a robot comes in handy.

This robot was designed by Mitsubishi and Osaka University and uses lasers to sort through all kinds of plastics very quickly. It has five different lasers that measure the reflectivity of each kind of plastic, allowing it to sort them all out.

The Mac VS. PC war is still raging, albeit in a quiet nerd way, not a full out battle with explosions. You’ve probably seen Apple’s new Hodgman ads. The “legal copy” ad is the most interesting. Whenever Hodgman says how easy PCs are to use, a bunch of fine print explodes upwards. The folks over at MacJournals have actually transcribed every word of it. Nearly two full pages. Here’s an excerpt:

To remove unneeded bloatware first open uninstaller, select applications to remove, and uninstall. To remove optional components, click start, go to all programs and open control panel, select remove components, select components you want to remove, select next, when done, select finish. Once initial prep is complete, PCs may then be easy to use under certain controlled conditions and when properly maintained. In order for PCs to achieve optimal performance on a regular basis and for long periods of time, routine maintenance should include (but is not limited to) the following: download and install updated anti-virus software, run anti-virus software, check for system updates, clean out registry, defragment hard drive, free up disk space, remove temporary Internet files, empty the recycle bin, remove unnecessary programs, run error check utility and fix file system errors.

We’ve seen a surprising amount of shopping cart inspired design here at the “Brick. Sometimes artists turn them into furniture, other times it’s more about real world grocery store innovation, like the design above. And let’s face it, the shopping cart needs an overhaul.

With the UpCart, shoppers could use their carts like a storage system. Put your heavy items near the bottom, lighter items on top. The design makes a lot of sense. The bins can be easily moved around in any position for easy access. This cart may even help prevent traffic jams on aisle four. Maybe.

HP had a few new laptops to show off today, including its smallest and lightest notebook to date with a built-in optical drive. Featured were two HP laptops – one a tablet – and a Compaq.

The HP EliteBook 2530p and HP EliteBook 2730p are expected to be available by early September, pricing around $1,500 and $1,670 starting, respectively. The HP Compaq 2230s is currently available for around $1,000. You can get full details after the jump via HP’s press release.

HP recently did some updates to its consumer printers and technology, unveiling two compact photo printers, a new five-ink printing system and a home printer which can print from the Web. The HP Photosmart A630 and A530 Compact Photo Printers are expected to be available in August at around $150 and $100, respectively, while the HP Photosmart D5460 Printer is available now for around $100.

The main item of interest here is the five-ink printing system, which uses  a single dual-drop-volume printhead that delivers an extremely small drop size and offers consumers what HP says is “better control over costs by requiring fewer cartridges to manage.” You can get full details on these new HP printing functions after the jump.

Here’s a cool iPhone hack. Some of you would really love this while others would really hate it. VistaPerfection 2.0 is a complete re-skinning kit for Apple’s iPhone that lets it mimic a Windows Vista machine. Why would you want to? Hell if I know. You create things like this just because you can.

The install comes with wallpapers, sliders, sound effects and over 90 Vista-themed icons for everything from the computer to the recycle bin, plus all of the standard iPhone apps. It even gives you a simulated version of Vista’s Sidebar and Start menu. If this appeals to you, go ahead and get the full download and instructions.

I have to admit that I mostly like this concept just because it looks cool. Those neatly stacked-together containers would be interesting whether this was a conceptual array of hard drives or recycle bins. In this case they are recycle bins but with some nifty added technology to keep things seperated.

The Barcode Trashcan concept uses the little barcode on your recyclable containers to identify which bin the item goes in. Swiping it across the top will open just the correct bin. This keeps your items seperated appropriately by plastic, glass and metals for those with the combination of being geeky and green. I guess if it doesn’t match or the bar code is worn off it goes in the other bin?

Targus is showing off at MacWorld a new line up of “eco-friendly” MacBook bags made of PVC-free material. This product line is known as the Radius family and it consists of several messenger bags, backpacks and top loading cases.

The Targus Radius bags are composted of 100% recycled polyester, recyclable plastic and nickel-free metal, making them pretty eco-friendly. Each bag includes an EVA molded compartment to protect your Apple laptop and they are mostly fit to 15-inch models.

The idea behind this conceptual design is to provide an additional “safety net” of storage for your computers deleted items. The Tempo is an external 250GB (the site indicated Gb, but we’re guessing they meant bytes for this to be practical) hard drive that connects to your PC or Mac via Bluetooth and monitors your deleted items. Each time you delete files from your computer they are stored on the Tempo trash drive where they can be recovered if needed, providing you another layer of recovery …

How many documents do you print for short term usage? You need the meeting agenda, that web page, maybe driving direction. You use it once or twice and it goes into the recycle bin or worse the garbage can. Xerox has been analyzing how people use paper and the company knows that 2 out of every 5 pages printed are only for temporary use. It’s found a solution.

Xerox has invented paper that erases itself after about 24 hours. The process can be sped up if needed …