B-Line Sustainable Urban Delivery Service encompasses the capability to change the world we live in through its inspirational methods of transporting products and respecting the community it serves.

Take a moment to stop and think about how many delivery trucks and vans you see on a regular basis during your daily commutes. Although it may appear quite normal, everyone going about their day and performing work-related tasks, what you don’t initially recognize is just how detrimental all of these delivery vessels are to our environment. Pollution is one of the worst issues our world is currently facing. So in February 2009, one gentleman by the name of Franklin Jones decided to plan a course of attack against the smoggy beast, thus creating his brainchild, B-Line Sustainable Urban Delivery Service, a sustainable local delivery service right out of Portland, Oregon.

B-Line offers simplicity at its best because if you think about it, what are the purest, most natural things? They are simple. No frills, no veils, no disguises. In this case, it’s as simple as a human and an electric-assist cargo tricycle that has the space and sufficiency to carry a whopping 600 pounds. Strip away not only the pollution aspect, but also all the hassle that can come with using conventional trucks and vans.

B-Line’s main goals are focusing on strengthening the community, speaking out on behalf of sustainability, building prosperous business relationships that complement one another for the good of the planet, and maintaining a solid, unwavering pledge to provide happy, remarkable service. This sustainable local delivery operation is a true team player. It doesn’t discriminate and will partner with businesses large and small who share the same environmental vision. A few big name companies who work with B-Line include Office Depot, Whole Foods, and Organic Valley. Something else cool to know is that the cargo trikes are not only created to transport goods, they also serve as an eye-catching tool for cross promotion! It gives other companies the opportunity to join B-Line in a campaign for a greener functioning world while simultaneously highlighting their products.

When it gets down to it, the facts are the facts and you can’t argue with that! B-Line’s sustainable local delivery service has managed to supersede almost 30,000 truck and van deliveries while reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 18 tons per year. Wow, maybe we can start to breathe easier now (pun totally intended)! B-Line has successfully delivered around 400,000 pounds of organic produce, provided more than 70,000 pounds of food for the hungry in its local area, and pedaled to more than 200 destinations in the Portland community. B-Line’s environmentally friendly accomplishments are endless and its efficacious movement is continuing to thrive every day.

B-Line’s sustainable local delivery service combines the utmost positive intention with enduring dexterity and sheet brilliance behind its concept. It allows the community to become a part of the change whether individuals are making the choice to receive their items through a more environmentally conscious method or are pedaling through town to provide an eco-friendly service to its locals. With its trikes having traveled more than 20,000 miles annually, B-Line is pedaling its way toward enabling us with a brighter, greener future.

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Image via B-Line

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Could this personal helicopter represent a cleaner, greener future for the aviation industry?

There’s almost nothing eco-friendly about flying (bad news with the holidays coming up, I know). And that’s with planes full with more than 100 people all flying together. When you get to the realm of private jets and personal helicopters, the green factor plummets even further.

Despite the shocking amount of fossil fuel it takes to move even a small plane through the air, people aren’t going to stop flying any time soon. So the aviation industry has been working on alternative fuels and smarter designs that will allow flying to be as efficient as possible.

According to a German company called E-Volo, the future of efficient transportation might not be planes, but helicopters. The team recently unveiled the Volocopter, a personal helicopter they say is safer, simpler, and cleaner than normal helicopters because of the unique way it moves through the air: instead of one combustion engine, Volocopter uses 18 electrically driven rotors to propel itself through the atmosphere with zero emissions (technically this makes it an octodecacopter, but who’s counting?).

“For power, six battery blocks power the rotor drives for about twenty minutes of emission-free flight time, with an hour anticipated in the future,” reports Gizmag. “E-volo emphasizes the redundancies in the battery system. Each rotor arm is powered by three batteries, so two nonadjacent batteries could fail and the Volocopter could still land safely. In even more dire straits, a ballistic separation system deploys a parachute.”

“Rich and incredibly quiet sound, absolutely no noticeable vibrations in the flight, convincing structure with a great, new spring strut landing gear, and an extremely calm rotor plane,” concluded E-volo’s managing director after one of several successful test flights. Such vibrations, in addition to a high level of external noise, have discouraged people from utilizing helicopters.

Due to elaborate simulations at the Stuttgart University, they already knew that the Volocopter was much more quiet than a helicopter. However, the pleasant low, rich sound and the lower-than-expected noise level caused great cheering among the E-volo team during the first flights.

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Image: E-Volo

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