The internet is full of makers, creating homebrewed technology out of stuff they have lying around, but every so often someone makes a thing that I can totally see as the centerpiece of tomorrow’s science-fiction way of life. For instance, this levitating LED bulb.

Photo by Chris Rieger.

Electrical engineering student Chris Rieger put it together in about six months with a lot of trial and error, and in the light, it looks pretty rough. But once it’s turned on, you can totally imagine your futuristic pad festooned with the mass-produced version.

Oh yes. I’ll take 100. And a swanky apartment to hang them in.

This Barcelona flat might be our favorite tiny apartment yet. Everything is just so cleverly tucked away! The dressers are inside their own drawers that slide out from under the raised bed. The table and the bench slide back and forth on the wall, so they can be pulled apart for use or stacked for a smaller footprint. And the piece de resistance: Underneath the bench is a full-size bathtub.

For daily use, owner Valentina Maini has a shower drain in the floor of the bathroom, so she can basically shower over the sink. But if what you like is a soak in the tub, a rinse over the shower drain is never going to cut it. Maini says her hideaway bathtub is like a spa, a space for relaxation and contemplation.

Maini’s got some really astute ideas about tiny living; she also explains in the video that she didn’t want a fold-out bed, because chances are she would never fold it back up and that would look gross. There’s a lot of good lessons in this apartment: be realistic about  how you’re going to live in the space, instead of how you would like to live. Give yourself access to light and outdoor space. Have a narrow entryway to make your apartment feel larger (as Maini jokes about her three-foot stairwell). And make sure you have a dedicated place to relax — even if it’s under your dining room table.

The pine trees were 13 feet high. This plastic nature is identical to the tiny pieces in lego sets, scaled up 66 times.

Apparently Broken Hill’s residents (all three of them, by the looks of it) had no idea they were going to get a plastic forest. Surreal. But maybe this is what nature will be one day, a plastic memory of something we used to call a tree.

If Daniel McDonald’s Shio lamps didn’t cost $475 and up, they could do double duty seasoning your food or attracting deer. At this price point, you probably want to preserve them, unless you’re Tony Stark or something — but the point is, the lamps are made of salt crystals, grown on a fabric base like stalagmites in a cave.

It takes more than a week to grow a Shio lamp, which can weigh up to 30 pounds. McDonald lets salt water flow over a plastic and fabric skeleton, forming crystals that build up to make the lamp’s unique skin. It’s inspired by the same process in nature, which McDonald first observed in Yellowstone Park — although in the end, Shio lamps look more like the shells of organic creatures than like geological formations.

McDonald has set up a Kickstarter to raise funds for expanding his Shio studio. At the $475 level, you can get a small lamp suitable for putting a tealight in; for $3,000 you get a unique lamp in a shape that’s never been made before, fitted with a Type A lightbulb socket, Mr. Stark, sir. Or you can watch the video for free and marvel at how much inspiration a creative type can find in nature.

Terry’s new book Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too is published without plastic, all the way down to the glue. (If you’re going to shop for it online, check out her website first to learn about buying from a place that has committed to shipping it without plastic.) We talked with Terry recently about plastic-free living, why the proposed alternatives to bisphenol A (BPA) might be worse, and the connection between cutting out plastic and building a local economy.

Q. Why did you write this book? Whom are you trying to reach?

A. While I was writing, I was thinking: What would have helped me when I didn’t know anything? I tried to make this a book for people who are just starting [to cut out plastic], or who are already on their way.

I’ve been working on going plastic-free for five years. I did it slowly. I really recommend that people take it step by step, and then it won’t take so much time. Because a lot of the time and effort is just developing a new habit. Once you have the habit, you don’t have to think about it. For example, I never leave the house without a reusable bag anymore — and I don’t have a car, so it’s not a matter of leaving a bag in the car. It’s not hard, it was just learning to remember to do that in the beginning.

Q. Have you calculated how much money you save with your new habits, like buying food in bulk?

A. I went from eating Stouffer’s mac-n-cheese in a microwavable plastic tray to eating food from the bulk bins, so it’s kind of hard for me to compare. But to me, now, what I put in my body is more important than having lots of stuff. So I’ve shifted my spending.

Q. Where are the places you’ve been most surprised to find plastic?

A. I still think that the most surprising thing I ever discovered is that chewing gum is made out of plastic. And that there’s plastic in a lot of pills — especially time-release pills and capsules.

So it’s the plastics that are meant to be ingested that surprise me. And you have to be careful. People say to me, “It’s okay because I chew Glee Gum, and Glee is made with natural chicle.” And that’s true, it’s made from natural chicle — mixed with plastic. I discovered a plastic-free chewing gum this year that’s made by an English company, Peppersmith.

Q. BPA gets a lot of attention. What else should we be aware of, when it comes to human health?

A. There are thousands of additives that could be added to any particular plastic product; they affect the strength, flexibility, color, and even sometimes add antimicrobial and flame-retardant properties. When you see the number in the triangle at the bottom of a container, that tells you what the basic polymer is. Those basic plastic molecules are strung together, but the additives aren’t really attached, and when the plastic is subjected to stress, like heat or light or age, those additives can leach out. Plastics manufacturers are not required to disclose any of the ingredients in their formulations, so we don’t know what chemicals have been added.

In one experiment in Canada some researchers were using plastic polypropylene test tubes — #5 plastic, which is considered to be food-safe. Their experiment had nothing to do with plastic, they just happened to be using plastic test tubes, and their results kept getting contaminated. What they found was that additives in the tubes were leaching into the chemicals they were actually testing. They were shocked about this because they thought #5 plastic was nonreactive — everyone thought that. A lot of food containers are made out of #5 plastic and the FDA labels them as food-safe.

The point is that if we don’t know what chemicals have been added, there’s no way for us to know what could be leaching out and whether it’s safe or not.

The alternatives to BPA being developed — we really don’t know if those alternatives are any safer than BPA itself. They haven’t really been tested either. PVC, which is full of pthalates, is one “alternative” to BPA. And there’s some suggestion that bisphenol S (BPS), a BPA alternative, might have even more estrogenic activity. I don’t know if that will turn out to be true, but these alternatives need to be tested more.

We just have to be careful. We have to ask questions: What are you using instead of BPA? Campbell’s has said they’re going to phase out BPA from their cans, but they won’t say what they’re going to line them with instead. So Healthy Child Healthy World has a campaign going to get Campbell’s to reveal what the alternative will be.

Q. In your book, you highlight a few companies that keep sustainability at the core of their business model, rather than just, say, promote reusable bags. But they’re all small, local businesses. Is that a coincidence, or do you think there’s a way for those models to be scaled up?

A. The Texas-based company in.gredients wants to get the plastic out of the entire supply chain, and they say the only way to do that is to keep it local. They have their local vendors picking up their empty container as they’re delivering food in a new container. You can’t do that in a scaled-up business.

Plastic enables the food system to be monstrous. If we reduce our food miles, we don’t need as much plastic. It boils down to that. If you increase your food miles, then you have to find more ways to preserve the food because it has to last longer.

We have a company [in the Bay Area] that sells yogurt in returnable mason jars and ceramic containers. You pay a deposit and get it back when you return the container. That only works locally. A company like Stonyfield Farm, which is national, can’t do something like that, or they haven’t figured out a way to make it work.

And the problem with yogurt is that most is packaged in plastic while it’s hot. They pour the hot milk into the plastic container, put the bacteria in and seal it up, and the yogurt [culture] is basically formed in the plastic container. And we know that plastic leaches more when it’s subjected to high heat. There’s a company here, Straus, that sells yogurt in plastic containers, but their yogurt is vat-set. They don’t put the yogurt into the cups until it’s cooled down, specifically because of the leaching plastic. But that can’t really be scaled up — the reason companies fill the containers hot is they can do it so much faster.

Q. Do you have a favorite tip or recipe that you’ve discovered in your plastic-free life?

A. The one thing that I enjoy the most is homemade chocolate syrup. It takes the place of Hershey’s syrup in the squeeze bottle. It tastes way better, it’s super easy to make, and it’s all from sugar and cocoa powder from the bulk bin, salt from a box or bulk bin, water from the tap, and vanilla from a glass jar. The glass bottle has a little plastic cap on it, but that’s the only plastic involved. The recipe is in the book.

Q. You’ve figured out how to make a lot of things from scratch. Does that take up a lot of time?

A. I don’t do all of them on a regular basis, though I have done them to see if they work. There are things I just do without, but I wanted to present them as options in the book. Like if you want to have mayonnaise on a regular basis, it’s easy to make. If I cared about mayonnaise as much as I care about chocolate syrup, then I would make it!

I actually don’t spend a ton of time being Suzie Homemaker, but I do spend a lot of time researching and experimenting. It’s my passion — and it’s my way of giving back to the world because I share all the information I discover.

Q. If you weren’t so busy with book touring and promotion right now, what would you be doing?

A. What I would love to work on is a campaign to get Trader Joe’s to stop packaging their produce in so much plastic. They’re worse than any other grocery store I’ve seen, and Trader Joe’s caters to a clientele that cares about the environment. So to wrap all their produce in plastic is just hypocritical. That was why I went after Brita, too, because Brita was advertising itself as an environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water. And yet, even though there actually was a way to recycle the filters [in Europe], they weren’t doing it in the U.S. I guess hypocrisy just really bugs the crap out of me.

Denise Morrison grew more than 100 types of plants in her yard in Tulsa, Okla. She had garlic chives and strawberry, apple mint and spear mint, an apple tree and a pecan tree.

But someone complained about it, and city inspectors stopped by. Her plants, they said, were too tall. The entire lawn would have to go.

Morrison knew she was in the right; she had read the city code, which allowed plants over 12 inches if they were meant for human consumption. Hers were, so she got the police involved. They issued a citation, and she and the city went before a judge in August. The judge told them to come back in October.

The next day, the city came to Morrison’s yard and bulldozed her plants.

She told a local news station:

I came back three days later, sat in my driveway, cried and left … Not only are the plants my livelihood, they’re my food and I was unemployed at the time and had no food left, no medicine left, and I didn’t have insurance. They took away my life and livelihood.

Now Morrison is suing Tulsa for violating her civil rights. She says the inspectors went way over the line. So far, the city doesn’t have anything to say for itself. We’re hoping that when they do, it starts with “sorry” and ends with several zeroes.

Alex Schibli, 72, owns an island, right smack off the coast of Manhattan. (Delightfully, it’s called “Rat Island.” Great name for a NYC island, or BEST name?) When you hear “owns an island” you figure “Romney rich,” but Schibli only paid $176,000 for the 2.6 acres. That might seem like a lot, but when a studio apartment in the East Village is going for $400,000, really, it’s a steal. Schibli told the New York Post why he chose to buy a little piece of nature:

I’d always dreamed of having my own place for peace and quiet in the middle of the ocean. When Rat Island came on the market, I had to buy it …

I love swimming, canoeing and collecting mussels — and we’re going to have lots of fun with my family. There’ll be picnics, barbecues and the occasional party, but, more than anything, we’re just going to relax.

Schibli’s also thinking of building a fab green home. He’ll used reclaimed wood, install solar power, and use rainwater catchments. Also, because apparently he does believe in climate change, the house will be on stilts.

He’s thinking of changing the island’s name back to Rattle Island, though. Spoilsport.

The key to small-space living is not feeling cramped, which makes this Barcelona apartment the pinnacle of the genre. The home uses sliding doors to open the 430-square-foot apartment up for a sense of space, or close it for privacy. But the centerpiece of the house is the hole in the ceiling — a plant-filled half-outdoor shower that’s built like a chimney, open to the sky. (Don’t worry — there are camouflaging plants on top, so the drones will have to work VERY hard to see you naked.)

Even Barcelona can get a bit chilly in winter, so it’s possible to close off the outdoor half the shower so you don’t have to expose yourself to the elements. But in summer, you can stand among the plants cascading down from the roof, and even shower in rainwater like Big Bird.

The sliding door effect is cool too, since it essentially gives the apartment four different floor plans: a combined bedroom/living area with a closed-off bathroom; a combined bathroom/bedroom separate from the living room; separate bed and living rooms with a closed-off bathroom; or an entirely open space. But realistically we’re betting the residents spend most of their time in the shower.

Pennies are so useless as legal tender that there’s genuine debate about whether we should even keep them around. It wastes energy and resources to produce them, they’re disproportionately costly to make (1.7 cents per one-cent coin!), and there’s not a vending machine on Earth that will take them. A lot of people reportedly just throw them away. But they’re still minting the little suckers, for now, so you might as well make them justify their expensive existence. Which means you could dump them in the Coinstar machine … or you could use them to make an awesome, cost-effective copper flooring that is, excuse me, really money.

The image above has been going around the internet without any damn attribution, so please let me know if you’re the originator, but it might have started on the homesteading Facebook page, which posted it with the suggestion to ask hardware stores for the best clear resin to use on top. The Standard Grill in New York also has a floor of pennies, which they say used about $2.50 per square foot — comparable to linoleum. Here’s a slightly cheaty way of doing it, by making individual penny tiles. Those folks said their floor took about 40,000 pennies — $400 for the entire kitchen, plus glue and the stuff they’re using as backing.

Or, if you don’t have the patience for an entire floor, you could always just do your counter. This one’s made of pennies with epoxy poured on top — the epoxy brought the price up to about $7.50 per square foot, still way cheaper than tile — and the maker has put step-by-step instructions up on Makeprojects.com.

The countertop instructions include cutting the pennies to make a smooth edge, which is of dubious legality, but let’s be honest — even the Mint hates these things. Probably nobody more than the Mint, since they’re the ones spending 1.7 cents to make each one. Chances are they will turn a blind eye to your coin-clipping behaviors.

We love tiny housing — it’s less wasteful, and so adorable! But there’s a limit to how small a space you can live in and still not go insane. We butted up against it with the 78-square-foot apartment, but this video about a (fictional, but plausible) Hong Kong apartment called King’s Cube plunges past the way-too-tiny event horizon. The room in the video is 16 square feet, just big enough for a smallish bed.

King’s Cube is the creation of MFA student Joe Yiu, who wanted to investigate the Hong Kong idea of an “ideal living space.” The apartment advertised in her video features art, houseplants, wood flooring, and “international-class marble” — at least, the model unit does — and residents dress in formalwear to show their status, but the space is too small for a kitchen, a bathroom, a dresser, a chair, or a particularly tall or wide human. If you try to swing a cat in here, you’d better be prepared for a lot of cleanup.

This isn’t too far off reality for some in Hong Kong, where the poor live in “cubicle apartments” just like the one shown in the video, only not as nice. (King’s Cube is set in a real cubicle apartment unit, dressed up for the film.) Though the video is satire, the only real fiction is the idea that a 16-square-foot dwelling would be a status symbol. But as tiny housing gets more expensive — remember the $400,000 tiny apartment? — that starts to look not so far-fetched after all.