April is a month of not one, but two environmentally based holidays. The older of the two is Arbor Day, started in 1872 in Nebraska and celebrated statewide on April 10, 1874. Arbor Day’s main goal is to help promote the planting of trees, thus its name. We now celebrate it as a national holiday on the last Friday of April. While Arbor Day has reached its 150th Anniversary, Earth Day is only two years past its 50th birthday. This much more recent celebration was first celebrated on April 22, 1970. Earth Day’s aim is to promote awareness of and activism toward ecological issues.
As we celebrate these holidays, let’s see some of the ecological inventions from our Wyoming Inventors database. Starting off is an innovation on hydroponic displays. US Patent 8,365,466 offers grocery store shoppers the option to buy fresh picked vegetables. Hydroponics allows for more food with less water use.
Another inventor focused on a way to use an untapped resource in the form of an innovative car sunshade. US D708,558 combines a traditional sunshade with solar panels. This 2014 invention uses the sun to create electricity while preventing your car from getting too hot.
Our final invention is US 1,0724,224. This works to prevent water pollution, before it enters into the water cycle. By adding a filter to storm drains this patent aims to filter out pollutants as they drain off of the roads and fields.
Explore more in Wyoming Inventors. Have patent questions? The Wyoming State Library has answers! Visit our Patent and Trademark Resource Center page to learn more.