| Every Step You Take: A Dutch Dance Club Taps the Eco-Energy of Its Dancers |
| Thursday, 25 March 2010 | Victoria Cho | Blog Entry |
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Club Watt’s Sustainable Dance Floor™ is made up of panels connected to tiny generators that allow dancers to help power its lights, speakers and DJ station, while creating a gorgeous array of colors—varying according to the pressure of their steps—under their feet. The process, called the piezoelectric effect, uses crystals and certain ceramic materials to produce energy when subjected to the mechanical stress of dancing as demonstrated in this video. Club Watt takes its environmentalism seriously. Beyond its innovative dance floor, it uses a rainwater runoff collection system for the toilets, employs recycled items and serves as many drinks from taps as possible. According to its press release (pdf), the club uses 50% less water, electricity and materials than an “unsustainable club” with similar capacity. The company carefully chooses its partners and suppliers based on 3 Ps, (planet, profit and people). Other factors it will consider are frequency of deliveries, production processes, packaging and communication with stakeholders. If you don’t live in Amsterdam and want to experience the piezoelectric effect beneath your own feet, the innovative floor is available to rent. You can use anywhere from nine to 70 tiles and assemble them in however you choose. For example, the floor was featured at the inventor’s wedding reception, where it became the life of the party. The floor also received rave reviews as part of the recent Climate Change exhibition in the Australian Museum in Sydney. Thanks to its popularity, and energy and cost-saving abilities, the floor will appear at a new sustainable club in Shanghai set to open this year. Want to do more than just dance? SDC is currently looking for interns and volunteers for its upcoming projects. The descriptions for job positions on the site are in Dutch, so contact them directly for further information. They also welcome suggestions and ideas for future projects. Thanks to technology, nowadays even a licentious night out can have a positive effect. Just imagine: the next time you stumble out of a club at 4 a.m., it could be after saving a little piece of the world.
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A night on the town may include drinking, dancing, music, singing…and other episodes we may forget or simply not wish to remember (likely because of the drinking). But thanks to Amsterdam’s Club Watt, a product of 
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