Macenstein

Sure we all love the environment, but the iPod is just so cool… If only there were a way to listen to our iPods while killing the planet… more slowly…

Faithful Macenstein reader meggert turned us on to Bird-Electron EZ17-B iPod Recycling Speaker, the most “green” iPod speaker you can buy make yourself.

This unique speaker relies on the well known fact that Apple’s customers almost always save the packaging their gadgets ship in (they are, after all, works of art). The speaker actually consists of a $40 DIY kit that turns the original packaging of your iPod nano or shuffle into a speaker.

To quote the nano-loving Feist, installation is apparently as easy as 1,2,3,4.

Simply just place the speaker panel on top of the open box, and plug it into the iPod and play. Bird-Electron’s recycling speaker does not require any power source. You can also customize your own recycling speaker with any small container like a water bottle. Easy to install. Available only from Bird-Electron.

Did they just say you can use a water bottle? Yes, they sure did, acoustics be damned! That means if your baby-seal-clubbing-ass already recklessly threw away your shuffle’s packaging, you can still re-purpose one of your trendy plastic water bottles, thus keeping it from becoming lodged in a dolphin’s blow hole (you Earth-hating maniac!).

All kidding aside, it’s actually a pretty cool idea, and if this thing sounds half as good as it looks, well… you’ll probably wish you had held on to that $40. Still, if you are looking for a travel-sized speaker system that is almost designed by Apple, this is likely the closest you are going to get.