Think of the word ‘Inventor’, and what springs to mind? Mad scientists with white frizzy hair creating madcap gizmos? We’ve come to parody these individuals, but as saving the planet becomes our top priority, these ‘oddballs’ might just become our saviours.

Trevor Baylis, the man who developed the wind-up radio – an invention that has changed the lives of millions in some of the world’s poorest countries – once said that ‘there’s an invention inside all of us’, and the buzz that surrounds the British Invention Show (BIS), proves his point. The BIS, now in its sixth year, provides a platform for inventors to showcase their ideas and attempts to interest backers to enable ideas to become reality. The show’s enthusiastic inventors are from all walks of life and what’s more, a greater number are designing with the environment in mind.

According to BIS organiser Kane Kramer, the latest show was the greenest yet: “The sole content of my speech at the dinner was about the fact that we are seeing more and more environmentally focused inventions. In fact, before the dinner, we actually turned all the lights off in the room whilst a violinist played, lit by a wind-up torch with blue LED lights, to enable people to reflect on what they could do for the environment. Fifty years ago, mankind, and certainly our British fraternity of inventors, were more concerned about inventing developing machinery and equipment that could go further, fly further and go bang louder. There was practically nil awareness in practical terms of responding to environmental needs. Over the past few years, however, there have just been more and more inventions that consider the environmental impact of technology. This year we had more than ever.”

Award winners and entrants at the 2006 show included a breakfast cereal made from waste banana skins (very tasty apparently), an airship from Iran, a low power requirement oxygen generator for mobile operating theatres and a method of using bacteria to aid in recycling non-rechargeable batteries.

Teams from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, headed by Professor Dr Wan Azlina Ahmad, have developed a method for using bacteria to recover manganese and zinc from heaps of crushed batteries. With this novel idea of recycling valuable metals from non-rechargeable batteries, the boffins hope to appeal to local municipal councils and battery manufacturing plants.

Other environment-focused inventions include: the Pinpoint H20, a scanning device capable of finding underground water leaks without having to dig up the ground; Brincatti Bottles made from recycled plastic, that offer a simple, innovative design to reduce plastic pollution. The bottles can easily be refilled without the need for pumps or funnels, meaning less plastic, less energy, less waste; the Vertical Axis Wind Turbine – a silent, low cost wind turbine that requires little maintenance; and perhaps the most well-known recent invention, the egg cooker that doesn’t use any water. Inventor James Sedden appeared on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den to show off his idea, but was left red faced when he couldn’t get it to work.

Meanwhile, although not offering a product as such, Junkk.com scooped a bronze medal for innovation. The website’s aim is to clear the debris of waste and promote reduction, repair and reuse by sharing inventions for second uses of everyday items. The site holds an array of suggestions, ideas such as the Vac-Sac – a clamshell rucksack that used to be a vacuum cleaner. “By showing what can be done right now with existing materials and designs, we hope to inspire manufacturers to work with us and build further reuses into their original designs for the future”, says creator Peter Martin.

Kramer sums up the future of inventing thus: “What people tend to forget is that invention and innovation have caused and got us into most of the ecological problems that we’ve got today. And it’s innovation that is going to get us out of all the mess we’re in.”