Supermart for green building products

The Green Building Exchange held its grand opening Saturday in Redwood City, Calif. It is the first shopping and meeting center of its kind serving home buyers, builders and nonprofit groups. Products on display include solar panels, recycled renovation materials and low-toxic furniture.

"Home Depot doesn't have the service that comes with this," said founder Michael Schaeffer, who has worked in construction for more than 30 years.

But are the prices as low? "If you plan right, they're not necessarily higher. Sustainable homes have less frills."

Although many green building materials remain costly, Schaeffer believes prices will drop as consumer interest rises. He considers the polluting construction techniques of the 20th century to be a fad. Schaeffer hopes the location between two major Bay Area airports will help to attract people from far-flung places.

House-greening products and services are becoming big business as more people seek to reduce energy expenses and improve indoor air quality. As many as 10 percent of all new homes will include significant "green" features by 2010, according to projections by McGraw-Hill Construction and the National Association of Home Builders.

Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET Networks

Uses for old newspapers

I have this pile of old newspapers collecting next to the recycling bins and it is days until the recycling truck runs again. Do you have this problem? Not only is it unsightly (the bins sit outside the kitchen door), but it’s a pain to keep neat. I have a few suggestions for things to do with the growing pile.

Uses for Newspapers

1. Use for mulch.
2. Use as drop cloths for painting, household projects or to protect the table from kids’ latest art creation.
3. Use with vinegar to wash windows.
4. Use to protect fragile items while storing, moving, or shipping.
5. Shred and use to line cat’s pan.
6. Use as shelf paper.
7. Use to help start fires in your fireplace or camp fire.
8. Use to protect your knees when kneeling in the garden.
9. Wrap birthday gifts with the comics section or articles you feel the recipient would enjoy.
10. Shred and add to compost.

Uses for old bed sheets

Face it. You probably have several old bed sheets that are a bit worn, or they don’t match anything else. You don’t want to just throw them out, but all they're really doing is taking up space in the closet. I've got some suggestions for you.

Things to Do With Old Bed Sheets

1. Use them for drop clothes for painting projects
2. Make a laundry bag
3. Use it to make gift wrap
4. Cut them up and use them to make and stuff throw pillows
5. Take them to the beach and use for picnics
6. Cut them up and use them for dusting
7. Donate them to homeless shelters
8. Cover fruit trees to protect from frost
9. Tear into strips and use to tie your tomato plants to stakes
10. Make drawstring gift bags
11. Make kitchen curtains
12. Freecycle them to someone else

Recycling - Where we are

The range of the campaign for recycling in the US may be that huge but not all Americans are doing their share in recycling. This is according to a poll done by Harris Poll where they surveyed and interviewed some respondents. Here are some of the stats:

• 77% elder Americans recycle at home
• 23% do not recycle. At all.
• 30% of those aged 18 years to 30 do not recycle
• 19% of those aged 62 years and older do not recycle
• 67% recycle aluminum cans and metal cans
• 59% recycle paper and paper products
• 57% recycle plastic
• 54% recycle glass

And so we talk about those who recycle and what they recycle. But the survey was quite thorough for they also did ask those who did not join in the campaign why they DO NOT recycle. Here are some of their answers:

• 15% say such an activity is something you cannot find in their area
• 12% find it to be too burdensome and they have to spend much just to do it
• 11% simply do not believe in it

Now as a statistic, where can you include yourself?

Recycle, get with the program!

• Organize a recycling program in your office or community if one isn't already in place.
• Recycle your old newspapers. If everyone in the United States recycled one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25 million trees every year.
• Recycle your old glass bottles. The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
• Recycle your old tin cans when you can. Recycling and reusing the material in tin cans reduces related energy use by 74 percent; air pollution by 85 percent; solid wastes by 95 percent; and water pollution by 76 percent.
• Recycle your old aluminum cans when you can. When you toss out one aluminum can you waste as much energy as if you'd filled the same can half full of gasoline and poured it onto the ground.
• Recycle your old plastic soda bottles, milk bottles, detergent bottles, and whatever other plastic your community accepts for recycling. These can be used to produce a variety of items, including other detergent bottles, plastic lumber, fiberfill sleeping bag insulation, and clothing. Twenty-six recycled plastic soda bottles can make one polyester suit.
• If you change your own motor oil, recycle the old oil. One gallon of used motor oil when recycled yields the same amount of refined lubricating oil--2.5 quarts--as is refined from 42 gallons of crude oil (along with other petroleum products). Consider closing the loop by using rerefined motor oil in you car.
• Recycle your dead car battery. The typical car battery contains 18-20 pounds of lead and acid, toxic substances that can cause serious adverse health effects if not disposed of properly. Contact your local government or battery vendor for recycling sites.

Reduce and Reuse

REDUCE

• Buy products made from recycled materials.
• Buy the economy size of products when feasible. You will probably save money, and it will reduce the number of containers being thrown away or recycled.
• Buy products that have the smallest amount of packaging materials.
• Purchase long-lasting, durable items rather than disposable ones.
• Request that your name not be sold to mailing list companies. The average American receives an amount of junk mail each year that is equivalent to 1.5 trees.
• Choose returnable bottles instead of throwaway bottles when you have the option. Disposable (throwaway) bottles consume three times as much energy as reusable, returnable bottles.

REUSE

• Use a mug for coffee at work and home rather than a disposable cup.
• Use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries.
• Start a compost pile.
• Use a mulching mower to mow your lawn. You'll do your lawn a good turn by putting the lawn cuttings back into the soil and you'll eliminate the need to dispose of these cuttings. The cuttings will serve as mulch, retaining moisture in the soil, and are a natural fertilizer.

Tree-Free Journals and Notebooks

Boku Tree-Free Kenaf Paper Makes Beautiful Books!

Our world is losing its forests at an alarming rate. Nearly half the trees currently harvested are used to make paper, but there is now a sustainable substitute source for paper-making fiber. The growing demand for paper made with kenaf, a fibrous plant from the Mallow family that's related to cotton and okra, has made it an increasingly viable alternative economically.

Boku Books' use of tree-free kenaf fiber paper has saved literally hundreds of trees already and is contributing significantly to the building of the first kenaf-only pulp mill - which will be the cleanest pulp mill in the US. Put simply, Kenaf offers a way to make paper without cutting trees, and the company's goal is to increase the amount of kenaf fiber in Boku Books to 100% before long.

Made from 30% kenaf fiber and 70% recycled sheet, Boku Books replace larger, loose paper systems for things like grocery lists, passwords, notes and messages, logs, etc and they are contained in a very small and beautiful package.

David Saw Wah: Refugee Camp Environmentalist and Inventor

David Saw Wah teaches camp residents how to easily manufacture environment-friendly fuel briquettes made from waste paper and decomposed leaves. And after only two hours in the tropical sun, one of David’s 25 cent-solar panels generates enough energy for cooking. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC Nearly 20,000 people, most of them subsistence farmers, live in the crowded Site 1 camp. In addition to supporting environmental work like David Saw Wah’s, the IRC provides health, and water and sanitation services in the camp. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC David Saw Wah is a true environmentalist. Walking through his ecological garden in the Site 1 refugee camp in northwestern Thailand, the middle-aged man explains how saving the environment and making refugees self-sufficient is crucial to the future of his people. “In a refugee camp like this it is very important that we take care of our resources and teach our children how we used to work the land before we became refugees,” he says, inspecting a row of corn in what he calls his ‘outdoor classroom.’ Nestled on a small hilltop, the office of David’s IRC-supported organization, the Karenni Development Department, is a bamboo hut overlooking the lush foliage of the camp. Nearly 20,000 people live in this settlement only a few kilometers from the Burmese border. Most of them belong to the Karenni ethnic group and worked as subsistence farmers before they were driven out of their homeland by the Burmese regime. “We teach people living here traditional, as well as alternative, farming methods,” David continues. “We talk about using organic fertilizers, how to use the land in the best way possible and that almost everything we use day-to-day can be recycled.” A father of four children, David graduated from the University of Rangoon in Burma before pursuing another degree in mechanical engineering from Bochum University in Germany, where he was awarded a scholarship in the 1980s. Since then, he has taught thousands of people inside the camp and in displaced settlements along the Thailand-Burma border about food security, environmental protection, water conservation and alternative energy sources. “I never wanted to stay in the cities,” David says. “My experience is much more useful here on the border among my people. I got married in the jungle and my youngest child was born in the camp.” David teaches special farming techniques that suit the steep mountain slopes of the camp. One of these methods is what he calls ‘guerrilla gardening,’ a technique often used by displaced people inside Burma to hide their settlements from the Burmese army. The crops are grown around a vertical bamboo frame designed to look like natural foliage so that it blends in with the forest. “But the method is perfect for the camp environment as well, since it saves space,” David adds. David is also specializing in renewable energy, teaching the refugees to use compost waste and dung to produce biogas. “You mix 100 kilos of pig manure with 100 liters of water here,” David explains, pointing to a large metal container hooked up to a gas burner. “The methane gas that is created can then be used to provide a family with electricity and gas for two months. The manure from three pigs is enough for one family’s daily energy consumption.” Biogas is only one of David’s many innovative ways to save energy and protect the environment in the camp. The IRC’s medical clinic in the camp, where around a hundred patients are treated each day, is completely generated by hydropower from the camp’s many water streams. “We lead the water through pipes to a cheap, 200-dollar turbine,” David explains. “This is enough to provide the entire clinic – or 50 light bulbs – with electricity.” David also teaches camp residents how to use simple solar panels and easily manufacture environment-friendly fuel briquettes. “Our home-made briquettes are a perfect energy source,” he says enthusiastically. “Instead of cutting down the forest to get firewood or use expensive and polluting charcoal briquettes, we use waste paper and decomposed leaves to make fuel briquettes. The heat capacity is 30 percent less than coal briquettes but they are still perfect for cooking. “ “And if you add some lemongrass to the mix, the briquettes also repel mosquitoes and help protect against malaria.” David’s overall vision is simple yet inspired. He sums it up as he fills up a bucket of leftover food to feed the two pigs in his backyard pen. “I want to help people help themselves, while protecting the eco-system. A lot of the people here can’t read or write, but with a little help they can create a relatively good life for themselves in spite of their hardships.”

source: International Rescue Committee

Suggestions for a Green Home

What is a “green home or an eco home?”

"Green building" is the industry buzz word for eco friendly, responsible or sustainable home construction. Eco homes are springing up all over the country and it looks like this type of eco friendly home construction is here to stay.

It is possible to produce high quality, high performance green homes without sacrificing our desire to be good stewards of the earth and our natural resources. Utilizing many eco-friendly home building practices, Green Homes allow homeowners to not only feel a kinship with the earth, but to tread lightly upon it as well. This philosophy pervades from the types of materials throughout the entire manufacturing process.

Suggestions for designing a Green Home:

• Design for standard unit size to reduce off-cuts and minimize cost
  If standard sizes of wallboards and timber are considered during the design phase, waste of expensive materials can be minimised. Many suppliers can also pre-cut to the desired length. Using advanced production techniques, a builder efficiently uses materials during the manufacturing process. This philosophy drastically reduces the amount of waste that goes into our landfills commonly associated with homebuilding.
  

• Builders should also recycle much of the scrap that is produced.
  Other usable remnants of the manufacturing process could be donated to support various home relief programs in different parts of the world.
  

• Minimize the amount of materials needed through careful design
  Detailed design can often reduce the amount of materials used (such as the number of wall studs), reducing material costs. Design for durability and flexibility. Choosing durable materials help prevent the need for costly renovations later. Also considering possible future needs (such as a home office) in the design can help avoid the need for expensive alterations at a later date. This can also add to the resale value of your property.
  

• Consider: A circular home has a smaller footprint to enclose the same amount of space as compared to rectangular or square home designs. That means a smaller foundation, less excavation and site disturbance and fewer trees cut. A circular home design is inherently more energy efficient than a square or rectangular design. Starting your green house project with a circular home design will put you way ahead of the curve. With a few on-site touches you can create a “super-energy efficient” house.
  

• Consider: A panelized building system allows homeowners to place their new green home in close proximity to existing trees without a lot of clearing. Many new green homes look as if they have been there for years because of the vast amount of trees and foliage left undisturbed by the construction process.
  

• Low emission plywood, when available, can used for the roof and floor sheathing. Pressure treated wood should only be used where building codes demand it. There are "green” substitute for pressure treated wood.
  

• Eco-friendly Sansin stains and paints for sidings and decking.
  Sansin is the industry leader for producing the safest and environmentally friendly products of their kind.
  

• Install water saving devices
  Install 3/6 Litre dual flush toilets. Install low flow shower heads and aerated / low flow taps. Buy water devices and appliances with the highest water efficiency rating you can afford. Do not install in-sink waste disposal units! Compost instead (this helps our wastewater system too!)
  

• Reuse water
  Install a rain water tank to supply your toilet, laundry and water your garden, or a rain barrel to supply your garden. Install a 'grey water' system to recycle the water from your laundry to water your garden with. Check with your local Council first!
  

• Design your house for maximum solar access and heat storage
  Install large windows on the northern side of the house. Use heat sinks, such as brick or concrete to store warmth. Consider access to the sun for passive solar water heating. Increase the level of ceiling, wall and underfloor insulation. Install double-glaze windows, especially in colder areas.
  
  
• Create water saving gardens
  Use native plants, which grow naturally in your local area (eco-sourced plants). Create mini eco-systems in your back yard or even on your balcony to help preserve bio-diversity and provide a link in the ecological corridor for native birds and insects to travel along. Select native plants that grow naturally in your area to avoid non-local native plants dominating and changing your local landscape. Use native plants to shade waterways and stream edges (riparian margins) – there will be wildlife, including fish living in there!