Recently in Remodeling for Waste Management Category

Watch for more emphasis on energy efficiency, retrofits and weatherization under the Obama administration.  HIs comprehensive energy plans will create green jobs and rebuild the US infrastructure of roads and bridges, schools, and housing for energy efficiency. 

An important tool in the effort to build greener buildings and live greener lives is the selection of products that were made using environmentally friendly processes and are used in environmentally friendly ways.

They are energy or water efficient; they use healthy, non-toxic materials; they are made from recycled or renewable sources; they make current products you use more efficient or more durable; and they are recyclable or biodegradable, among many other things.

The directories below will help you sort through the claims and find the products that best meet your needs.

• ENERGY STAR: Products in more than 50 categories are eligible for the ENERGY STAR. They use less energy, save money, and help protect the environment. ENERGY STAR is a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Good To Be Green: Good To Be Green is a directory of green building products, sustainable building materials and green building service providers. Products must: be made out of recycled materials; ensure a low environmental impact during the construction, operation and/or demolition of the building; conserve natural resources like energy, wood and water; and improve air quality.
• Green2Green: Green2Green.org features comprehensive information regarding green building products, materials and practices. The site offers side-by-side comparisons of products using a variety of environmental, technical and economic criteria.
• Green Building Pages: Green Building Pages is an online sustainable design and decision-making tool for building industry professionals and environmentally and socially responsible consumers.
• The Green Guide: National Geographic's Green Guide offers staff-written reviews of a host of products, ranging from appliances, home furnishings and home improvement products to personal care and pet supplies.
• GreenSpec Directory: The online GreenSpec® Directory lists product descriptions for over 2,100 environmentally preferable products. Products are chosen to be listed by BuildingGreen editors. They do not charge for listings or sell ads.
• Low Impact Living: Find environmentally friendly products and services in dozens of categories.
• Oikos: Oikos is a World Wide Web site devoted to serving professionals whose work promotes sustainable design and construction.
• PlugGREEN: PlugGREEN.com allows green businesses to create their own business profile, allowing them to network directly with other green businesses and green-minded consumers. In addition, PlugGREEN.com provides an organized and efficient way for consumers to find local green businesses and products in their area.

SOURCE: USGBC

The old fashioned bathroom stool can use up to 3 gallons of water per flush. New toilets use considerably less and the new "dual flush toilet" lets you save the most. The flush button for "light flush" uses lss than a gallon of water, and the heavier flush (for solids) uses about 1.5 gallons. These amounts vary by product and by certification by trusted programs such as EPA's Watersense standard.

Designed in Australia, where water conservation is extremely important, the HET dual flush water-saving toilet uses, at most, 1.6 gallons per flush. “Dual flush” means that this toilet has two different types of flushing. One for liquids (or #1), which is only .8 gallon of water, and one for solids ( like #2, c’mon let’s be grownups about this!), which is only 1.6 gallons of water. At its biggest flush, this water still uses less than the standard new toilets, which use 1.8 gallons of water per flush. That’s up to 50-75% savings!

Remodeling doesn't always mean ripping out walls -- if you think green, you can rip out utility costs!

A story in the Los Angeles Times (April 8, 2008)  made the case that Las Vegas houses are very dated if they are just 4 to 8 years old.  Plastic chandeliers, granite tile vs. granite slab in the bath, 12 inch travertine tiles vs. 20 x 20" tiles... the list of outdated styles is really mind boggling.

Can we afford this kind of fashionista thinking in today's world that is facing landfill gluts, shortage of natural materials, greenhouse warming and a recession?

About 1,000 houses are listed for sale in Las Vegas for $1 million or higher, more than 600 of them built since 2004. But unless they've been constructed in the last year or two, the properties are considered out-of-date, making them all that more difficult to sell, real estate agents say.

In other parts of the country, age is prized.  think Beverly Hills or Greenwich, Connecticut.  But Las Vegas is about NEW.

And Las Vegas is surrounded by desert land that has been seen as wide open for development -- without much thought given to the natural systems in place.  Systems such as an underground aquafer that is being drained.  Or migrating pollinators that travel from Mexico and South America to the US breadbasket. 

The question is, how do we help people with more money than sense  understand their role in the world's climate change crisis?  It's time to grow up and face the responsibilities that come with abundance.

Responsible building can be just as rewarding as plunder -- and maybe more so when you consider the genuine respect and community being part of the solution brings with it.  And it saves money -- which can be spent in more visionary ways that can leave a legacy, a truly enduring legacy that benefits the family's children and grandchildren and their community.

Waste is so....dated!

SOURCE:  LATimes.com

    

"Recycled water is a new energy source," said Grant Davis, assistant general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency. "Water and wastewater that you'd normally have to treat and dispose of will become the source for heating and cooling."

The project has gained steam in the past few months as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and some of the biggest names in the wine business have signed on; in March, county supervisors approved $1 million for a feasibility study. The flurry of interest comes as more cities and businesses take a hard look at their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and national labs expand their research to include not just military security, but water, energy and economic security.

Sonoma officials will meet with lawmakers in Washington about allocating money for this project and establishing a fund, similar to the Community Development Block Grant Program, to pay for similar projects all over the United States. In addition to federal money, Sonoma is considering revenue bonds and creating a special assessment district.

They estimate savings of 90 percent on natural gas and about 50 percent on electricity for heating and cooling. The environmental benefits are hard to quantify - but the county is working on it. Under the wastewater recycling plan, 55- to 60-degree water would be pumped from the treatment plant to the business park through underground pipes into a pump inside each building. Once in the pump, a refrigeration device transfers heat to or from the wastewater. A compressor converts that heat energy into warm or cold air that can be pushed through about 3 million square feet of office space at the business park, replacing the traditional heating and air conditioning systems.

In this "open" system, the water could also be used to irrigate landscaping, or, with a secondary set of pipes, flush toilets. Otherwise, the chilly or hot water - between about 40 degrees and 150 degrees - would pass through underground pipes to two adjacent reservoirs.

The wastewater recovery system could work particularly well for small or midsize cities or suburbs where the energy needed to pump water to low-slung buildings is much less than for skyscrapers.

Why?

"We all know California will have severe droughts in the next 20 to 40 years and that will affect water supply," said Gary Geernaert, director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Los Alamos National Lab. "This will help us make educated guesses about what the pressures will be on the public and private infrastructure and help build that into the design."

SOURCE: April 2008  SFGATE.com

Design and Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility

Purchasing Programs

Corporate responsibility programs are spreading across public and private companies as investors, regulators and customers are requesting more transparency and accountability for responsible business practices that reduce climate change risks and health concerns.  Saving electricity is part of that picture -- but only a small part.  Green building is part of the strategy.  Recycling and reclamation of waste are additional functions that preserve natural resources.  And the purchase of products with recycled content, high performance and  low toxicity contributions are a big part of the  corporate  responsibility  potential.

Purchasing Programs

To complement its full suite of third-party certification programs, SCS assists corporate clients in the design and implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) purchasing programs.

Corporations increasingly understand that their purchasing decisions can either enhance or detract from their socio-environmental responsibility profile. For such clients, "off the shelf" certification programs may not be the best fit, due to product availability, supplier compliance, or program complexity. In such circumstances, the most effective corporate strategy may well be to custom-design a responsible procurement program (often known as a "preferred supplier program") that expressly incorporates the corporation's own definition of social and environmental responsibility.

As a leading designer and practitioner of independent, third-party certification programs in the food, natural resource, and manufacturing sectors, SCS has both the technical skill sets and real-world practical experience to design and implement responsible procurement programs.

Depending upon the client's tactical needs, SCS can design "turn-key" responsible procurement programs implemented by the company itself, or can design programs with third-party implementation components. To date, SCS has experience designing green coffee and cut flower purchasing programs. Regardless of the business sector, SCS is the clear choice for providing the technical support necessary to design an effective, credible and responsible procurement program.

CONTACT:
Scientific Certification Systems
2200 Powell Street, Suite 725
Emeryville, California 94608
Phone: 510-452-8000
http://www.scscertified.com/forestry/index.html

Remodeling battles greenhouse gas and climate change...reusing old structures saves significantly:

Researchers in England found that building a new home emitted four and-a-half times as much carbon dioxide as refurbishing an existing dwelling.

They also found that the carbon dioxide emitted as a result of the construction of a new building - from quarrying, brick making and so on - accounted for nearly three times more of a building's lifetime emissions than had been supposed.

Previously the amount of energy involved in the construction of a home had been assumed to represent 10 per cent of the energy used over the lifetime of a building.

In fact, energy involved in construction added up to nearly 30 per cent of the emissions over the lifetime of the building, according to the report "New Tricks with Old Bricks; how reusing old buildings can cut carbon emissions."  Telegraph, UK

So you can feel better about remodeling an old building than about building a new one.  Another benefit of remodeling old structures is reduction in urban sprawl.  When new wilderness or agricultural lands are transformed into suburban housing, we lose many additional benfits of nature's natural systems:  plants (especially native plants) provide air filtration, water capture and replenishment of aquafers and water tables, wildlife habitat, cooling of the earth, and natural processing of waste -- from animal carbon dioxide to poop :-)  Nature works hard for us and we can return the favor by reusing what we have already taken out of the natural system instead of adding to the concrete jungle.

Treatment of Human Waste
Safe, sanitary, nuisance-free disposal of wastewater is a public health priority in all population groups, small and large, rural or urban. Wastewater should be disposed of in a manner that ensures that

• community or private drinking water supplies are not threatened;
• direct human exposure is not possible;
• waste is inaccessible to vectors, insects, rodents, or other possible carriers;
• all environmental laws and regulations are complied with; and
• odor or aesthetic nuisances are not created.

There are various processes for accomplishing this:

• Centralized treatment—Publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) that use primary (physical) treatment and secondary (biologic) treatment on a large scale to treat flows of up to millions of gallons or liters per day,
• Treatment on-site—Septic tanks and absorption fields or variations thereof, and
• Stabilization ponds (lagoons)—Centralized treatment for populations of 10,000 or less when soil conditions are marginal and land space is ample.

Septic Tank Systems
Approximately 21% of American homes are served by on-site sewage disposal systems. Of these, 95% are septic tank field systems. Septic tank systems are used as a means of on-site wastewater treatment in many homes, both in rural and urban areas, in the United States. If maintained and operated within acceptable parameters, they are capable of properly treating wastewater for a limited number of years and will need both routine maintenance and eventually major repairs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes an online book called "Healthy Housing Reference Manual" and  a chapter covers on-site wastewater treatment options.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: On-Site Wastewater Treatment