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GOING GREEN
Making our homes greener doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing effort, ripping out old furnaces and installing solar panels on the roof, or vowing to eat nothing but root vegetables all winter. Rather, it’s the small steps we make along the way—replacing incandescent bulbs with halogens, or opting out of air conditioning most summer days—that put us on the path to changing our mindset, one decision at a time. Never is this easier than when we’re choosing to make home changes, i.e. redecorating and remodeling. With so many green options available in home building and décor, it’s akin to ecological sin to not at least explore them.
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Recycled glass tiles
Beautiful and durable, recycled glass tiles have entered the market, offering a shimmering and green alternative to traditional ceramics. Artists Wayne Harjula and Miyuki Shinkai of the Mellon Glass studio in Canada—creators of stunning glass cake plates and jellyfish—offer translucent two-inch square tiles crafted from used wine bottles. At Sandhill Industries in Idaho, Terri Raudenbush creates commercial and residential tiles made of 100-percent recycled glass. The six-person company began in Fairbanks, where it worked to develop glass-fusing technology with a grant from the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation. Sandhill offers thirty-six tile colors through distributors in Manhattan and Chicago, and also deals directly with designers, architects, and homeowners all over the country.
The Tile Shoppe's new location on Walden Avenue in Lancaster shows samples from Oceanside Glasstile, a company headquartered in California with production facilities in Mexico. A chart on the company’s website shows the percent of recycled content by tile color. The tiles are “excellent, and very popular,” according to Therese Smith, an interior designer at the store, who notes that orders take between four and six weeks to fill.
Since 1983, Blazestone tiles, from Bedrock Industries in Seattle, come from 100-percent recycled consumer and industrial waste glass, with no added oxides or colorants. The company sells a variety of colors and styles —with series like watercolor, new Caribbean, and the Stripes and Dots collection—to both homeowners and contractors. Says manager Chris Munford: “We pay people by the pound for collecting wine bottles, beer bottles, spaghetti bottles, and whiskey bottles.”
Blue jean insulation
The new UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber insulation, known on the street as blue jean insulation, offers an unexpected element of cozy. Recommended locally by David Lanfear, owner of Bale on Bale Construction, blue jean insulation comes rolled up and ready to install just like fiberglass insulation, but it can be handled without gloves and masks. The product is “touchable and non-toxic, there are no VOC’s [volatile organic compounds] in the product, and no formaldehyde,” says Sean Desmond, director of sales and marketing at Bonded Logic, Inc., which began making natural fiber products thirty-five years ago, starting with recycled paper.
Besides being healthier to handle, the cotton product pulls its own weight from the landfill, too. “We take the waste stream generated by the factory that’s making blue jeans and other items,” Desmond explains, adding that the insulation works for both thermal resistance and sound control, and is treated to prevent mold and be fire retardant. Find more info about performance on the company website.
Paint jungle
In the scramble for the perfect green, there’s a lot of mixing going on in paint departments across the country. From small companies with handmade milk- and vegetable-oil-based products, all the way to large commercial brands offering technologically new, traditional, and retro paints, creating environmentally friendly paints has become an exercise in science. For consumers, good choices abound. The editors of GreenSpec, published by BuildingGreen, LLC, lists forty-two interior paints as environmentally preferable for a variety of reasons. The list can be found at BuildingGreen.com, a Web site recommended by architect Roxanne Button, licensed architect with Architectural Resources and chapter board member of the U.S. Green Building Council.
One consideration is VOC (volatile organic compounds) content, which was brought to national attention when California cracked down and made laws about the stuff. Inside the house, especially in bedrooms where people spend most of their time, the lower the VOC content the better, says Buffalo’s Dominic LoTempio, owner of the part-time start-up DL Green Consulting, eco-consultant with Green Irene LLC, and past assistant manager at a Sherwin-Williams paint store. Low-VOC paints may contain up to fifty grams VOCs per liter, and zero-VOC paints, up to five grams/liter, according to LoTempio. Standard paints in New York State, on the other hand, may contain up to 250 grams, a limit he thinks will soon be changed to match California’s legal limit of less than half that.
Among major brands, LoTempio likes Harmony by Sherwin-Williams and Aura by Benjamin Moore. When painting with Harmony, he says, “There is only a slight, sugary candy smell at most.” VOC content can increase with the addition of colorants, so it’s good to check with the manufacturer. Within the Benjamin Moore products, the new colorants used in Natura and Aura lines have zero VOCs themselves and do not raise VOC content when added, according to Pete Deblieck of the product information office at Benjamin Moore & Co.
Light notes
Spiraling into anxiety about losing the traditional light bulb? Here’s a glimmer of hope for balloon-shaped-light-bulb lovers. The July 6 New York Times reports that Deposition Sciences has developed reflective coatings to turn wasted light bulb heat into more light. GE, Auer Lighting of Germany, Toshiba of Japan, and Phillips are all busy designing new incandescent bulbs.
Jennifer Wettlaufer’s last Going Green column won a first place award from the National Federation of Press Women. Find her at buffalolink@earthlink.net.
RESOURCES:Mellon Glass Studios Sandhill Industries The Tile Shoppe Bedrock Industries Bale On Bale Construction Bonded Logic, Inc. | Architectural Resources DL Green Consulting Green Irene LLC Aurora Paint Pot BuildingGreen, LLC Benjamin Moore & Co. |
