In reference to green cleaning products; I came across these today.

Good things to ask about when inquiring information about products are:

• are there recycled materials used in the making of the product?
• is the product recyclable?
• do they recycle the waste made while making the product?
• how far did the product need to travel to get to your house? (fuel used to transport it)
• does it contain VOCs?
• does the company have any commitment to sustainability? (donate $ for research, education, keep products within some green standards, etc.)

Also check out our post about cleaning products in general.

Global Warming is a threat to us all. This goes into detail about what is in the near future for these cities and geographic monuments if we keep contributing pollution at our present rate. Wow, it is shocking. NYC, Death Valley, Tokyo, Virgin Islands, London, and on and on. London will most likely be under water within 100 years. Maybe learning about how your home will be affected will make you think twice about putting extra effort into living more green.

Not mentioned here is my dear old home of Waikiki. It’s going to be far under water after the ocean rises only one meter.

Tickets are available for the Millenium Awards from Global Gree, honoring outstanding contributors to supporting sustainability.

Visit the site for more info.

With the price of gas what it is today, we’re all looking for a little more MPG. It turns out, back in 1973/4, during the first oil crisis the US experienced, Car + Driver magazine ran an article featuring $11 worth of modifications to a Ford Pinto, plus some radial tires and got a whopping 25% better fuel economy. How so? They focused their attention on minimizing the work the engine had to do (which was mostly pushing against air- also called aerodynamic drag). The next time you complain about gas prices, check out how aerodynamic your vehicle is. If you have no clue, I’ll give you a hint: round shapes with minimal surface area (bullets) are highly aerodynamic; odd shapes with lots of surface area (tractor-trailers) are not very aerodynamic. Check out what this aerodynamicist has to say about this stuff.

Also check out this video of a home-made automatic truck spoiler that someone devised from their tailgate. The strips of ribbon let you know when air is pushing against or flowing over the tailgate. When the air is flowing over the tailgate, as opposed to being caught in the truck bed pushing against the tailgate, it is reducing the aerodynamic drag and increasing the fuel efficiency of the truck.

Info about health and cleaning products.

From laundry detergent and dish soap to floor cleaner and air freshener, all the chemicals we use in our home find their way back into the ground and ultimately into our oceans. Many of these products give off harmful VOC emissions (volatile organic compound emissions). VOCs are usually carcinogenic, aka cancer-causing agents.  See VOCs. Other VOC containing household items? The list goes on and on, but they are primarily found in synthetic materials like those found in carpets, furniture, and laminates. VOCs contaminate air, and when a house has many VOC contributors, the inhabitants are in danger of experiencing sick building syndrome due to poor indoor air quality. In Chicago alone, 20 tons of VOCs are released into the air from cleaning products alone per day! To give you another example, Greg Norris, a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health says, “The amount of VOCs from a single waxing of a floor can equal or exceed the VOCs emitted from the flooring materials over the life of those flooring materials.” Imagine how much better off we’d be if we all started using low- or no-VOC cleaners. Call some product info hotlines that you find on your cleaning product bottles and do some research for yourself. Tell them you have questions about the ingredients in your product, and want to know if it contains VOCs when you purchase it and if the product breaks down over time to produce more VOCs.

Definitely check out the link “5 Benefits of Green Roofs” . But here is a summary:

• Keeps buildings cold in summer, warm in winter.
• Helps irrigation and stormwater runoff.
• Reduces urban ‘heat island’ effect.
• Reduces outside noise.
• They’re just plain beautiful.

Wikipedia has a great summary of what sustainable design really is. The statement “Sustainable architects design with sustainable living in mind” is very true, and very important! It brings attention to the fact that if the people living in the sustainable building don’t make a commitment to live with sustainability in mind, they are not doing their part. For instance, designing your home with sustainability in mind is a great move in the right direction, but if you still buy toxic cleaning chemicals and use them on a regular basis, you are still doing damage. It’s important to think of how we use our sustainable homes, office buildings, parks, etc. that is even more important than choosing a sustainable design.

Furthermore, this Wikipedia definition includes a good definition of what morphogenetic design is: “This design practice emphasizes efficiency of heating and cooling systems, alternative energy sources such as passive solar, appropriate building siting, reused or recycled building materials, on-site power generation (solar technology, ground source heat pumps, wind power), rainwater harvesting for gardening and washing, and on-site waste management such as green roofs that filter and control stormwater runoff.”

By reducing the amount of energy needed to heat and cool a building, and the amount of energy that goes into building it (including how far the materials are shipped to the building site), the design becomes efficient, and reduces the cost to run and maintain it.