Green Wisers Read The Label

How do you know what you are buying?  We look to labels to help us out.  With companies pushing back on what the label can contain, it becomes difficult to really know the content or the processes that were used to manufacture a product.

Reading the labels on food packages has become a common and important practice for us.   It is the result of efforts from many experts who know the importance of good nutrition. 

‘You are what you eat’ may have been a slogan scoffed at by some as something belonging to those hippies.  Even then, as those words reverberated and bounced around in our brains, it was hard to deny.  

While much is still left out of food labels, we are becoming wiser and continue to demand more transparency.  

The same is true with products we purchase for our homes and work places.  Being green isn’t just a trend, it is a way of life whose effort is to get us closer to a healthy and abundant lifestyle.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to breathe in tons of toxins and then have to spend tons of money on health care to fix the problems that arise, assuming those problems can even be identified.

Best choice?  Learn to read the labels.  Just like what has been done for our food knowledge in helping us to make better choices for fuel for our bodies, we can do the same for our homes.   So what we breathe in, rub against, put on and kick up won’t make us sick.

Here are reasons why labels are important to consider for your home.

People spend a large amount of time in their homes, and the air they breathe is 2 to 5 times worse and more pollutant than the air outdoors.  Hard to believe, but true.

The primary source of the pollutants comes from furnishings, building materials and cleaning processes and products we use every day.

These products release potentially harmful toxins and particulates that you breathe in and have been linked to a number of health problems like asthma, heart disease, learning disabilities, reproductive disorders and some types of cancer.  Yikes!

Take a look at kitchens, for example.  Cabinets and countertops (yes, even stone) can contain adhesives, finishes and sealants that release or offgas chemicals into the air, for a long time, that you and your family breathe in. 

Because flooring is in every room, the amount of chemicals and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that are released in the home can potentially be very high.  This is one area you really want to consider products that are low in the chemicals emission. 

Paint is another product that covers lots of surfaces in the home.  Paint is a bit quirkie.  Even when it says low VOC or no VOC, applied paint to your walls can still offgas for years to come.  It is in the make up of the paint itself, its ingredients that do the releasing of chemicals.

In looking for labels you can trust to be reliable, look for those that are supported by research, testing, analysis, and professional evidence.  It is important to look for third-party certification whose interests is in health and who is independent from the product, manufacturer and industry.
 
Because these are times of mass misinformation distribution, greenwashing has also raised its ugly head by misleading consumers regarding the environmental standards or practices of a company and product.  

So, an important piece to evaluating a certification is to make sure the certification body stands behind its claims and evaluations.

At Eco Living Design, we do the heavy lifting for you!  We work to improve the indoor air quality in your home and work place.  Sustainable solutions can absolutely be integrated with your aesthetics to make beautiful spaces to be, that are healthy, more comfortable, add greater value and last longer.

Being green may be easier than you think!

See Your Kitchen Countertop Everywhere You Go?

Do you get tired of seeing the same material used for kitchen countertops everywhere you go?  Oh, it may be a different color or have a larger vein running through or even be the most unique of its type.  It's still the same material. 

Granite Quarry

Countertops used to be lengthy discussions with my clients when I am designing a kitchen.  Most often, their first choice is for what they have seen everywhere, granite.  I am sure this initial reaction is partly the result of a “social proof” characteristic that we humans have and why we follow trends such as this one.

Countertops are trendsetters.  Why, even the type of kitchen countertop used in a home is becomes a selling feature and part of its description  when selling a home.  Imagine, a countertop determining a house sale.  Does that strike you as odd?

After all, when you buy a house, is the countertop the indicator of how well, let’s say, the house is insulated, or what the R-value of the windows are, or how well it is built, for that matter. 

I don't know about you, but I want to know a bit more about a house that I'm going to invest in and live in for some time than what kind of countertop it has.

These days, as the green revolution begins to take hold, I see more hesitation in my clients when we begin discussing countertops.  This is a good thing. 

To me, it means they are becoming aware of the many choices out there and more aware of environmental damage some choices may or may not cause. 

Here are a few tips that might be helpful next time you’re looking for a countertop, or any surface covering for that matter.

Since granite is a trendsetter for many, let’s start there.

Granite and other natural stone is a quarried material.  That means mountains are taken apart to get the stone.  It is not renewable, and it is a finite resource.  A lot of energy is used to transport it unless you find some that is quarried locally. 

The mining of natural stone impacts the land and water quality.  These stones are durable but do require sealant against staining.

Terrazzo is an aggregate of glass, stone chips, mirror, etc.  Introduced by the Italians, it is a mix of leftovers, and makes beautiful surfaces, countertops and flooring alike.  There are various amounts of recycled content in terrazzo but it can take lots of energy to transport it, so look for locally manufactured products.  Terrazzo resists stains is durable and easy to clean.

Butcher block (wood) does not take much to process, but it’s important to look for FSC certification (Forest Stewardship Council) along with a Chain of Custody certification to make sure it has been managed correctly.  Wood, managed correctly, is a renewable resource.

Sometimes butcher block is pieces of wood laminated together.  Make sure there aren’t any added formaldehydes in the glue.  For sealers and cleaners, look for products that are benign or are low in VOCs.  Butcher block can be recycled.

Paper Composites are also a good choice.  There are many brands available.  This product is made from paper that is held together with a resin binder.  It has a high content of recycled paper, is easy to clean, very durable (after all, skate board ramps were intially made from the stuff) and, it is renewable. 

If you just have to have that granite, look for a salvaged piece and use it as a highlight or focal point in the room.

Want to find out more about how to green your home and lifestyle?  Sign up now for DIY Greenstyle Tips. 

Have questions or don’t know where to begin?  Contact Me at EcoLivingDesign.  Look forward to hearing from you!

Trees Are In The Neighborhood, Breathe Easy

Trees not only look beautiful and inviting to any neighborhood, but they add so much value on so many levels, sustainable designers use the phrase coined by William McDonough design "Like A Tree” as a guideline when approaching their projects.
 
With trees in the neighborhood, you can breathe easy.  Tree-lined streets are a visual testiment to the value they provide to a community, and that is just the beginning of the benefits trees provide to us. 

We all agree that trees are beautiful to look at and provide tranquility.  A view of trees from the hospital window helps us recover quicker from surgery.  On hot days, we run for the wonderful shade and cover a tree provides.

Trees also improve the air around us, help conserve water, provide wildlife habitat.  Because trees sequester, or breathe in so much of the carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, loosing thousands of acres a year is actually contributing to global warming.

It is estimated that 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide is a result of deforestation.  Global Change states “About one half of the forests that once covered the Earth are gone.  Each year, another 16 million hectares disappear.”

The benefit of a tree’s work can be seen much closer to home.  Let’s take a look trees, rain and runoff. 

With the natural water cycle, rain, ice or snow falls, fills streams, rivers and lakes and then eventually flows back to the oceans.  Here, evaporation occurs and water vapor rises into the clouds.  Then the whole cycle repeats.

In an undisturbed environment, about 50% of that rainwater gets soaked into the ground.  About 40% gets soaked up the plants, and the remaining 10% becomes stormwater runoff.

When we disturb the natural flow of the water cycle and watershedding process, by adding roads, houses, parking lots, sidewalks and driveways, the water doesn’t get soaked into the soil. 

Instead, it is forced to evaporate or run off into our storm drains gathering chemicals, gasoline, salts and litter.  This runoff is polluting to the waterways, our wetlands, our drinking water and is damaging to ecosystems.

The more these watersheds are disturbed, the more runoff there is.  This means that less water gets to penetrate and soak into the soil. 

In large cities and in commercial areas, the majority of water turns into runoff.  Less than 1/3 of the water gets soaked into the ground after development compared to before development. 
 
Treating this runoff in water treatments plants becomes expensive.  Planting trees, however, can protect the water and help the ground soak of the water better.

Here’s the cool part.  With the Arbor Day Foundation Tree Benefit Calculator designed by Davey Tree Expert Company and Casey Trees, this tool can give you a good estimation of the value and benefit you will receive or are receiving from planting a tree.

I  ran the numbers for a coastal redwood sapling I picked up at the State Fair.  Every year, I make sure to get one and after it spends 1-1/2 years planted in a pot on my porch, I transfer this graceful and fast growing tree to the great outdoors, behind my house, of course.

As I look over the back yard, I can see it growing rapidly although it still is a bit skinny. 

With the Tree Benefit Calculator, I was able to see that this free sapling with its 1-inch diameter of a trunk has increased my property value by more than one hundred dollars. 

This little coastal redwood will also intercept over 72 gallons of stormwater this year!  It will conserve 4 kilowatts of electricity in energy use.  Plus, my little darling of a tree is absorbing pollutants!

This skinny rascal sequestered or locked up in its roots, trunk, stems and leaves, almost 2 pounds of carbon dioxide and avoided almost 4 pounds of carbon dioxide.

While this redwood isn’t giving me much shade, at this point, I get a lot of satisfaction noticing its growth spurts.  I feel the tranquility coming over me and I breathe deeply.



To find out how to capture the water in your yard and divert it to better uses, sign up for DIY Greenstyle Tips and slow down the runoff.

Green Interior Design And The Carbon Footprint

As a green interior designer, considering the carbon footprint and health is part of the balance sheet when new projects arrive at my desk waiting to become beautiful spaces. 

Concentrating on sustainable performance of the ingredients and the components that go into the interior spaces of an environment, you can gather knowledge along the way and begin developing a sustainable eco living lifestyle.

There are many reasons to learn more about turning your lifestyle into a sustainable, eco-living lifestyle.  Making good decisions that impact the health, cost, efficiency and beauty of your work, home and play are just some of the reasons.

While there are many places to begin, a good place to start is to understand that there are life cycles that belong to products and materials.  The beginning of these lifecycles are way before the product and material land on the retailer’s shelf ready for you to purchase.

Getting familiar with the life cycle of a product will help you make better choices and what better way to learn than from a master.  Watch this video to learn more.

Sign up now to DIY Greenstyle Newsletter and become part of those in the know.  Get the skinny about a robust lifestyle.  

Green Interior Design What It Does

Telling people that I do green interior design I often get a blank stare.  More explanation is always required.  Here's where I use my 30 second commercial.

Interior Design is easily understood, so I have to assume it is the 'green' that throws them off.  It is the green part of what I do that addresses the indoor air quality referred to in the article below.

June 2010


The Missing Piece

Designs that sustain the Earth’s natural resources are no doubt significant, but there is one critical factor tied to green design that the A&D community simply can’t lose sight of: human health.

By Rachel R. Belew

It’s no secret that designing and constructing high-performing, energy-efficient, sustainable buildings and interior spaces is more important today than ever before. Green buildings lead to reduced environmental impact; healthy returns on investment for architects, designers, builders, owners, and product manufacturers; as well as substantial cost savings for end-users.

But in our haste to protect the planet, conserve natural resources, and promote clean outdoor air, one critical piece of the green building puzzle—and, arguably, the most important—is often overlooked: indoor air quality.

“The greatest irony of sustainable design and construction is that, often, the built environments we’re creating don’t sustain human health,” says Henning Bloech, executive director of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI). “While sustaining Earth’s natural resources is critical, we can’t lose sight of the underlying goal: keeping people healthy.”

WHAT IS INDOOR AIR QUALITY?

Indoor air quality (IAQ) refers to the quality of air inside built environments as it relates to human health: The better the IAQ, the healthier the air that people breathe. Unfortunately, statistics consistently show that indoor air is two to five times more polluted than the air outside. Even worse, the air in newly constructed and/or renovated interior spaces can be up to 1,000 times more polluted than outdoor air. Why? Because many of the synthetic products and materials we use to design and build these spaces emit a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants into the air—things like potential carcinogens, reproductive toxins, odorants, and other irritants, notes Bloech.

Not surprisingly, research has linked poor IAQ to a number of health risks, including asthma and other respiratory ailments; headaches; eyes, nose, and throat irritation; and even cancer. This, in turn, leads to decreased productivity, lower academic performance, and increased absenteeism.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

As architects and designers, you help shape and lead the green building and design industry. The built environments you help create and furnish today—whether they’re homes, schools, hospitals, community centers, or retail spaces—will have enormous health impacts on the people who occupy them tomorrow.

Paradoxically, some of the world’s “greenest” buildings—those that meet strict environmental criteria for energy efficiency, site selection, water conservation, and material selection—fail to account for the quality of indoor air.

“Sure, it’s a great thing when we create interior environments made from renewable resources,” says Bloech. “But, if the adhesives used to hold those renewable resources in place release toxic chemicals into the air, then the building we once thought was sustainable is actually doing more harm to its occupants than good—and that goes against everything green building and design stands for.”

To complicate matters, at the core of green building and design is energy efficiency: saving energy equals saving money equals saving the planet. Yet, the more airtight our built environments are, the more polluted the air inside them becomes (the chemicals that emit from indoor sources get trapped inside). “We may be harming our health without even realizing it,” adds Bloech.

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW MAY HURT US

Four decades ago, you—the world’s leading architects, designers, builders, and manufacturers—helped make it possible to reduce human exposure to lead and asbestos in our built environments … even though these building materials were as commonplace (and as accepted) as hardwood flooring or carpeting. You acknowledged the harmful effects that these materials have on human health, and you acted. As a result, today, the levels of lead in children’s blood across every population are markedly lower.

More recently, you also helped cut back on industry use of formaldehyde, a chemical that emits from common building materials (like engineered wood products or insulation) and is known to cause cancer. Thanks to your actions, today, fewer people are exposed to this hazardous chemical.

But science has shown that more than 12,000 other chemicals emit from the products we use or encounter every day. Many of them are known carcinogens, irritants, or developmental and reproductive toxins. Others we know very little or nothing about. Experts warn that exposing ourselves to these unknown chemicals is like gambling with our health.

“Until we learn more about these compounds and their potential impact on human health, it would be prudent to limit our exposure to them as much as possible,” says Marilyn Black, founder of the GEI. “New chemicals are introduced into our environment every day. Do we really want to let ourselves and our children become research guinea pigs?”

HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY

By doing your part to raise awareness about poor IAQ and its health impacts, you can help gain the political, economic, and social momentum needed to make doing your jobs easier and more cost-effective. You can help ensure strong returns on investment, healthy profits, and increased consumer demand. And you can help transform neighborhoods, communities, cities, nations, and human lives.

“Economic growth, political viability, and social progress all share a common thread: human health,” adds Black. “Once we recognize that human health is the cornerstone of green building and design, we can effect real, positive change on the world.”

The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI) is an industry-independent, not-for-profit organization that oversees the GREENGUARD Certification programs. As an ANSI-Accredited Standards Developer, GEI establishes acceptable product standards for building materials, interior furnishings, cleaners, electronics, and children’s products. Learn more at www.greenguard.org.

Want to learn more about improving indoor air quality in your home or office?  Click here to find out how and raise your I.Q. consumer buying level.

Energy Saving Tips That Will Put Money In Your Pocket

The most effective and efficient way to save energy for your home is also the most effective way to reduce your energy costs and put money in your pocket. Making the house as efficient as possible is the most effective way to cut energy costs.

Because homes account for more than 20% of all the energy consumption in the United States, saving energy becomes a priority. Here are some energy saving tips that will put you on track to saving energy and money.

How do you do that? If you’re building a new home, start by looking at the size of the home because the simple truth is the larger the home, the more energy it uses.

What if you’re not building a new home and you want to cut your energy consumption and therefore, your energy costs. Here are a few strategies you may want to consider in your next remodeling project.

A good place to start is to look at insulating your home properly because heating and cooling rooms in your home consume 44% of all the energy used in the home. By insulating existing walls of your home, you can reduce that high energy use.

What does insulation do?

Insulation slows the heat flow into and out of your house. It reduces the heat loss and stops air from infiltrating. Insulating your existing walls can reduce your energy bill from 10 to 30%. The U.S. Department of Energy provides a formula you can use to find out just how cost effective insulating your home can be.

There are many types of insulation to choose from because different insulation materials not only slow the heat loss at different rates but they also do different things. It can be a bit confusing. Here’s something to remember. The higher the “R” value of an insulation material, the better it is at slowing the heat loss.

How do you know what “R” value you need? First, take into consideration the type of climate you live in. Green builders almost always insulate well beyond what is minimum requirement particularly if building a Passivhaus where energy savings start by using an “R” value of 60 is used everywhere, including under the slab.

Other Things to Consider

There are many factors that determine which insulation material to use. Cost is always a consideration along with ease of application, moisture resistance, meeting project requirements and environmental impact of the product.

In considering the environmental impact of a product, we want to look at the manufacturing process, how the product is disposed, what it is made of and if it has any effect on indoor air quality.

No matter what the determining factor may be in choosing which insulation to use, bad and sloppy installation will cause problems and can reduce its effectiveness significantly.

Now that you have captured an impressive 10%-30% energy savings on your energy bill, it’s time to turn up the volume on that warm and cozy and add some fun and excitement.

Carve out your own personal space in rooms that are jaw-dropping, vivacious, serene and beautiful expressions of YOU. Our tips and tools can show you how. Click here to discover how a few simple changes can inspire your life.

Bicycles And Future Cities

When you imagine a future city, do you think of a historic machine like the bicycle? Perhaps not, but others have. In fact, Bicycle City, the first of its kind in North America is in the planning stages and to be located in South Carolina.

Imagine that! A city without roads! Without roads for cars, that is. Bicycles are shaping the way we transport ourselves into the future of cities without cars. Of course, the 140 acres of Bicycle City will have green homes to go along with it.

It is no surprise that Germany has already built a bicycle city where over 5,000 residents currently live mostly without cars and that is a tram’s ride away from the town, Freiburg. The cars that are used are parked on the outskirts of town which are, you guessed it, biked to.

The inspiration for such a project comes from none other than golf. Communities are built up around the golf so why no around cleaner air, less noise, less pollution, doubling up on activities like getting exercise while going to shop?

None other than the bicycle fits that bill.

Of course, tons of questions start to pop into mind. One of the first questions that I had was how would you get food into the city. For the South Carolina site, rail and water will be the transportation modes used to haul all the goods that we use and rely on for daily life.

As I rushed to tell my friend about this concept, more questions came up. What if you have a family to transport around, or what if the weather doesn’t cooperate with your plans?

Being a problem solver, my friend and I came up with lots of ideas to answer these questions. After some thoughtful discussions, we realized that these concerns were opportunities for fun and creativity and maybe even a spark for that entrepreneurial spirit.

Now, what about all that pedaling? That may sound like torture to some and exhilarating to others. At some point or another, we have all wished to get to that easy-breezy status. It’s just the in between parts that seem bring our good intentions to a crashing halt.


The key is to start. After a couple of weeks, your aerobic capacity will build, and you’ll be able to do things you never thought you could. Soon, says expert bike riders, you won’t look back.

Nobody really knows when the bicycle was invented. One school of thought embraces the 1860s as the first bicycle invention by a guy named Ernest Michaux. Others refer to Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbroon as being the first to design a bike-like machine around 1818.


Regardless of the exact date, bicycles and the various models have always been a fascination and a fashion statement, from nostalgic to a throw down that has no chance of getting stolen.

To take a look at the history of bicycle models, click here.  Which one do you like best? Leave your comment.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net