Tag: material
More Oceanic Garbage Patches Found
Marine researcher Marcus Eriksen says the plastic packaging that wraps nearly all consumer products is killing some marine animals.(Photo courtesy of the NOAA Marine Debris Program)
A giant field of plastic debris is floating in the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean. Now researchers are finding more of these garbage patches in other Oceans. Mark Brush has more:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/100419_brush_spot.mp3
Researchers say there are ocean currents that sort of swirl around like water in a toilet bowl. There called oceanic gyres.
The Algalita Marine Research Foundation was one of the groups that documented the problem in the North Pacific Ocean. This year they sailed to the gyres in the North Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean.
They found miles and miles of plastic fishing line, milk crates, spoons and forks, and bits of plastic bags.
Marcus Eriksen is with the group:
Eriksen: I challenge you to walk into Wal-Mart or a K-Mart and find a product that's not made from plastic, packaged or labeled with plastic. And we're finding more and more of this debris being lost onto the ground washing down rivers and streams out to sea.
Eriksen says the plastic is killing some marine animals. Fish, birds, turtles, and whales get tangled up in the mess – or they mistake it for food.
For The Environment Report, I'm Mark Brush.
The EPA on marine debris
More about the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
Learn more from the Five Gyres Project
Author Mark BrushPosted on April 19, 2010 Categories News SpotsTags birds, debris, ecosystem, field, fish, float, floating, floats, garbage, gyre, injure, injured, marine, material, ocean, oceans, pacific, plastic, plastics, pollute, polluting, pollution, research, researchers, sealife, trash, turtles
Renewing the Nuclear Past (Part 2)
Cooling units at the Vermont Yankee power station. Radioactive tritium (an isotope of hydrogen) has leaked into the ground near the center of the plant. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Power companies hope to extend the working life of old nuclear reactors because it's cheaper to run them than it is to build new reactors.
But old reactors require federal approval to renew their licenses.
For the past decade, power companies have been on a winning streak.
They'd gotten reactor licenses renewed every time they asked.
Shawn Allee reports one of the industry's most recent bets went wrong:
Vermont's only nuclear reactor, Vermont Yankee, is likely to shut down in 2012.
The story of how that happened is unique in the nuclear biz.
Vermont Yankee's license was set to expire in 2012 but eight years ago, a company called Entergy bought it anyway.
Entergy gambled the federal government would renew that license so Vermont Yankee could run another twenty years.
It seemed a safe bet, since the federal government never rejected a renewal application.
But Entergy also asked to expand Vermont Yankee, to produce more power.
That's when Vermont's state legislature stepped in.
The legislature said, if you want to expand, we want some say in whether you operate past 2012, regardless of what the federal government says.
No other state legislature has given itself this kind of authority.
This was an opening for anti-nuclear activists.
This video's from a protest back in January.
Activists took it during their week long winter-time March to Vermont's statehouse.
The protesters stopped for potlucks, speeches, and church songs.
Protester say they felt they were winning some support, but then they got an unexpected boost.
Here's protester Bob Bady:
"We got a call that there was migrating plume of tritium under the plant and it was going to hit the press the next day."
Bady says tritium is a kind of hydrogen that makes water radioactive.
In other words, Vermont Yankee was leaking radioactive water.
Protesters asked themselves, didn't Entergy say these kinds of underground leaks couldn't happen?
"The plant owner, Entergy, has incredibly low credibility particularly because they went before the legislature and vehemently denied there were even pipes underground, so that created a problem for them."
The details are fuzzy, at least according to Entergy.
Here's PR-guy Rob Williams.
"Clearly there was some kind of a miscommunication and then, uh, once we have a handle on it, we want to set the record straight."
Entergy says its own investigation found employees did not lie about piping that could cause tritium leaks.
Vermont's Attorney General is still determining that.
Regardless, some state senators said they felt they were lied to. Or Entergy did not know the plant could leak tritium. Either would be bad, so the state senate voted to shut the plant.
And that's all Vermont law requires, so now Vermont Yankee's slated to close in 2012.
But what happened with the tritium leaks?
PR-guy Rob Williams gives me a tour of Vermont Yankee.
From Entergy's point of view, the system worked. It detected tritium in underground water.
"Right. Now, this is three wells we installed to specifically look for tritium. It gives you a good early warning that you've got a leak back in the piping."
State health officials say tritium probably leaked near the center of the plant.
The state hasn't found contaminated wells or other drinking water supplies.
Tritium is likely to move into the nearby Connecticut River, where it'll be diluted.
As for the federal government, it's unfazed.
The U-S Nuclear Regulatory Commission says Vermont Yankee leaked tritium before – several times.
At least 26 other reactors leaked tritium, too, but the NRC says the public's safe.
In fact, the NRC has approved applications for license renewal at plants that had leaks just like Vermont Yankee's.
The NRC is still reviewing that plant's license renewal application … regardless of what the State of Vermont has to say about it.
Tomorrow, Shawn Allee looks at tritium leaks at one power plant that is across the river from a desalinization drinking water plant.
News of the tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee
More on tritium from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Entergy's website on Vermont Yankee
Author Shawn AlleePosted on March 4, 2010 Categories FeaturesTags material, nuclear, nuke, nukes, radiation, radioactive, vermont, waste, yankee
New Houses Get a Little Smaller
Huge houses are on the decline. (Photo courtesy of Brendel Signature)
The American dream of home ownership has become a trend of bigger and bigger houses. The square footage of new, detached houses crept upwards for decades even though families shrank. Recent economic troubles have stopped the big house trend. Shawn Allee reports:
You might not know it but the American dream of home ownership has translated into bigger and bigger houses.
The square footage of new, detached houses crept upward for decades, even though families shrank.
Shawn Allee reports recent economic troubles have stopped the big-house trend.
Housing stats kinda say it all.
Just after World War II, brand new single-family detached homes were about 1100 square feet.
By 2007, they were twice as big.
One builder, Andrew Konovodoff, says 2007 was the peak.
Konovodoff: My analogy is, you go to McDonalds, you can up-charge or supersize your meal and get a couple hundred extra french fries.
Alee: People did that with homes?
Konovodoff: Yeah. Money was available. People bought more home than they needed. Now, I think people have trended back the other way.
Konovodoff's right.
The U-S Census bureau says brand-new homes shrank for two years straight, and home builders say they're going to build smaller for at least another year.
That hasn't happened in decades, and builders like Konovodoff are adjusting
In the smaller square footages you won't see a formal dining room … you'll have an eat-in kitchen. We've pushed out the formal dining room.
Konovodoff says he's considering even smaller designs.
He says it'll be trickier to make a good living, so he's not exactly happy with the trend.
But there are people who are glad houses are getting smaller.
One of them's Alex Wilson.
He edits a magazine called Environmental Building News.
Wilson: In building a house, we need lumber, new windows and a whole range of building materials. It's just common sense that a smaller house will use less materials. Even with any material, a so-called green material made from recycled content, there're still impacts from manufacturing that product and shipping it to the job site. So, when we use less, we reduce environmental impact.
Wilson says the size of new homes has dropped just a bit … maybe the equivalent of a big closet or a tiny, tiny dining room.
He'd like homes to see homes get even smaller, but that won't happen until our heating and cooling bills jump higher.
Wilson: I think if we were paying five dollars a gallon for gasoline and equivalent prices for natural gas and heating oil, then we would see a much more dramatic drop in house size.
Wilson says most of us won't demand or build small houses until we truly fear a life-time of high utility bills.
A related website on building smart houses
An article about the history of house size
A related article on house size and resource use
Author Shawn AlleePosted on February 24, 2010 Categories FeaturesTags build, building, economic, economy, environment, green, house, houses, housing, material, reduce, reducing, reduction, size, smaller
Bricks of Fly Ash
Fly ash particles at 2,000x magnification.
A company is using waste from
coal-burning power plants to
make bricks. The firm hopes
to reduce the amount of coal
ash sent to landfills, and,
at the same time, cut the amount
of energy used to make bricks.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The company, Calstar, says it wants to open several U.S. plants which would use fly ash in making bricks for construction and paving. The California firm says its method uses far less energy that traditional clay bricks that have to be heated at high temperatures.
Luke Pustejovsky is a Calstar executive. He insists the quality of fly ash brick meets industry standards.
"We spent 18 months and millions of dollars on durability testing with our own labs, with outside third party labs, and this is a brick that's built to last."
But a trade group, the Brick Industry Association, is cool to fly ash brick. The group says the product has not yet met the test of time. The group is concerned any problems that come up could discourage customers from using brick.
The company, Calstar
An article on bricks from the Chicago Tribune
Wikipedia's page on fly ash
Author Chuck QuirmbachPosted on January 20, 2010 Categories News SpotsTags ashes, brick, bricks, building, buildings, cement, coal, coals, concrete, construction, kiln, kilns, material, materials, recycle, recycled, recycles, wall, walls, waste
Greenovation: Eco-Certified
When doing home improvement projects, WaterSense, EnergyStar, GREENGUARD, and FSC certifications are some to keep an eye out for. (Photo by Michelle Miller-Freeck, courtesy of FEMA)
When you're planning a home
improvement project, you can
be overwhelmed with decisions
about the right materials, the
right quality, and the right
design. Trying to keep it eco-
friendly on top of everything
else just adds to the confusion.
Lester Graham reports it can be
as simple as finding a label:
Julia Weinert and her boyfriend like the idea of making their place nice, but even something as simple as painting causes concerns.
JW: "We want to support environmentally friendly options and we just don't want to be smelling it for three days out and have to be running the fans. We just want it to be convenient and we think it would be an easy thing to do."
LG: "Well, you're in luck. We're at the local Home Depot and we just happen to have Greenovation.TV's Matt Grocoff here. Matt, you've got some advice for her."
MG: "And it's really, really simple. When you're trying to find a paint that's healthy for you or another product, you shouldn't have to be a chemist when you go to the store. There's a really simple thing you can look for. Just look for the simple GREENGUARD label. GREENGUARD is an independent organization that lets you know with a simple label that that product is safe for you."
So, none of the really strong paint smells that mean polluting chemicals are being released. GREENGUARD Environmental Institute sets indoor air standards for products and buildings. Julia and I sniffed a can of paint WITH the GREENGUARD label, and then one without.
LG: "I'll let you sniff first."
JW: Okay. Oh! Yeah! Oh my gosh! That is ridiculous. I mean, it smells so much stronger than this one. You can't even smell that one compared to this one."
A gallon of paint with the GREENGUARD label DOES cost a few dollars more, maybe as much as ten bucks.
Matt then herded us to another part of the store, the plumbing section, where Julia and I were confronted by all kinds of shiny chrome and brass faucets.
JW: "There's a whole wall, a whole aisle of faucets here and I just don't know which ones to look for."
LG: "So, Matt. You got any fancy labels here?"
MG: "Absolutely. Again, if you're looking for that eco-friendly option, a way to save yourself some money and some water, it's simple. Just look for the WaterSense label. The EPA does EnergyStar labels for appliances. The EPA also does WaterSense label for plumbing fixtures."
WaterSense means the fixture – whether a faucet, shower head or toilet – will use less water but still works well.
As we wandered over to the lumber section of the store, Matt told us the last label he wanted to show us is the most ignored label – and it might just be the most important one.
MG: "FSC stands for the Forest Stewardship Council. And what that means is they've made a commitment that they're not going to be tearing down forest and clear-cutting them in order for you to build some bookshelves in your home. This is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gases is that we don't have these forests capturing this carbon any more. Instead of having to have a PhD in forest management, you can just simply look for a piece of wood that has an FSC label on it."
So, labels. Julia says, works for her.
JW: "It's going to be great, taking my boyfriend around the store and showing him all these cool things I can get to make our home improvements a little more cheap and environmentally-friendly."
LG: "Alright remind me, go over this again. What am I supposed to be looking for?"
MG: "It's very simple. If you're looking for paint, look for GREENGUARD. For plumbing, WaterSense. For lumber, FSC, Forest Stewardship Council certified."
LG: "That's Matt Grocoff, Greenovation.TV. Thanks again, Matt.
MG: "Lester, it's always a pleasure. Thank you."
For The Environemnt Report, I'm Lester Graham.
TER stories featuring Matt
Author Lester GrahamPosted on January 6, 2010 Categories Features, GreenovationTags certification, certified, certify, construction, consumer, consumerism, consumers, energy, greenovation, grocoff, home, homeowner, homeowners, homes, house, houses, improve, improved, improvement, improvements, material, materials, project, projects, renovation, sense, shop, shopper, shoppers, shopping, shops, star, stars, store, stores, water, waters, watersense
Greenovation: The Re-Use Store
The ReStore sells everything from building supplies to power tools to toilets and sinks. (Photo courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity of Huron County, Michigan)
88 cents of every dollar from this ReStore go back to Habitat for Humanity homes. (Photo courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity of Huron County, Michigan)
Home improvement projects cost
a lot of money. Some environmentalists
have found a way to save some money,
conserve resources, and help other
people get into homes. Lester Graham
It seems like my friend Matt Grocoff with Greenovation TV is always working on a home improvement project. Not too long ago, he asked me to go with him to his favorite store. So we headed down the road where all the big box home improvement stores are in his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, but that's not where we ended up.
MG: "Just about anything I need, my first stop is always a re-use center. My favorite is, of course, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Today I've gotta find a– a, uh– what do you call them? A sander, a hand sander, a belt sander?"
Matt turned to Jackie Hermann who manages this ReStore. And she pulled a case from the shelf in back.
JH: "This absolutely beautiful Porter Cable professional random orbit sander with dust collection."
MG: "This is gorgeous. This is exactly what I need. And how much is this?"
LG: "Looks like it's never been used."
MG: "Almost new condition. $35.00. And it's used material that's not going to a landfill or sitting in somebody's basement not being used. And here I get to use it and save money. This is another one of the things where we can debunk the myth that going green costs more."
Okay, so Matt got a good deal and it extends the useful life of a pretty good tool. But the idea is to raise money for Habitat for Humanity to help get people into homes, so I had to ask Jackie about that.
LG: "How much of that money actually goes to Habitat for Humanity and building houses for folks?"
JH: "We have a 12% administrative overhead, so 88-cents on every dollar into a habitat home."
There are about 600 of these ReStores across the nation. The administrative overhead varies a bit from store to store, but the money raised at each store goes to homes in that store's local area.
Jackie says, for her area, that's meant a bit of a shift for Habitat for Humanity. You might have heard, in Michigan there are a lot of foreclosures.
JH: "We're not building brand-new as much. We are buying foreclosed houses that are already existing in blighted neighborhoods, and we are rehabbing them and making it livable and improving the neighborhood."
LG: "You're recycling houses."
JH: "We are! We're recycling houses also. So, when Lowe's, for instance, donated a large quantity of items, we kept a bunch aside for construction. They come and they look though and say what they can use, and then those items are set aside for them. And then as they need them, they use them."
And anything left over is sold in the ReStore. It's donations that make ReStore work. It might be overstock from places like Lowe's or from local contractors. It could be people who are moving or retiring or just don't need an appliance any longer. They might have extra cabinets, or carpeting, or a perfectly good sink they don't need.
JH: "The proverbial kitchen sink. Lots and lots and lots of toilets. Light fixtures, flooring, doors, windows, fasteners."
MG: "Lester, let me show you some of the stuff they've got here. My wife and I spent months looking for a really high-quality, affordable, high-efficiency, front-loading washer. This is a front-loading washer and dryer. (taps on appliance) In fact, this is the same model that we bought. We paid $600 for ours. Here, at the ReStore, it's $200. And Jackie, how do we know that this works?"
JH: "Everything's been tested. And, it's guaranteed for two to three months – I'm really not picky about that."
Some things are used, some are new. It all works.
Matt Grocoff with Greenovation.TV says it keeps stuff out of the landfill, it means perfectly good building materials and appliances for home improvement projects, saves resources, and raises money to help people get into a home.
MG: "It's a win-win across the board."
Habitat for Humanity ReStores
Greenovation.TV
"Company Trash, Classroom Treasures"
Author Lester GrahamPosted on December 3, 2009 Categories Features, GreenovationTags buying, dump, garbage, goods, habitat, habitats, home, homeowner, homeowners, homes, house, houses, humanity, improvement, landfill, material, materials, money, project, projects, re-use, recycled, reuse, shop, shopping, shops, store, stores, waste, wasted, wastes
Big Name Design With a Green Twist
New York fashion designer Issac Mizrahi during a fitting session. Mizrahi used salmon leather to create an ensemble that includes a dress, jacket and shoes. (Photo by Mackenzie Stroh, courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum)
New York fashion designer Issac Mizrahi used salmon leather to create a dress, jacket and shoes. (Photo by Mackenzie Stroh, courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum)
Fishermen catch salmon in southwest Alaska. (Photo by Ami Vitale, courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum)
You might not have heard of the design firm Pentagram, but more than likely you've seen
its work. Pentagram designed the shopping bags for Saks Fifth Avenue, the logo for
Citibank, the layout of the New York Times Magazine. In short, its designers make
things look pretty. Recently, Pentagram got a call from the nonprofit Nature
Conservancy. As Hammad Ahmed reports, it wasn't the usual request for a nice new logo
or packaging:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/feature_ahmed_070609.mp3
The Nature Conservancy wanted Pentagram to issue a challenge to big name designers.
And the challenge was this: design environmentally friendly stuff. In other words, you
have to use renewable, abundant, and natural materials… instead of plastic.
Pentagram stepped up the challenge, recruited some designers, and, now, I'm here to see
what they came up with.
Curator Abbott Miller and I are standing at the Smithsonian Design museum in
"The exhibition actually goes, um, this way."
The exhibition is called "Design for a Living World." And honestly, it looks like a
Pottery Barn. Bowls, chairs, and rugs. When you look closely though, you see all this
stuff is made from really interesting materials. For example, salmon leather.
Miller: "Salmon leather is stripped away from salmon in the process of canning and
literally was considered waste, but is actually an incredible material."
Ahmed: "So this is just like salmon scales?"
Miller: "It's the skin of salmon that's been preserved."
Working with the preserved salmon skin fell upon big-name fashion designer Isaac
Mizrahi, who's more used to designing with silk and satin.
"If you're weighing like sort of you know ecology and glamour, I think they weigh the
same to me, sorry to say that."
Ecology or glamour, huh? Well, Mizrahi took this salmon leather and he turned it into a
dazzling pair of high heels you'd expect to see on the red carpet.
"For some people, that kind of product, represents a negative."
Gary Bamossy is a marketing professor at Georgetown's Business School.
"These very expensive green items that are really just sort of 'fashionista' kinds of
acquisitions, they see that as frivolous and maybe even as a waste of money."
So, not exactly a 'green ethic.'
And this makes me wonder which way of being green is better. Buying more shoes made
from salmon leather? Or not buying more shoes at all?
Abbott Miller admits it's a valid question.
"That whole question of should we buy less, I think the answer is probably yes. You
know everyone knows that we're an over-consuming culture."
So if the real problem is over-consumption, what's the point of green design?
When I ask Gary Bambossy, the marketing professor, he comes back with another
"Green design as it relates to museum and as fashion? Or green design as part of a
business model process?"
And that question makes me realize green design isn't just a new look for the same
products. It's a new way of making those products, and educating the consumer.
Abbott Miller says we really ought to know more about what we buy, what is used to
"We may come to a point of such hyperawareness of the materials that we use that that's
part of the story of why you buy something."
Miller and Bambossy agree that buyers increasingly want to know more. And that could
lead to products being more sustainable.
But, the thing is, all this awareness isn't free. So, you're left with one last question: are
you willing to pay more for knowing more about the things you buy?
For The Environment Report, I'm Hammad Ahmed.
Info from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Musem
An article and photos from Pentagram
Author Hammad AhmedPosted on July 6, 2009 Categories FeaturesTags challenge, clothes, conservancy, create, created, creation, creations, design, designer, exhibit, exhibits, fashion, furniture, kate, living, material, materials, museum, museums, nature, smithsonian, spade, world
Businesses Save Money by Reducing Waste
The lot that started Baldassari's quest to eliminate waste from his business. (Photo by Nancy Paladino of The Taylor Companies)
Wood scraps used to go to the dump - now they're used as mulch and at local farms for horse bedding. (Photo by Nancy Paladino of The Taylor Companies)
A canadian company picks up leather upholstery scraps to make wallets and purses. (Photo by Nancy Paladino of The Taylor Companies)
When you're in the business of making things, you can wind
up with a lot of waste material. But these days more
companies are realizing trash has value. Julie Grant reports
instead of spending big bucks to dump their waste in a
landfill, these companies are making money from it:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/feature_grant_051109.mp3
Jeff Baldassari's company makes sleek, upscale office
"I would have never guessed ten years ago I'd
be the guy telling you this story right now."
Baldassari is the CEO of The Taylor Companies.
A few years ago he started planning for a new factory. The
site where they wanted to build it was an old brownfield.
That's a site that had been contaminated by a past
manufacturer.
Baldassari says they got grant money to clean up the land,
and it got them thinking about the environment – really for the
first time.
"'Okay we cleaned up this brownfield – but
let's not stop there. What else can we do for
the environment, what else can we do for our
bottom line to pay for this new facility, to
get it to pay for itself?'"
They started looking at their waste.
(sound of a factory)
On the factory floor, a worker is tracing the shape of a chair
leg onto a piece of wood. After it's cut, the scrap wood is
tossed into a large box.
"Trees don't grow in the shape of furniture
parts. So there is a lot of waste. Ultimately,
40% of each board ends up as scrap when it's
all said and done – 30% to 40% will end up as
scrap."
Baldassari says they used to pay to send all that scrap wood
to the landfill – along with huge dumpsters full of sawdust.
That cost the company.
But his team started making some calls. They found horse
farms that wanted sawdust for bedding. They found
companies that wanted wood chips for mulch.
Instead paying to have dumpsters of waste hauled away,
they found markets for the waste material.
It was the same deal with leather coverings for the chairs
and sofas. One-fourth of the leather used to end up in the
scrap heap as trash. Now a hand-bag maker in Montreal
comes to pick it up for purses and wallets.
And Baldassari is pretty happy about it. These days he's
sending only one-eighth of the waste to the landfill as before.
That saves the company $30,000 dollars a year.
For many companies, this is the future.
Joel Makower says smart corporate leaders are finding ways
to reach zero-waste. Makower is the executive editor of
greenbiz.com.
"We're starting to see companies think in
terms of closed loop systems. Factories
where basically there may not be any
smokestacks, drain pipes, or dumpsters.
where every waste product is turned into
some kind of raw material for another
But a lot of these companies are not necessarily cutting
waste because it's good for the earth. Like Jeff Baldassari,
these corporate leaders often start the process as a way to
save money.
These days Baldassari says he's the kind businessman he
never guessed he'd be: one who's always looking for ways
to eliminate waste:
"Once I got started, I literally became
addicted to it. But it was addicted, in the
sense again, it helped our bottom line."
Baldassari wants it clear: he's not a tree-hugger. But, at this
point, he's actually having fun. He's caught up in finding
ways to save money by eliminating waste.
For The Environment Report, I'm Julie Grant.
An article on zero waste offices
Another story on green business from TER
Author Julie GrantPosted on May 11, 2009 Categories FeaturesTags business, businesses, cash, companies, company, corporation, corporations, garbage, line, manufacture, manufacturing, material, materials, money, profit, profits, reduce, reduction, save, saving, sell, selling, sold, supplies, supply, taylor, trash, waste, wasted
Recession Proof Construction
One company created a website that acts as kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)
In the middle of a recession that's
crippling the construction field,
there's at least one sector of
industry that's doing pretty well.
That's "material reuse." Taking pieces
of old buildings and using them in
new ones. Advocates say used materials
could save developers a heap of money.
Samara Freemark has the
story of one re-use company that's both
green and in the black:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/feature_freemark_030909.mp3
You've probably heard what's going on in the construction industry
these days.
(news montage of housing crisis)
But in middle of all that bad news, there might be one bright spot.
"We've actually been expanding quite a bit. I guess it's one of the
only times I've heard
of where that's the case."
That's architect Brad Hardin.
He got interested in reusing building materials pretty early in his career.
He likes the way
the old stuff looked. And he likes the idea of saving resources. And
he's also kind of
horrified by the tens of millions of tons of construction waste that get
tossed into landfills
But actually getting his hands on used materials, so that he could reuse
them- that turned
out to be a real pain in the butt.
"You know you'll be literally going out to someone's yard and getting
rained on, or
sorting through someone's basement– it was kind of a hit and miss
A big part of the problem was simple logistics. Imagine you're knocking
down an old
house to build a new one. You'd like to sell off whatever pieces of the
old building you
can. But how do you find someone to buy all that stuff? Where do you store
it while you
look for a buyer? And how do you ship the materials?
Harry Giles is a professor of green architecture at the University of
He says most developers don't want to bother with all that hassle. In the
end, they usually
just end up bulldozing everything. Giles says that's because there's no
real secondhand
market for used construction materials- not like there is in a lot of other
"If you take the car industry, a lot of it is geared around the reuse of
materials. Not just
taking the car and crushing it, but taking it apart and finding useful
components on it."
You know, like a salvage yard.
And that was the problem Brad Hardin wanted to solve – how to create a
market for spare building parts. He figured that if he could do that,
reusing building
materials could actually end up profitable.
So last year he started a company called Planet ReUse. The company's
website acts as
kind of a Craigslist just for reclaimed building materials. Buyers and
sellers can find each
other on the 'net.
And Planet ReUse tests all material to make sure it's up to code. That
way the buyer
doesn't end up with, say, eight tons of rotten planking. And Planet ReUse
arranges all the
shipping- trying to hook up sellers to nearby buyers. That saves money and
fuel.
By removing those basic barriers, Hardin says his buyers save about 20%
buying new. And Planet ReUse still makes a profit.
And it's also a start to reducing those millions of tons of landfill
So, what kind of stuff does he sell on the site?
"How much time do you have? Steel, flooring…"
It turns out there's money in just about everything you can salvage from
a building.
Harry Giles says that cash is the key to cutting down waste.
"If people see that it's a lucrative business to actually salvage
materials, that will drive it
much faster than concern for the environment."
And it's not just buildings. Remember President Obama's inauguration
stage? Well, that
got torn down, and Planet ReUse is trying to get the pieces to New Orleans.
They'll be
used to rebuild houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
It's just one more way for Planet ReUse to prove that you can do good, be
green, and
make a little money too.
For The Environment Report, I'm Samara Freemark.
Planet ReUse
Resources and Info on this from the EPA
Author Samara FreemarkPosted on March 9, 2009 Categories FeaturesTags auction, build, building, construction, home, homes, house, houses, housing, material, materials, online, planet, price, prices, recycle, recycled, reuse, sell, selling, steel, supplies, supply, umich, web, website, websites, wood
Sagging Mattress Recycling
The city of Toronto has started collecting old mattresses at a central recycling center. (Photo by Julie Grant)
At Simon Zysman's factory, Recover Canada, mattresses to be dismantled. (Photo by Julie Grant)
A worker deconstructs a used mattress. (Photo by Julie Grant)
The steel coils at this factory are used make rebuilt mattresses. Other dismantlers recycle the steel. (Photo by Julie Grant)
One of the bigger things we
throw away are old mattresses. Landfills
are stuffed full of them. Julie Grant
reports that new companies are springing
up to recycle the steel and cushioning
from old mattresses. They say the government
could help, but it's lying down on the job:
https://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/feature_grant2_121508.mp3
(sound of a mattress factory)
Simon Zysman has been working with mattresses for more
than half-a-century. For the past 16, he's been running a
business in Toronto that tears old mattresses apart so the
pieces can be reused.
"i've only dismantled with my own hands 3,000 used
mattresses and my enterprize in the 16 years has only
dismantled 40,000 mattresses, and therefore i know very
little. I'm just learning."
Yeah, like Lance Armstrong is just learning to ride a bike.
Now, apparently dismantling mattresses is not a cushy job.
(sound of mattress deconstruction)
Workers pull mattresses from a big pile. I watch one as he
makes a long cut all around the edge, snips material where
it's connected to the coils. And then pulls the entire face of
the cushioning away from the springs. It's kind of like
filleting the mattress.
When he's done, the cushioning goes on one pile. The steel
springs on another.
Zysman sells the different parts to companies in the U.S.
that rebuild mattresses. Other people in the business just
recycle the steel and sell the cushioning for things like
carpet-padding and oil filters.
Zysman used to toss and turn when he thought about the
huge numbers of mattresses out there, but his supply's not
been steady.
When you buy a new mattress, a lot of times the company
that delivers it will pick up your old mattress. Most
companies just send them to the dump. Only a few pay
people like Zysman to have them dismantled.
Until recently those few have provided Zysman's only
supply.
But the city of Toronto has started a pilot program to collect
old mattresses from residents at the curbside for companies
like Zysman's.
"The city's pioneering mattress recycling program has been
a great boost to us and a great help to us. That is a
wonderful development."
(sound of a recycling center)
The mattresses the city picks up are stockpiled at a recycling
Bryan Farley runs the city's new program. He says Zysman
and other people like him are getting paid to keep
mattresses from stuffing the landfill.
"Landfill space in Ontario is a premium. It's hard to find.
And there are laws and regulations that are more focused on
not putting materials into the landfill."
Farley figures getting mattresses out of the waste stream will
help the city to meet its ambitious goal of reducing trash by
Mattresses take up a lot of space. They're big and bulky and
don't smash down all that well in a landfill.
South of the Canadian border, in Ohio, Chuck Brickman has
been piecing together a mattress recycling business.
He wishes the government here would help increase the
supply of used mattresses. Brickman can get some from
local hotels and furniture stores, but it's not enough so far to
run a steady business.
"There's two companies right now in New Jersey that are
sending 2 to 5 thousand mattresses a month by rail from
New Jersey to a landfill in Michigan."
Why? It's cheap.
A few cities and states have special landfill fees for bulky
items like mattresses, but most don't. So, it's usually
cheaper just to dump them.
Brickman wants local or state governments to create more
'incentives' for the mattresses to be recycled. In other
words, higher fees to dump mattresses.
"It's easier and more economically feasible for them to throw
them in a couple rail cars and send them a couple states
over because there are no established tipping fees in some
of the Midwestern states like Ohio and Michigan."
Mattress recyclers say government officials can raise those
fees on dumping mattresses. That would make the mattress
recycling business less of a dream, and more of a reality.
Ohio Mattress Recovery and Recycling
A related article from the Seattle Times
Author Julie GrantPosted on December 15, 2008 Categories FeaturesTags beds, dump, dumps, fill, garbage, land, landfill, landfills, material, materials, mattress, mattresses, recycle, recycled, recycling, sleep, spring, springs, trash, waste