Years ago a friend and I borrowed my mother's minivan, left our small college, and drove west in search of the Great American Wilderness. For months we steered clear of cities in favor of National Parks and Forests, but as we passed through the Sierras we couldn't help but notice how close Death Valley is to that other American extreme: Las Vegas.

We drove out of Death Valley around midnight, and soon the artificial sun of Sin City was glowing on the eastern horizon. Stepping out onto the Strip, all I could see was the waste: the blazing lights, the miles upon miles of climate-controlled real estate, the networks of fountains spewing billions of gallons of water into the dry desert air. With all the maturity and nuanced perspective of my 20 years, I thought: We're all going to die, and this is what will kill us.

I left Vegas less than 12 hours later and I've never been back, but I think of it often, especially when I'm feeling less hopeful that we will ever un-supersize the American lifestyle, because it's so clear from examples like Las Vegas that excess—waste—still sells. But something I saw this week might have me looking for a new scapegoat: the Las Vegas Sands Corp. (of the Venetian, Palazzo, and Sands Expo complex) has a plan to turn the three-casino complex into the "world's greenest building"—all 17.9 million square feet of it.

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Our next feature article for Environmental Building News is on the Passive House standard for ultra-low-energy buildings--a standard that originated about 20 years ago in Germany. Excitement about Passive House in North America is resulting in some really cool products being introduced from Europe. One of those is the Zehnder line of heat-recovery ventilators (HRVs) and associated components.

I had a chance to spend some time with Barry Stephens, the national sales and marketing manager for Zehnder America at last week's Building Energy Conference, sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). Zehnder is a Swiss company that specializes in hydronic heat distribution, heated towel racks, ground-source heat recovery, and advanced heat-recovery ventilation systems. Runtal, a more familiar brand in North America, is a Zehnder company.

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If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I wrote about urine-separating toilets last year. You'll also know that I'm rather enamored of the image at right. So you can imagine how gleeful I was when I discovered I had another reason to use it!

It turns out researchers in Europe have found that people are not at all grossed out by the concept of urine-separating toilets. In fact, they like them!

75%-85% of people surveyed found the toilets as easy to use and as clean and hygienic as conventional toilets. And 80% of those surveyed supported the idea of using urine as fertilizer.

Ever since the premier of USGBC's two-day REGREEN workshop in Phoenix, AZ at Greenbuild last November, Annette, Rob, and I have been gearing up for a slew of green remodeling workshops across the country -- the REGREEN Roadshow. The REGREEN workshops are a lot of fun to teach (and take) for two reasons: one, the blend of builder/remodeler with interior design perspectives is completely refreshing; and two, the substantial and substantive group work woven into the workshop makes for an energetic and invigorating approach.

Now you might be saying to yourself: What? Interior designers and hard-core building science-builder types making sweet music together? You would be surprised at how well these perspectives can inform each other. Here is just one example:

Your clients TELL you they want new replacement windows. But what they actually want is to keep the way their windows currently look, not spend too much, and get real performance improvements (in terms of energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and daylighting -- without overheating during the summer). Whew. So you sit down with an interior designer, and all of the sudden you need to compare about a dozen options -- sash replacements, window films, cellular shades, awnings, shutters -- all with real (but different) advantages. What started as a rather simple choice ends up to be quite a puzzle, based on a weaving of sometimes competing aspects: energy efficiency, lighting, views, privacy, cost, comfort, even noise. It's just as much about interior design as it is hard-core remodeling.

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The last couple weeks I've written about two of the common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green and that green building is mostly about materials. This week I'll cover another myth: that green building products don't perform as well as conventional products.

A lot of people still point to products like early water-saving toilets, compact-fluorescent lamps, and recycled-plastic-lumber decking as evidence that new-fangled green products don't work very well. Clearly, there were some poorly performing products out there as manufacturers scrambled to respond to consumer demand and new regulations. But, for the most part, we've climbed up that learning curve, and current-generation products work very well.

Let's take a look at the history of a few of these product categories.

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The following is a video that we recorded at our booth at the 2009 Greenbuild conference, when we transformed BuildingGreen's booth into the "Ask LEEDuser" experience, including talks on specific credits from LEEDuser's "guest experts"--the top LEED minds on specific LEED credits.

Here, Joshua Radoff of YRG sustainability reviews some of the key considerations behind achieving SSc8: Light Pollution Reduction in the 2009 NC, CS, and Schools rating systems. (Links go to further guidance on the LEEDuser site.)

Josh covers what you have to do in terms of interior AND exterior lighting, and what you need from your designer. A highly recommended two minutes and 21 seconds!

Go figure I'd finish a feature article (Chemistry for Designers: Understanding Hazards in Building Products) saying there's no certification in the USA for products that are hazard-free and immediately a label gets launched. That's ok, I have no complaints with things moving fast in this field.

I haven't dug into the details enough to vouch for this system yet – but the Hazardous Substance Free product label (HSF Mark), launched March 1, looks pretty good at first glance, though only for powered products (appliances, heating & cooling equipment, lighting, and home and office electronics).

Products with the HSF Mark meet hazard restrictions set by ROHS, WEEE, or REACH (three European regulations addressing respectively, hazards in electronics, electronic waste, and a more general overarching program on chemical hazards in products). This means these products may still include listed hazards at the reduced levels acceptable in the regulation, or hazards we don't know about. But this is about as good as it gets right now, until people start proactively looking at hazardous properties instead of specific listed chemicals (the GreenScreen and BASTA systems mentioned in the feature article do this, but it's rare).

To use the HSF Mark, Manufacturers (and their supply chain) have to engage in a "hazardous substance process management (HSPM) system, which includes a 3rd party assessment and annual surveillance – so rather than just testing the specific product, they're looking at the whole process, which I think is better in the long run. The plan is to have an online database of these products – supposedly there are over 2000 certified HSPM companies now with products that qualify now - but we'll have to wait and see if this turns out to be truly useful to purchasers in the US.

Last week I wrote about one of the common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green. This week, I'll tackle another myth: that green building is mostly about materials.

This isn't quite as significant a misconception as it was a few years ago, but there are still a lot of people who think green building is largely about using products that are made from recycled waste materials, or agricultural products, or rapidly renewable products like bamboo. It is still common to hear about how "green" a building is because of the recycled-glass tiles in the entrance foyer or the carpet that's made from recycled soda bottles.

Using recycled-content and bio-based materials is a great idea, but materials are only one--relatively small--aspect of green design. Usually more important are the following:

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We've been writing about the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Environmental Building News since the organization was created in 1993. We've watched as FSC pushed the mainstream forest products industry toward more responsible forestry practices even as that industry fought to prevent or slow the adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Rating system because it awarded points for use of FSC-certified wood exclusively. And we've continued to recognize FSC-certified wood products through EBN product reviews and listings in our GreenSpec Directory.

One of my frustrations with FSC-certified products has long been that they almost always involve an upcharge over standard non-FSC-certified products. It's great that Marvin Windows or Armstrong Flooring offers FSC-certified products, but because the FSC wood is an option--a fairly expensive option--relatively little ends up getting specified.

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We've just filmed Episode #1 of our new LEED update show! We've got:

• A Tip of the Day (on LEED BD&C SSc8),
• A Q&A on LEED's Minimum Program Requirements featuring a discussion on LEED site boundaries by Phoebe Kincaid and Shannon Gray,
• and I can't say what the last item is, but let's just say that it involves WEc3 and a single guy walking into a LEED-certified bar and ordering a drink.

Check it out, and let us know what you think in the comments below. Questions or comments on the show? Email tristan@LEEDuser.com.