The Cycle II™ line from the Major Paint Company (the manufacturing arm of Standard Brands Paint Co.) contains at least 12% recycled paint collected from consumers and 38% in-house waste from washing machinery. The remaining 50% is virgin material. Cycle II is available in flat, semi-gloss, and primer formulations in about a dozen colors ranging... Read more

Trus Joist MacMillan has broken ground for a second manufacturing facility for its Timberstrand™ laminated strand lumber product (see EBN

Vol. 1, No. 3 for product review). The new plant, scheduled to open late in 1995, is in eastern Kentucky. Locally available yellow poplar will be used instead of the aspen used at TJM’s Minnesota... Read more

•urethane-reinforced... Read more

by Joseph M. Tibbets. 1989, Southwest Solaradobe School, P.O. Box 153, Bosque, NM 87006. $20.35. Paperback, 196 pages.

The Earthbuilders’ Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive reference we’ve seen on the various construction techniques that fall under the umbrella of earthbuilding, especially adobe and... Read more

I enjoyed your article on cellulose insulation in the September/October ‘93 issue of EBN. In general, I thought the article was very well done, but felt that your recommendations on the health concerns left a bit to be desired. First of all, your recommendation not to eat it is obvious, yet by stating it, you seem to... Read more

A group of chemicals in the class known as fluoroiodocarbons (FICs) has been identified by researchers as potential replacements for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons in a wide range of industrial uses. Unlike HCFCs—the first group of CFC-alternatives to be identified—FICs’... Read more

American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, 1735 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20006; 800/365-ARCH, 202/626-7300.

Last winter and spring the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment organized a series of three video teleconferences entitled “Building Connections.” The... Read more

Trimax plastic lumber, which was featured in the EBN article “Recycled Plastic Lumber,” (Vol. 2, No. 4) will soon be manufactured in two additional locations. Trimax’s parent company, Polymerix, Inc., has licensed Environmental Recovery Systems of Somerset Inc. to make the fiberglass-reinforced lumber in Massachusetts. In a separate deal, John... Read more

The Canadian R-2000 energy-efficient homes program is revising and broadening its standards. The Technical Research Committee of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association has made its recommendations to Energy, Mines and Resources Canada (EMR), the government body that administers R-2000. The... Read more

The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Green Building Council have jointly announced a Green Building Conference for February 1994 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The conference will cover assessment methodologies and performance criteria for rating buildings, case studies, activities of various government and independent... Read more

Recycling leftover paint is an idea whose time has come. Paint disposal is one of the biggest headaches facing contractors and municipalities nationwide, and improper disposal can cause extensive environmental harm. Several municipalities and counties have run paint collection and re-use programs, often mixing together... Read more

Energy use is arguably the most significant environmental impact of buildings. Residential and commercial buildings in the U.S. use about 29 quads (quadrillion Btus) of energy each year, 35% of total energy consumption. That energy used for space heating and cooling in residential buildings (just over 7 quads per year) produces 420 million tons... Read more

Here at EBN, we’re as guilty of it as anyone. We’ve tended to give short shrift to energy conservation in part because there are other excellent publications that focus just on energy. But we did put energy at the top of our

Checklist for Sustainable Design and Construction. And that's... Read more

In July the Construction Specifications Institute appointed an Ad Hoc Environmental Issues Committee to promote awareness of environmental matters among CSI members and the construction industry. In its mission statement, CSI includes a commitment to “encourage the use of construction materials that will ensure the health, safety, and welfare... Read more

by Kim Leclair and David Rousseau. 1992, Hartley & Marks, Inc., 79 Tyee Dr., Point Roberts, WA 98281. $19.95 U.S.; $24.95 Canada.

Environmental by Design, the field of environmentally sustainable design and construction took a significant step forward.... Read more

Pamela Winthrop Lauer, project director. 1993. Free. 36 pages. Order from: Metropolitan Council, Attn: Data Center, Mears Park Center, 230 E. Fifth St., St. Paul, MN 55101; 612/291-8140.

Although designed for use by contractors in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, this guidebook has lots of... Read more

As reported in a Congressional hearing in June, the EPA has so far been unable to duplicate the results of carpet toxicity studies done by Anderson Labs of Dedham, Massachusetts (see EBN

Vol. 2, No. 2, “Mouse-Killing Carpets”). For reasons that remain unclear, the EPA used different test procedures that included percolating the exposed... Read more