The organization formerly known as the Used Building Materials Association (UBMA) has changed its name to the Building Materials Reuse Association (BMRA). The educational organization, “dedicated to supporting the recovery and reuse of building materials throughout the U.S. and Canada,” is now based in State College, Pennsylvania, and is online... Read more

I just received the February issue of

EBN. Thanks for announcing USDA’s new biobased rule and the role BEES plays [“USDA Announces Biobased Rule,”

Vol. 14, No. 2]. I’d like to correct your statement:

“Each product must be reviewed by an independent entity using BEES … or using the ASTM D7075 standard for the environmental... Read more

magazine seeks entries for its first Green House Contest. The magazine will feature one new home and one renovation in the magazine. Each winner will also receive a $1,000 gift certificate from Designtex. The deadline for entries is March 31. More information and entry forms are online at www.organicstyle.com.

Just one month after Arizona’s requirement that all new state-funded buildings use nonflushing urinals took effect on January 1, 2005, Governor Janet Napolitano signed an executive order in February requiring all new state buildings to derive at least 10% of their energy from renewable sources—defined as solar, wind, and biomass—and to meet a... Read more

Pollution Prevention software from the U.S. EPA, www.pbtprofiler.netMany are unaware that only a small fraction of the roughly 85,000 industrial chemicals currently in use in the United States—everything from flame retardants to adhesives—has undergone toxicity testing. Only two categories of chemicals require specific testing prior to... Read more

America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. A family supported by one full-time minimum-wage earner cannot afford rent for the average two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Enterprise Foundation, which supports local organizations building affordable housing around the country. In many parts of the... Read more

Recycled content is the most widely cited attribute of green building products. Numerous federal, state, and local government agencies have “buy recycled” programs aimed at increasing markets for recycled materials—these programs typically have an explicit goal of supporting recycling programs to reduce solid-waste disposal. A handful of... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the winners of its 11th annual EnergyValue Housing Awards at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Florida, in January 2005. Funded through DOE’s Building America Program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with support from several private sponsors, including BuildingGreen, Inc.,... Read more

Electric-ignition, gas-fired demand, or tankless, water heaters were well represented at the 2005 International Builders’ Show in Orlando. The leading Japanese manufacturers, Rinnai Corporation, Takagi Industrial Company, Ltd., and Noritz Corporation, had active booths at the huge trade show, and Rheem

® USA rolled out its new Pronto™... Read more

When Ed Ehlen paid $19,000 to purchase and install artificial turf at his new home in Florida’s upscale Marco Island community, he thought he was doing an environmental service. “We have such a water problem in Southwest Florida,” Ehlen told the

News-Press. And with artificial turf, he said, “you don’t have to water. You don’t have to... Read more

® USA acquired the Australian company Solahart Industries, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar water-heating systems. Solahart began manufacturing solar water heaters in 1953 and operates in more than 70 countries worldwide; the product has been available in the U.S. since 1978. The best-known Solarhart systems are... Read more

Great Lakes Chemical Corporation, the sole manufacturer of the two forms of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants that are considered most toxic—penta-BDE and octa-BDE—ceased production of those chemicals at the end of 2004. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Great Lakes Chemical announced the voluntary phaseout of... Read more

Boosting the rate of recycling in this country and increasing the use of recycled material in building products has remained an uphill challenge for one primary reason: we undervalue energy and virgin resources. Leading-edge “green” companies that strive to maximize use of recycled content do so for many reasons: because it helps them meet... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council Board voted at its Portland, Oregon, meeting in November 2004 to create a Research Committee. The committee will identify research priorities in the green-building field, educate policy makers and funding agencies regarding green-building research needs, expand the scientific basis of the LEED

® Rating... Read more

Lighting for Tomorrow, organized by the American Lighting Association, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, has officially launched its 2005 Design and Technology Competition. The competition is designed “to stimulate the market for high-efficiency residential lighting fixtures” and “to increase market... Read more

The Forest Stewardship Council’s new Chain-of-Custody Standard, FSC-STD-40-004, substantially revises the organization’s labeling and certification rules. In place of what has been known as “partial-content certification” of composite wood products (see

EBN

Vol. 9, No. 6), FSC has now introduced three new labels: “FSC Pure,” “... Read more