As Greenstone Industries and Louisiana-Pacific did in the cellulose insulation industry, U.S. Plastic Lumber (USPL) is now buying up local manufacturers and creating the first truly national brand in recycled plastic lumber. Since acquiring Earth Care Global Holdings, Inc. in March 1996, USPL has been... Read more

In 1965, 54% of the world’s

registered cars were in the United States. By 1995 this number had increased by 80% to 135 million, but our share of the world’s total had dropped to 28%. Source: U.S. Department of Energy

Transportation Energy Databook, Edition 17 (August 1997).

A new 20-page fact sheet on insulation, published by the U.S. Department of Energy, recommends that when steel framing is used for new construction, a layer of rigid foam sheathing be installed

in all U.S. climates. The

Insulation Fact Sheet includes a map of the U.S. showing nine different insulation zones, which factor in both... Read more

by Urban Ecology, Inc., 405 14th Street, Suite 900, Oakland, CA 94612; 510/251-6332, 510/251-2117 (fax), ueblueprint@igc.apc.org (e-mail). 1996, paperback, 144 pages, $27.

Blueprint for a Sustainable Bay Area is... Read more

King County, Washington is among the more aggressive counties in the use of recycled-content products. The

Recycled Product Procurement Program’s 1997 Annual Report provides an overview of recent accomplishments. Among building-related products, the County used 20,500 tons (18,600 tonnes) of aggregate made from recycled concrete with a... Read more

As we note in our feature article, certification of well-managed forests and the products made from them has gone a long way towards raising the level of debate about forest management practices around the world. In terms of changes to on-the-ground practices, however, the impact of this movement is still... Read more

Collins Pine, a commercial lumber and wood products company that has been proactive with certification, recently received two awards. President/CEO Jim Quinn received the Second Annual

Millennium Award for Corporate Environmental Leadership from Global Green USA, the U.S. office of Green Cross International,... Read more

About the time you receive this, the

EBN staff will be settling into our new Brattleboro digs. We’ve outgrown the space above Alex’s garage and are moving to one of several renovated industrial buildings that once housed the world-renowned Estey Organ Company. Our corporate name has also been changed from West River... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy has issued new

energy performance standards for room air conditioners, boosting minimum performance by about 10%. For the most common size model, the minimum Energy Efficiency Rating (EER)—the ratio of cooling output per unit of cooling input—will increase from 9.0 to 9.8. The new standards,... Read more

Third-party certification of forest operations and wood products is picking up steam. Large new tracts of land are being certified, including a number of publicly owned forests. A few forest

managers—as opposed to the lands themselves—now carry blanket certifications, covering any forests they manage. New products are carrying chain-of-... Read more

The halogen torchiere light fixtures that have been sweeping the lighting world over the past few years are bad news. Not only do they have about the lowest usable-light efficacy (lumens per watt) of any common lighting source—their widespread use in recent years has erased all of the energy savings achieved to date through the use of compact... Read more

I read with great interest your article titled “New Life for Old Carpets” in the June issue (

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 6). It was one of the more comprehensive and accurate articles on the subject of carpet recycling.

However, I would like to point out that AlliedSignal does have a very active... Read more

The

1997 Architecture + Energy Awards from the American Institute of Architecture/Portland Chapter have gone to:

•Pacific Gas Transmission Building in Portland, for energy efficiency;

•Widmer Bros. Brewing Co. Expansion 2, for reuse and renewal;

•... Read more

A new North American organization,

The Cohousing Network, was officially established on September 21 at the third North American Cohousing Conference in Seattle. The Cohousing Network will take over many of the activities of regional associations, such as the Rocky Mountain CoHousing Association. It will produce

CoHousing: The... Read more

Building products database on CD-ROM for Windows™. The Associa-tion for Environment Conscious Build-ing, Nant-y-Garreg, Saron, Llandysul, Carmarthenshire, SA44 5EJ, UK; 01559 370908 (phone), buildgreen@ aol.com (e-mail). Requires Windows 3.1 or later, 8 MB RAM. £31.50 postpaid (about $19.50).

As this issue’s feature article points out, some fluorescent lighting equipment can pose a significant risk to both human health and the environment. Lamps contain mercury, one of our most toxic metals. More significantly, as many as half of the ballasts in use in the U.S.—those made before 1979—contain highly toxic... Read more