Last summer Vermont’s largest general contractor, Pizzagalli Construction Company of Burlington (1994 gross of $245 million), had a problem. They needed to convert an IBM office building they had built a few years earlier into warehouse space for the company, a project that involved removal of roughly 5,500 4’... Read more

Krylon’s Rust Tough® latex paint for metal surfaces is the first paint to be certified by Green Seal, an independent environmental labeling organization. To be certified the paint had to meet Green Seal’s standards in areas including reduced VOCs, packaging, and performance. Contact Patricia Macko at Krylon: 216/498-2300.

Regarding the article “Insulation Materials: Environmental Comparisons” (Vol. 4, No. 1), I offer the following comments and corrections on recycling expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation. EPS foam is produced from a thermoplastic resin which can be recycled, but not all EPS foam is created equal. EPS building insulation is... Read more

Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States increased slightly between 1990 and 1993, according to the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (September 1994). In 1990, the first year such data was collected and the base level against which... Read more

on Eco-Cities

The Urban Ecologist: The Journal of Urban EcologyStephen Wheeler, Editor, Urban Ecology, 405 14th Street, Suite 701, Oakland, CA 94612; 510/251-6330; urbanecology@igc.apc.org. Quarterly subscription with Urban Ecology membership, $30/year.

EcoCity Cleveland: Ideas and Tools and a Sustainable... Read more

Separating graywater from sewage and using it for landscape irrigation makes a lot of sense. The practice conserves potable water, allows irrigation during droughts, and increases the life of in-ground septic systems. Unfortunately, use of untreated graywater for irrigation has long been illegal in most of the U.S. Finally, that is beginning to... Read more

The company has retained Christine Hammer of Sustainable Design Resources on a half-time basis to serve as... Read more

A new efficiency record has been set for the commercial-scale conversion of sunlight into electricity. Efficiency over 20% was achieved in a 2 kW installation near Atlanta, Georgia using a system called Integrated High-Concen- tration Photovoltaics (IHCPV). Built by AMONIX, Inc. of Torrance, California, the system uses low-cost... Read more

The Northern Forest Lands Council released its final report,

Finding Common Ground: Conserving the Northern Forest, in September 1994. Following the sale of timberlands in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York to land speculators and developers in the 1980s, Congress appropriated funding to study... Read more

According to the E Source newsletter

E News, replacing vertical-axis, coin-operated washers with horizontal-axis models reduced energy use by 73 percent in a multifamily property in Seattle, Washington. The metered test, performed by Seattle City Light and Seattle Water, confirms expectations of the energy-saving potential of horizontal... Read more

To the best of our knowledge, this product is no longer available.

Owens Corning (OC) began manufacturing its new AURA™ vacuum insulation panels at a brand... Read more

Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” contains some admirable goals, including attacking the budget deficit, streamlining government, and cutting red tape. Hidden in the fine print, however, lurks a radical—and dangerous—anti-environment agenda. On examining the package, one can only conclude that the new leadership either doesn’t believe... Read more

The Harmony resort on Maho Bay in the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park won the 1994 Grand Award for Environmental Technology from

Popular Science magazine. The resort’s cabins are fully solar-powered and energy-independent, and were built with a minimum of disturbance to the site using many recycled materials. An interactive computer... Read more

An ironic side effect of cleaning up the water in America’s harbors over the last two decades has been an increase in the population of marine borers. These small animals bore into and destroy any submerged wood and are undeterred by chemical wood treatments. As a result, ports are forced to replace their pilings... Read more

by Michael J. Crosbie. The American Institute of Architects Press, Washington, D.C., 1994. Hardcover, 192 pages, $39.95.

Contrary to its subtitle,

Green Architecture is more a gallery of environmentally sensitive design than a guide. This elegant, large-format book contains photos and... Read more

The National Association of Home Builders released in November the results of an environmental survey filled out by about 400 members. Among 17 environmental issues impacting builders, stormwater discharge topped the list with 47% affected, followed in order by building codes (46%), wetlands (46%),... Read more

Produced and directed by Claude Beller, running time 28 minutes. Available from the National Audubon Society, 700 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; 212/979-3000.

This high-quality, fast-moving video is clearly aimed at the general public. The video succinctly spells out the problems with conventional buildings... Read more

On December 19 NASA provided the most conclusive evidence yet that chlorine molecules from CFCs are responsible for ozone destruction in the stratosphere. Mark Schoeberl, project scientist with NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, was quoted in the 23 December 1994

Global Environmental Change... Read more

Environmental issues are not considered a significant factor for 1995 by carpet industry analysts, according to an extensive collection of industry trends and predictions published in

Carpet & Rug Industry, November 1994. Of the fourteen featured consultants and executives from all segments of the carpet industry, only Mac Bridger,... Read more

A number of home rating and home certification programs for environmentally sound construction are now in place across the country. The City of Austin’s Green Builder Program and the Good Cents Environmental Homes program were described in previous issues of EBN. New to the field are the E Seal program from... Read more