A survey of

comments from key players in the IAQ industry published in the January 2000 issue of

IEQ Strategies reveals some interesting trends. Asthma, especially in children, is seen as an increasingly important health issue related to IAQ. Overall, the importance of VOCs and tobacco smoke as air quality issues is declining,... Read more

In other

green power news, the city of Palmdale, California has announced that it is following Santa Monica’s lead (see EBN

Vol. 8, No. 6, p. 3) in purchasing its municipal power from renewable sources. Green electricity will be purchased from Commonwealth Energy Corporation in Tustin, California.

, LLC, which provided consulting and marketing services for green building in the commercial and hospitality sectors and operated a showroom for green products on Wall Street in New York City, has ceased operations. At press time, details about the reasons for the closure and possible future plans were unavailable.... Read more

was declared the most popular home product of 1999 by

American Homestyle & Gardening magazine’s Reader’s Choice Awards. Trex is a composite of recycled polyethylene and wood fibers (see EBN

Vol. 2, No. 2).

energy performance reporting for windows. Most recently, the Council has determined that, as of January 2000, participating manufacturers will be required to certify solar heat gain coefficient and visible light transmittance... Read more

I’d like to offer a minor correction to your otherwise excellent article “Structural Engineered Wood: Is it Green?” (EBN

Vol. 8, No. 11). You stated that interior-grade softwood plywood uses a urea-formaldehyde (UF) binder. While that was once the case, all construction-grade plywood (both interior- and exterior-grade) now uses a phenol... Read more

by John and Lynn Bower, 2000. The Healthy House Institute, 430 North Sewell Road, Bloomington, IN 47408; 812/332-5073,

www.hhinst.com. Five-video set, $99.95

Inno-Therm Products, LLC has purchased the equipment and technology for manufacturing batt insulation of recycled cotton fabric from Greenwood Cotton Insulation Products, which ceased production of the insulation in 1997 (see EBN

Vol. 7, No. 2, page 10). Inno-Therm expects to begin commercial production of the insulation by March of... Read more

According to an article in the January 4 edition of the

New York Times, the

backyard burning of household trash may release more dioxins and furans into the atmosphere than are released by all of the nation’s municipal incinerators. An estimated 20 million people in the U.S. burn their trash in uncontrolled backyard incinerators... Read more

After a year-and-a-half as EBN’s able products editor, Dwight Holmes plans to get back into

working with products instead of writing about them. As a result, we’re looking for someone to fill his shoes—both in helping track products for EBN and in maintaining our

GreenSpec directory. It’s an exciting time in the green products... Read more

A solar house in Hanover, New Hampshire—designed by

Marc Rosenbaum, P.E. and featured in EBN

Vol. 7, No. 2 —is a winner of this year’s National Technology Awards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Other winners will be announced at the Society’s Winter Meeting in Dallas... Read more

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was created in the early 1990s to establish worldwide, environmentally sound standards for forest management practices and to monitor the agencies that choose to certify forestry programs to those standards (see EBN

Vol. 6, No. 10). Although some forest industry groups participated in the FSC’s... Read more

Final details are expected in February on how over $1 billion that will be collected by the New Jersey electric utility industry over the next eight years from “

Societal Benefits Charges” will be spent. The electric restructuring legislation passed in 1999 calls for about three-quarters of the money to go to energy efficiency measures... Read more

Neil Kelly Cabinets’ Naturals Collection (see EBN Vol. 7, No. 8) received the 1999 Founder of the New Northwest award from Sustainable Northwest, an organization working to promote economic development that is rooted in the maintenance and enhancement of the environment. Visit www.sustainablenorthwest.org for details, or contact Neil Kelly at... Read more

Every once and a while, when I’m able to step back from the immediate pressures of keeping up with the next deadline, I reflect on the bigger picture of what we’re collectively doing—at

EBN and elsewhere—to advance sustainability. I’m troubled by a paradox: the more successful we are at advancing resource... Read more

Scientists at Spectrolab, a division of Hughes Electronics Corp., and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have achieved a

new efficiency record for photovoltaic cells, converting 32.3% of the sun’s energy into electricity. The record was achieved with triple-junction gallium-indium-phosphide on gallium arsenide on germanium using a... Read more

October 16 marked the groundbreaking for

Erie-Ellington homes, a 50-unit affordable housing complex by the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts. Erie-Ellington is a project of the GreenVillage Company, developer of Cambridge Cohousing (see case study in

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 9) and a... Read more

Taking a page from the tobacco book, Rhode Island’s attorney general is suing lead paint manufacturers for allegedly conspiring to market a dangerous product that poisons children. The ten-count lawsuit seeks damages to “get the lead out of Rhode Island’s children, homes, and buildings, by paying to treat... Read more

Fannie Mae, which now owns 84% of the unsold property at

Civano, the planned eco-community in Tucson, Arizona, is moving to take more direct control of the project by buying out developer and project president Kevin Kelly. After the deal is completed (most likely in December), Kelly will stay on for six months as a consultant to the... Read more

by Leon A. Frechette. Craftsman Book Company, Carlsbad, California, 1999. Softcover, 336 pages, $34.75.

Leon A. Frechette’s new book

Build Smarter with Alternative Materials is a well-organized collection of product reviews and material-specific advice from an experienced residential and... Read more