The nonprofit group Urban Ecology Australia has been working to convert a city block in Adelaide, Australia into a progressive ecological community. The plan got the green light from city council members on February 7. The only remaining legal hurdle for the AUS$60 million project is to prove its... Read more

The article “Should We Phase Out PVC?” [EBN

Vol. 3, No. 1] provided one of the most complete summaries of the various environmental, health, and safety aspects of PVC manufacture and use in buildings I’ve seen. If your readers want to get even more details about plastics in building fires, they may want to read my... Read more

We spend more than $1 billion per year in the United States protecting our buildings from termites and repairing termite damage. Until a few years ago, the highly toxic chlordane was the chemical of choice for termite protection. It was effective at killing termites and maintained its potency for several decades.... Read more

Foamed insulation from coal fly-ash, being developed by Henry Sperber of Abiff Manufacturing, recently got a boost in the form of a DOE grant. Sperber is the inventor of the Blow-in-Blanket and Fiberiffic insulation systems. The product has interesting possibilities as a low-cost, foamed-in-place insulation made from industrial waste. It is... Read more

Our lead article in this issue takes a look at on-site wastewater treatment. Several alternative approaches that provide better groundwater protection are discussed. But our quest for improved wastewater treatment, especially on sites with poor soils, raises an important concern. If we can design self-contained wastewater treatment... Read more

Green Builder Program, City of Austin, Environmental & Conservation Services Dept., 206 E. 9th Street, Suite 17.102, Austin, TX 78701; 512/499-3500; 512/499-2859 (fax). Three-ring binder format, 440 pages, $25 postpaid.

The Sustainable Building Sourcebook was written to provide background information for... Read more

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) is the insulation material of choice for many builders when it comes to below-grade applications and is used in many other ways as well. Commonly referred to by Dow Chemical Company’s tradename Styrofoam®, standard XPS insulation is manufactured in the U.S. by four... Read more

Cellulose Article

The reviews are in on the cellulose story in the September/October issue of EBN. The consensus of the cellulose industry: Quite possibly the best article ever written about cellulose insulation. Of course, everyone doesn’t agree with every word in the piece, but overall the industry seems to think it’s... Read more

The CNN Environment Unit is preparing a half-hour show on environmental home renovation featuring EBN Advisory Board members Steve Loken and Marc Rosenbaum. EBN subscribers are invited to suggest renovation ideas, materials, or techniques (for either contractors or do-it- yourselfers) for inclusion in the show, which will air in late May or... Read more

In 1992 The Glidden Company surprised the interior paint world by offering a latex paint without any volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs in paints have been implicated in indoor air quality (IAQ) problems and environmental illness cases. There has been a strong trend toward lower VOC formulations, spurred in part... Read more

As an architect I see an interesting relationship between the issue of sustainability in architecture, which has the potential to help our planet, and the issue of contextualism, which, if expanded to include “nature,” has the potential to cause enormous growth in the art of architecture.

Contextualism, which... Read more

Most builders have vaguely heard of those little metal drywall stops that can be used for supporting drywall corners, but remarkably few have ever tried them. More builders we’ve spoken with are familiar with drywall

clips, which are fitted onto the edge of the drywall as it is being installed. Many drywall crews... Read more

The Alcyone Light Centre is offering a three-month course in green architecture in the spring of 1994, and another in sustainable building construction in the summer. Contact Architectural Internship Director, Alcyone Light Centre, 1965 Hilt Rd., Hornbrook, CA 96044; 916/475-3310.

The

Environmental Resource Guide from the American Institute of Architects (reviewed in EBN

Vol. 1, No. 3) is now available at a lower subscription rate. The new price for one year of quarterly installments is $98 for AIA members and $165 for non-members. Call 800/365-ARCH to order.

by Paul Hawken. HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Hardcover, 250 pages, $23.

The Ecology of Commerce argues eloquently for radical change in how business works. Hawken compares our present economic system to immature, opportunistic natural environments that grow and spread rapidly but do not last. A mature system of... Read more

Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, well known for advocating forest management practices that protect wildlife habitat, was named the 13th chief of the U.S. Forest Service on November 17, 1993. Thomas, a wildlife biologist as well as forester who has been with the Service for 27 years, is a leading advocate of “... Read more

A lot of what we do in our research at EBN is listen to claims. We hear from one group that a particular material is great for the environment, while another group tells us just the opposite. Very often, both interest groups are right …and both are wrong. How can that be? The apparent contradiction lies in selective use of... Read more

The recycled plastic and wood fiber composite lumber product (reviewed in EBN

Vol. 2, No. 2) that began as Rivenite and later became Timbrex has a new name yet again. Mobil Chemical Company’s Composite Products Division, maker of the material, is now calling it “Trex™”. The change results from a trademark conflict over the... Read more

Washing Machine

Number one is... Read more