Long used in computer rooms, access floors are now finding their way into office buildings and other commercial space, where they can dramatically reduce renovation costs while saving energy and improving indoor air quality—especially when providing an underfloor plenum for conditioned air distribution.... Read more

New York and California have recently passed legislation allowing the use of unvented gas appliances, according to the November 1997 issue of

Energy Design Update (EDU). The legislation in both states has been signed by the governors, but will not go into effect until after review by the state health agencies. New York passed similar... Read more

Cellulose insulation should now be easier to specify in wall cavities with the release of a new “Standard Practice for the Installation of Sprayed Cellulosic Wall Cavity Insulation” from the Cellulose Industry Manufacturers Association. Until now each manufacturer had its own guidelines, varying in length and quality, according to the December... Read more

The widely used plasticizer DEHP (di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate) might be causing asthma, according to a recent study by Norwegian and Danish scientists published in the September 1997 issue of

Environmental Health Perspectives. DEHP is used extensively as a plasticizer in PVC building products. Vinyl sheet flooring, for example, contains... Read more

Roughly four billion pounds (1.8 billion kg) of old carpeting are landfilled each year. Comprised of different materials—nylon, polyester, latex backing, etc.—the stuff is inherently difficult to reprocess back into carpet (see

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 6). So how ‘bout simply shredding the stuff and turning it into a fiber insulation... Read more

Interface, Inc., Atlanta, GA, November 1997. Copies available at no cost by contacting the company at 770/437-6810. Oversized paperback with the cover printed on a distinctive recycled banana fiber stock, 34 pages.

Interface Sustainability Report is a different type of corporate report. Much more than an environmental progress report... Read more

Thank you for recognizing the GFX drain water heat recovery system in “Recovering Heat from Wastewater” (EBN

Vol. 6, No. 8). As stated in your article, this exciting new product has the potential to improve the hot water delivery performance of domestic water heaters while reducing costs and energy use. This potential has been confirmed... Read more

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a recent

New York Times poll found that a majority of Americans believe that measures to alleviate climate change will actually help the economy and save money. This is in marked contrast to the message being delivered “by polluting energy industries and their puppets in... Read more

Louisiana-Pacific Corp. has sold its Fiberbond gypsum panel product to USG, and has put a number of other divisions, including Nature Guard Roofing Shakes, on the auction block. These sales are part of a large-scale restructuring initiative intended to focus the company more strongly on building products with a national market, according to... Read more

The design firm Conger Fuller Architects of Aspen, Colorado has taken a unique approach to addressing resource consumption of its residential building projects. At the end of 1997 the company donated enough money to the Oregon Forest Resources Trust to replenish 6.5 acres of trees—the amount they calculated were used to build the houses they... Read more

The Turner Corporation has made a public commitment to “explore the use of sustainably harvested wood in its construction projects,” according to a November 18, 1997 announcement. Responding to an initiative from the Certified Forest Products Council, Turner has joined the approximately 140 members of the Council’s Certified Wood Buyers Group.... Read more

Agriboard Industries’ widely publicized R-values of its compressed-straw panels—R-14 (RSI-2.5 for 43⁄8”-thick (110 mm) panels and R-28 (RSI-4.9) for its 77⁄8”-thick (200 mm) panels—are more than 55% inflated according to unpublished information EBN has obtained. In an article on straw as a building material published in May 1995 (EBN Vol. 4, No... Read more

by Jane Holtz Kay. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1997. Hardback, 418 pages, $27.50.

Asphalt Nation is a powerful book—intense, eye-opening, depressing, scary. Very simply, the book is a searing indictment of the automobile. Page after page explains how automobiles are killing and maiming us, inflicting untold damage on our... Read more

3rd edition, by John Bower. 1997, The Healthy House Institute, 430 N. Sewall Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408. Paperback, 650 pages, $23.95.

by John and Lynn Marie Bower. 1997, The... Read more

EBN Product Catalog

Jump start (or enhance) your green products files with the new

Environmental Building News Product Catalog, a joint venture of E Build, Inc. and What’s Working of Boulder, Colorado.

The

Product Catalog is a showcase and listing of green building products in 3-ring binder format... 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

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

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