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

is sponsoring its Third Annual Residential Design Competition of innovative, ecologically sensitive, residential landscape designs. Categories include built and unbuilt in urban, suburban, and rural locales. The entry fee is $50 ($25 for students). For information, contact Lee Fleming at Landscape Architecture,... Read more

I just received my first issue of EBN (Vol. 4, No. 1), and I had to drop you a note to tell you how impressed I am with your publication.

I am embarrassed that I haven’t been a subscriber until now. Like a lot of small builders—managing job sites, running the office, chasing new business—I only have time to read about 25% of... Read more

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

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

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

Environmental Code of Practice for Buildings and Their Services by S. P. Halliday. Published May, 1994 by The Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA), Old Bracknell Lane West, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 7AH, United Kingdom; 44-344-426511, 44-344-487575 (fax). Cost is £45 (about $70)... 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

According to a market study of cellulose insulation in the November issue of

Resource Recycling, manufacturers have been struggling to keep up with the demand for cellulose insulation over the past year, even as the price of recycled newspaper has skyrocketed. Because of price increases,... Read more

Carrier Corporation is the only building products manufacturer to receive a 1994 Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. EPA. Carrier won the award for developing the first residential central air-conditioner to run on a chlorine-free refrigerant, HFC-134a (a hydrofluorocarbon). The company was simultaneously cited for its new... 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

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 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

Strikes Back

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

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

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

Glidden’s Spred 2000 and Lifemaster 2000 lines, introduced in 1993, were the first such paints from a mainstream paint company (see EBN... 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