GreenDigs Blog

Kirei, most commonly known for their highly recognizable sorghum board, has expanded their line to include other green materials.  A recent visit to the manufacturer’s website brought a discovery of bamboo, wheatboard, and coconut shell green materials; all rapidly renewable products (grown, harvested and replenished within 10 years or less) which can help contribute towards LEED points.

Kirei’s bamboo line features the fairly commonly edge grain, horizontal, and strand grain versions.  Also included is a proprietary “chocolate” bamboo, which is darker in tone than a typical caramel or carbonized version. The wheatboard is marketed towards as a green MDF substitute, as it is not overly stable as a countertop surface or cabinetry front.  Is it suitable, however, as paneling or surface which does not receive high usage. Lastly, the Coco product, which is made from coconut shells, is tile form available in a woven or organic pattern.  The sizes are 12″ x 12″ tile or panel size of 48″ x 48″, which could be used in multiple ways to create patterns and forms.  Check it out.

It’s not too early to mark your calendar and make plans to attend Plain Green 2010 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center on April 28 and 29, 2010. Check out the website at www.plaingreen.org to sign up for updates about speakers, workshops, tours, and registration.

A cool new product I saw featured this past week is BP Glass Garage Doors, which is made from 100% recycled aluminum, glass, and steel, and can even be recycled at its end of life (similar to a cradle-to-cradle product).  They make commercial or residential grade garage, barn, gates, or swinging doors for various applications. (Check out their photo gallery for some great design ideas and past projects they’ve completed.) These have numerous applications, one of which could be a live/work space, to open up to fresh air and close as needed (and look really cool when illuminated at night).  Visit BP Glass Garage door’s website more more information.

Be sure to check out these upcoming green events in Sioux Falls:

City of Sioux Falls Green-ival 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
10am-2pm at Falls Park

The City of Sioux Falls is sponsoring the first annual Green-ival including arts & crafts vendors, musicians, educational displays, food, recycling companies, clothing, cleaning companies, landscapers and builders, and much more!

Chartreuse, a non-profit started by Koch Hazard, will be displaying some green building information for the public so swing by, say hello, and learn about alternative building methods.

The Sioux Falls Green Project is in charge of keeping this event clean and green and they are looking for volunteers.  Trash Talkers will be working from 9:45am to 2:00pm in two hour shifts so if you’re interested, contact Joe at joe@siouxfallsgreenproject.org or 605.610.4240.

Also, if you’re one of the first 50 people that take public transportation to this event you will receive a bag filled with fun green stuff from Leading Green Sioux Falls.

For more information visit www.siouxfalls.org/green.

Downtown Harvest and Wine Festival 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
10:00-4:00 at Fawick Park, Phillips Avenue, East Bank
and 5:00-8:00 at 2nd Avenue between 10th and 11th Street

The 2009 Harvest and Wine Festival in downtown Sioux Falls is focused “on sustainability and our South Dakota Heritage.” There will be booths about local history, food, and demonstrations such as stone cutting and straw bale construction as well as the Zoo Mobile, a working beehive, a pet show, horse and wagon rides, and a farmer’s market in Fawick Park from 10-4.  From 5-8 there will be wine and beer sampling and live music on 2nd avenue between 10th and 11th street.

Be sure to check out Chartreuse in Fawick Park who will be displaying straw bale construction techniques!

To learn more about the event visit the Downtown Sioux Falls Website at www.dtsf.com/Top-Menu/Latest-News/Downtown-Harvest-Festival.

Happy Friday! Time for a easy-to-understand green principle for the weekend.  Listed below is a chart of how energy use is typically spent.

As you can see (and might already know), buildings -commercial or residential- use the most energy across the board, with lighting and heating consuming the highest percentages.  So, consider LED light fixtures, room sensor switches, and incorporate daylighting into buildings.  Insulate walls with some of the new bio-based products, or even turn down the thermostat a few degrees.  We could all save some energy this weekend.

September 2, 2009 at 11:00 am. A public groundbreaking ceremony is planned for Rural Learning Center; a project designed to achieve the highest LEED standards. Platinum.

This project is creating plenty of buzz and getting noticed not only locally, but regionally and even nationally. RLC has been the muscle behind an aggressive and successful rural revitalization movement in Howard and surrounding Minor County within the past decade. The new building will have an array of green features along with cutting edge sustainable technologies, and it will truly become an example for other rural communities in the future.  

What a great way to showcase rural South Dakota!

This past month, Armstrong introduced a new acoustical ceiling tile  – Tierra – which is composed of 45% of rapidly renewable jute fiber and has Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Silver Certification.  (Cradle to Cradle measures how environmentally sound or “green” product is by levels of certification – platinum, gold, silver, or basic.)

Armstrong markets Tierra as the “greenest” ceiling tile system available in the marketplace, and the visual appearance of the tile is virtually identical to a fine textured acoustical ceiling tile.  The performance acoustics aren’t bad either – it has a NRC of .85 and LR of .88.  The only downside is that because of the jute composition (i.e. soft fibers that cannot form edge profiles), it only has square edge profiles available in 2′x2′ or 2′x4′ sizes. No information on cost yet, but it would be an easy way to help target LEED Materials & Resources credit 6 for rapidly renewable products. Check it out on their Website.

Until recently, tile could be considered a moderately green product.  Products available with recycled content (an average of up to 40% pre-consumer for porcelain and 100% for glass tiles) had limited color and style choices. With its long lifespan, tile has favorable life-cycle costs, but what happens when the tile is cracked or needing to be updated in color? 

Crossville Inc recently announced they have a proprietary method of recycling a consumer’s old tile.  The process crushes the old tile into powder form, which will be introduced into producing new tiles with certifiable recycled content. Crossville estimates that more than 4 million pounds of tile could be diverted from landfills, just from their facility alone!  Keep a look out for the new products from this cradle-to-cradle process.

(Spotted on Interior Design Magazine)

Introducing Loll Designs - new contemporary, durable (and recycled content) outdoor furniture.  Made from 100% recycled post-consumer HDPE (think milk jugs and plastics), even the manufacturing by-product waste is able to be sent to a recycling plant.   Style-wise, they produce a modern spin on traditional-like pieces like the Adirondack chair.

Check out their website, complete with milk-jug icons that keeps track of the number of recycled packaging used to make each product. Although the price tag might be a little high for some consumers ($1200 for the 405 Chaise pictured above), even the most savvy recessionista knows that good green design saves money and the environment all at the same time.   Everything from planters, to chairs and tables, to kids furniture; Loll has a variety enough to suit your inner green style. Check it out.

(Spotted on Jetson Green)

1) Integrity Block produces a compacted-earth block to be used as a cost-competitive replacement for concrete masonry units (CMUs). They are composed of portland cement and soil content which contains up to 60% pre-consumer recycled content from mining/manufcaturing byproducts.  Creating these earth blocks uses less energy (40%) than CMU, and plans are in place for additional distribution locations (its only availabe in Northern CA currently).  Keep a look out for these in the near future.

2) MIT is working on concrete that is projected to last more than 15,000 years. While seemly impossible, the mega-dense concrete could greatly impact green (and non-green) buildings alike.  Concrete production contributes nearly 5-10% of total earth CO2 pollutants, so longer lasting structures would add less pollutants and waste to the environment. Check out their article and read our Concrete as a Green Material blog!

3) Lastly, solar roof panels from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory  are flexible and moisture resistant, to be used as traditional roof tiles. Photovoltaic panel are quite spendy, but these thin solar panels may be more affordable once released.  Unfortunately, it’s still under development so we’ll update when we find out more information.

(Products spotted on GreenSource & Inhabitat)