Planetreuse.com

Planet Reuse

Today is the greenest of all days during the year thanks to the Irish! It's also the launch day for a new green website, http://www.planetreuse.com Planet Reuse brings anyone interested in building green, together on their website.

It's like Ebay for builders, Designers, Architects, Salvage Companies, and DIYers. Yours truly has a listing along with several other salvage companies. Over time this may be the best place to start when looking for materials. Because we all have a specialty area (like I avoid flooring projects for instance) Planet Reuse will allow you to search for green materials for all aspects of the project rather than having to shop each piece at different locations. Check them out and bookmark them at Planet Reuse!

Why didn't I think of this? Good going Brad and team!

Tab

FliptStudio Update

I posted a couple of weeks ago about this new blog and how Shelly had given my step by step instructions for upholstering an old coffee table. Well she has since added that to her blog here is the link

How to Make an Upholstered Bench Out of An Old Coffee Table
A trip to one of my local Goodwill stores yielded this ugly, stained wooden table, probably homemade, but perfect for a conversion.

Got Peanuts?

We're always trying to do our best to reduce materials in our landfils and curb consumption of non-biodegradable items.

Recently I was in Hawaii visiting family and doing some research on how they handle trash locally. It got me thinking about how we here at Island Girl Salvage can do a better job as well. One area of interest is packing materials. In Hawaii there are organizations that receive used packing materials from residents and then these materials such as boxes and peanuts are made available to businesses to use for shipping their products. It's a win, win for the environment because these items stay out of the landfils and the local businesses because packing materials are quite expensive. If everyone recycled their unwanted packing materials we could keep some of the handling costs down.

When I returned home to Chicago I started looking around here for the same kind of setup. Unfortunately, I can't find any. That's where all of you come in. We'd like to receive your unwanted packing boxes, peanuts and bubble wrap. In return we will eliminate packing and handling fees on any item that we are able to reuse the received packing materials.

You can rest easy knowing that we are all doing our part to save the environment.

Thanks,

Tab

Tab in Hawaii

Some of you may know that my grandparents have lived in Hawaii my entire life. I've flown over to Kauai every year to visit for as long as I can remember. Last year we lost my Tutu (grandmother in Hawaiian) so the visits are now more frequent and less vacation like. This trip I'm working on the yard. The tropical plants just run ramped over here so someone has to constantly trim trees and plants back and that's me this year.

There is so much rubbish to dispose of and yet there isn't a really good system for composting or recycling over here. I came in to do some checking online and it seems that quite a bit of the recycling is voluntary. It doesn't appear that the green trend has reached over here yet.

One program I did find seems really great and could probably work anywhere in the world. Kauai Recycling for the Arts (KRA) is a non-profit educational organization. Check them out at http://www.kauaiglass.org/

Kauai Recycling for the Arts was created to help educate our community about the importance of recycling in a fun and exciting way – through the use of ART! Kauai Recycling for the Arts will be turning yesterday's trash into tomorrow’s treasures! Kauai’s only landfill will reach capacity in 2009.The landfill crisis that faces the residents of Kauai is closing in on us quickly. It is a known fact that by the year 2009 Kauai’s only landfill located in Kekaha will have reached capacity. Each of us who have the privilege of living as well as visiting this beautiful island bears the responsibility of participating in alternative solutions to burying and dumping our trash on our island paradise. We are Kauai’s first hot glass recycling facility. A team consisting of local artists, educators and environmentalists generously donated their time working with the County of Kauai and Allison Fraley, County of Kauai’s Recycling Coordinator to create Kauai’s first hot glass recycling facility. The hot glass studio is located at the Kauai Resource Center at 3460 Ahukini Rd. in Lihue, just past the airport. In February 2004, Kauai Recycling for the Arts, a nonprofit educational organization was awarded the contract to operate the glass studio.

What do we do?Kauai Recycling for the Arts offers programs that demonstrate the exciting techniques of transforming glass bottles, that you usually throw in your trash can, into a hot molten liquid that KRA artisans then form into art. We offer the community beautiful products that also help to reduce landfill waste. After seeing this process once, we are sure that you will never look at your trash the same way again! You can help too!We invite everyone to participate in this exciting innovative project by taking a workshop, volunteering, or becoming a supporting member of KRA! Your kokua (help) is appreciated!

Ma halo,
Tab

Addendum to the Recycling Afterlife

I was visiting my sister a few weeks ago and we got to talking about recycling and what can and cannot be recycled. The conversation was happening while trying to get the young ones ready for bed (brush your teeth and put on your PJ's) and she turned and said "what about toothbrushes" Can I put them in the recycle bin? I did not know the answer. But a little googling later and I did find some interesting information.

Radius Toothbrush "our cellulose handle is processed from sustainable yield forests into 100% renewable resource plastic." There is a lot of information on their website on each of the individual products.

Recycline This company makes more than toothbrushes, and they use post consumer yogurt containers for the handles. They also have a built in recycling program for their products to make it easy for us.

A Fresh Squeeze

The Recycling Afterlife Beyond the Bin

Brought to you by A Fresh Squeeze a really great local site. "We started A Fresh Squeeze in the spring of 2006 with the idea of making it easier for Chicagoans to live a greener life."

Sure you recycle, but what actually happens to your recyclables? We caught up with Mike McNamee, director of recycling collections at the Resource Center, to demystify the post-drop-off process.

The Resource Center, the city’s only non-profit recycler, uses more than 99 percent of the materials they pick up to make new products. But that journey from the bin to retail store shelves is a long one.

Like many recyclers, the first stop is the sorting facility. At the center’s main yard, four employees separate clear bottles from green ones, aluminum cans from steel and so on—all by hand. It’s a task so intimate that, when a customer dropped her engagement ring into a recycling bag, the team sifted through a pile of newspapers the size of a small house to find it.

A few days to a few weeks later, McNamee says the sorted recyclables are taken by truck to various local facilities he calls intermediaries. They sort the materials further and then sell and ship them to companies throughout the world.

Eventually, that glass is smelted and made into more bottles. And plastic is usually compressed into bales and turned into anything from carpet and clothing to landscaping material. “It’s like mining in reverse,” McNamee says. “You’re taking materials that could’ve been thrown out and using them to manufacture something.”

But the journey doesn’t have to end there. To incorporate recyclables back into your home, look for products with recycled content. Take the handcrafted, eco-friendly home products from Chicago’s Bean Products for example. Their furniture made of recycled soda bottles brings the process full circle—from the bin back into your home.

To find a Resource Center drop-off site near you, click here. Or learn how you can become a part of the city’s Blue Bag recycling program at the Department of the Environment website.

Handbags and Rings These are two of My Most Favorite Things

Pivot EcoSmart Fashion New York designer Beck Hickey creates these one-of-a-kind handbags from recycled skateboards.


Zola Jones Designs The Bumpy Ride Handbag. Recycled Car Seat Belt Closure. Fabric Handles Inner Patch Pocket Outer Side Pockets

Jessi Taylor Etsy Shop or website

I just loved this and she used vintage tile.

The Green Project of New Orleans

I was lucky enough to attend a trade show in New Orleans several years ago that coincided with Mardi Gras. I know all sorts of imagery come to mind. It was my first time in The Crescent City and I felt right at home. Like all of us, when Hurricane Katrina hit I sat glued to my television crying over the enormous loss. Since then we've received several emails from residents of New Orleans asking if we'd be interested in purchasing salvage from homes ravaged by Katrina. It breaks my heart because New Orleans has such a unique architecture. And while I understand the need for immediate financial support I firmly believe that local preservation of this architecture is the long term answer to financial stability of the city through tourism.

The Green Project is an organization that goes above and beyond the call for preservation and being green.

The Green Project operates a WAREHOUSE STORE that resells high-quality, salvaged building materials at low cost to the community. They feel strongly that the materials from New Orleans stay in the city and they won't knowingly send materials to buyers out of the area. The store is dedicated to helping the environment by reducing the amount of usable materials placed in landfills or disposed of improperly. They also SALVAGES AND DECONSTRUCT damaged or collapsed buildings by hand, in a way that saves between 45 and 70 percent of the materials. This preserves New Orleans' unique architectural history and benefits New Orleans' residents by returning their ruined building materials to use elsewhere in the city. These services alone make my heart happy but this group takes even further steps to protect their environment. The Green Project store also serves as a local RECYCLED PAINT resource by reclaiming, combining, and reselling surplus paint. This keeps paint out of the region's landfills and water system while providing affordable paint to the community. They also serve as a RECYCLING center. They currently recycle cardboard, newspaper, regular paper (plain and colored), aluminum cans and household e-waste (electronic equipment like computers, stereos, printers, monitors, cell phones, etc). They don't accept plastic or glass at this time because no one in the city can pick it up. And scrap metal has to be disposed of at the scrap metal yard, not The Green Project. But that's not all!

Our GARDEN is blooming. The Green Project provides gardening workshops where residents can learn how to make the most of a small space, recycle yard and kitchen waste into compost and improve the soil. RECYCLE FOR THE ARTS merged with The Green Project in 2003. R4A provides art materials to individual artists, schools, art programs, galleries, and other non-profit groups at minimal cost, as well as offers monthly recycled art workshops. THE GREEN ROOM is an interactive community space that promotes using garbage and salvage as artistic material. The space is used to display the work of local artists and is available for workshops and community events.
The Green Project is also involved in GREEN BUILDING & SPECIAL PROJECTS like our solar panels, biodiesel and community outreach. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, The Green Project had the largest array of operable photovoltaic solar panels in Southeast Louisiana. The photovoltaic solar panels were damaged in the storm and are FINALLY back up on their roof. They work with NOBI (the New Orleans Bio-Fuel Initiative) and the Alliance for Affordable Energy to create a recycled vegetable oil mixture as fuel for their diesel vehicles.

Truly a well-rounded organization doing their part to save our environment! Kudos to The Green Project! To find out more contact The Green Project at info@thegreenproject.org or visit them on the web at http://www.thegreenproject.org/

Thanks, Tab

Energy Efficiency Myth-Busters

I picked this up at my local Green Drinks meeting in Chicago. I don't know who actually put this list together but it has some helpful tips for all of us Green Thinkers that are concerned about energy loss in our homes.

Myth: Compact Florescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) are harmful for the environment because they contain mercury.

Fact: While it's true that CFLs contain trace amounts of mercury (according to the EPA), CFLs can prevent mercury from ending up in our environment due to their energy efficiency. Because of this, fewer emissions are created by the coal power plants required to create electricity.

Myth: Leaving your thermostat at a constant temperature 24 hours a day uses less energy than setting your thermostat back and then having to continually heat up/cool down the air temperature.

Fact: The longer your house stays at a reduced temperature when heating, or at an increased temperature when cooling, the more energy and money you'll save. This is because your heating or cooling costs depend mostly on the temperature difference between the indoor and outdoor environments. When you adjust your thermostat down in the winter, or up in the summer, you reduce this natural temperature difference. If you set your thermostat back 10 to 15 degrees for 8 hours while you are asleep or at work, your energy savings range from 5% to 15% of your monthly energy bill.

Myth: When an appliance is turned off, it is no longer using energy.

Fact: Items turned off continue to consume power, sometimes as much as when they are on. There are a large number of appliances that continue to use power unbeknownst to consumers. This is called "standby power," and can only be eliminated by unplugging an appliance.

Myth: There is no point in insulating ceilings and walls if doing so will just allow more heat to escape in less insulated areas.

Fact: The insulation of certain areas of your home will not place more pressure on less heat efficient areas. However, poorly insulated areas in a home do lose the most amount of heat and should be addressed before improving better insulated areas.

Myth: Washing dishes by hand uses less energy than running an electric dishwasher.

Fact: According to Gaiam Community, "this is one of the few instances where modern technology beats the old fashioned method." A recent study showed that using a dishwasher does not require pre-washing by hand; this practice can waste up to 20 gallons of hot water.

GreenDrinks Chicago

We've written about Green Drinks before but we attended another get-together this past Monday and as always I was blown away by the organizers, attendees, and the speaker panel. The subject of the evening was finding "green" or sustainable jobs. Great information, attentive and enthusiastic audience always makes for a wonderful evening. Green Drinks is an international organization. Check out there website to see if they have a group going in your area.

Monday night we met Dr. Sarah Warren. She's a sustainability coach here in Chicago. To learn more about what she does you can visit Dr. Warren here.


Tab

GreenThinkers.org

Oh my goodness there is such a plethora of new "green" websites and blogs out there now! I particularly like http://www.greenthinkers.org/ so I wrote Scott Smith and begged him to let me contribute to his fabulous site. I just posted my first article on (what else?) Architectural Salvage Companies are the original Green industry! Go on over and have a peek.

Tab

Best Packing Material

This is probably not news to a lot of you, but for me this is like striking gold.

I don't know about the rest of you but I have stacks and stacks of mail and other assorted papers that I have all good intentions of shredding and recycling. Well I finally reached my limit and began the long tedious process feeding sheet after sheet into the shredder.
Anyway, we do a lot of shipping all across the country with Island Girl and packing materials can get expensive. I decided to use the shredded materials instead of peanuts and newspaper. I have a cross cut shredder which makes everything a little more compact than a regular strip shredder. You get enough bounce but not a lot of settling.

With the holidays coming up and lots of packages going out I recommend trying this option. I have used this as padding to ship Christmas ornaments and other fragile items.

Organic Fashion

Not exactly salvage but we do love clothing and fashion. There are oodles of new companies and enterprises out there are combining the art of design and sustainable organic materials. Pretty incredible.

Of the Earth

The Mission
"From a personal dream of bringing organic sustainable products to the world’s market, we believe we can make a difference and so can you. Since 1992 we have strived to be the premier resource for fashionable alternative and organic apparel.Our Mission
From a personal dream of bringing organic sustainable products to the world’s market, we believe we can make a difference and so can you. Since 1992 we have strived to be the premier resource for fashionable alternative and organic apparel."

Annatarian

"Annatarian’s mission is to unite the global community through fashion. The one of a kind dresses serve as an example of a perfect world, where different colors, textures, cultures, and patterns are blissfully intertwined."

Nau

Design Philosophy
"The balancing of beauty, performance and sustainability drive everything we do, from developing better, more environmentally friendly fabrics to raising the bar for functional, elegant designs."

Green Stuff Connection

Green LivingOnline

Green Closet

Green Loop

My Goodness Duds

The Greening of NBC this week!

I was so excited to see commercials on every NBC Channel about the national and local stations going green this week. Then I went out to their website at: http://www.nbc.com/green/ and I was even more excited! They have done this so right! All of the stations shows are participating in Green Week. I'm so proud to be in a green industry! Check it out and join the movement!

Tab

Solar Decathlon

I caught the end of this on TV last night and checked out the website this morning. Some really interesting innovative ideas. The Solar Decathlon joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.

Teams of college students design a solar house, knowing from the outset that it must be powered entirely by the sun. In a quest to stretch every last watt of electricity that's generated by the solar panels on their roofs, the students absorb the lesson that energy is a precious commodity. They strive to innovate, using high-tech materials and design elements in ingenious ways. Along the way, the students learn how to raise funds and communicate about team activities. They collect supplies and talk to contractors. They build their solar houses, learning as they go.

The U.S Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is the primary sponsor of the Solar Decathlon.

Get Hip Get Green Reusable Grocery Bags

Envirosax Delightfully Pretty Reusable Grocery Bags

Been swapping between paper and plastic for years. This would be much easier and nothing to throw away.

Found this while clicking around on Curbly.com
www.coopamerica.org

Zero or Low VOC Paints

Having been hearing a lot of buzz around about low or zero VOC paints and truthfully not knowing too much about them I decided to do a little research and learn a bit more. I came across this site and I thought it was a good introduction.

http://www.eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_paints.htm.

Sustainable Building

Good Morning, and I am a morning person but even I cannot fathom why my internal clock has decided that 5am is way to go. So here I sit sipping coffee. But that is not the real reason I am writing this post. I was introduced to Heather via email a couple of weeks ago. This is her house and it is remarkable, Green, Near Zero Energy, & Affordable.

http://www.heathershome.info/