Ewaste 2011, Annual Freecycle Day helps Vermonters Rid Homes and Businesses of e-waste

     Where do you take that old analog TV or ancient five year old desktop computer hiding in your closet when its finally time for it to go?  In Vermont, we have the option to recycle them for free at the annual eWaste2011 event, this year held at National Life Group's Headquarters in Montpelier, the capitol city of Vermont.
     From 9am to 2pm long lines of cars carrying equipment to recycle queued up on the long entry road leading into the complex.  eWaste2011 was sponsored by Small Dog Electronics an Apple Specialist and National Life who donated the site.  Small Dog employees greeted drivers dropping off their goods ushering them along to the collection site.

     All of the eWaste was being collected and processed by WeRecycle in the U.S.  A small percentage of the ewaste will be salvaged intact and go on to a second life elsewhere.  The majority of the eWaste will be recycled to obtain elements such as tin, copper, silicon, beryllium, carbon, iron, aluminum to be reused.  These materials will make their way into new electronics of various kinds while staying out of landfills and posing an environmental hazard for generations to come.

     As a consumer I can't tell you how joyful it feels to rid our home of junk like this collecting dust in closets, drawers and corners of our garage.  Lightening our load while returning our eWaste back to usefullness leaves a smile on our faces.

     My wife and I wondered aloud as we drove through the line waiting to unload our materials at all of the expensive yet obsolete electronics like this pallet of TVs.  We saw possibly six to eight tractor trailers waiting for loading and thought of all the money this equipment cost at time of original purchase.  What was here was likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollar range but no longer of value to users.
     Recently I've been reading a very interesting book What's Mine is Yours, the Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Roo Rogers and Rachel Botswan which takes this to task.  You've seen my earlier post sharing Rachel's inspiring Ted Talk.  What we're doing here at the eWaste freecycle event is shifting from a  "me to we" world which is something we more typically environmentally inspired Vermonters often do anyway.

A Vermont Perspective of the High Performance Workplace

Often times people ask what does designcultivation have to do with workplace design?  While it's the name of this blog I propose it's the also the act of cultivating awareness about unfamiliar aspects, information, best practices about designing and operating the high performance workplace. 

Many of us have experienced short-lived trends in workplace design buffeted more by the winds of fashion or onset of new products rather than focusing on what matters most, creating the high performing organization of which the physical workplace is merely a reflection.  It's not about the equipment and gadgets, how high or how low your panels are.  It's about leveraging the DNA of a company, its organizational mission, values and goals into its physical setting.  This helps to maximize the value and promise of its primary asset, its people and the workplace community they share together.

Because I live in Vermont with early adopters of corporate social responsibility like Ben & Jerry's, Chroma Technology, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Green Mountain Power, King Arthur Flour, Magic Hat Brewery, Main Street Landing, National Life of  Vermont,  NRG Systems and Seventh Generation to name a few, I've come to realize building great companies is more than just building a great bottom line.  It's about people, planet and profits together.

Net Zero Low-Income Modular Homes in Colorado

I wanted to spread word of a model net-zero affordable housing project located in Lafayette, Colorado, a city located in Boulder Country about 40 miles from Denver and 10 miles from Boulder.

(image courtesy of BCHA)

The Paradigm Pilot Project, a single family home and a duplex showcase a mix of super-insulated building envelopes, smart site orientation and use renewable energy sources, combined with passive solar design strategies. The building design use a fairly straightforward modernistic vocabulary of 13 rectilinear boxes easy to manufacture in a factory setting. What's hopeful is this is an experiment of sorts to be studied and leveraged into a much larger 153 Unit housing project in the planning stages in Lafayette. It uses geothermal

The project was designed by HB&A Architects,and built by All-American Homes for the Boulder County Housing Authority. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory / Department of Energy were also partners on the project.

You can find out more about the project on the Green Building Advisor and later covered at Jetson Green. You can see helpful information about it at the Housing Authority's Website.

Here's a link to a powerpoint about the project from the BCHA site. The site also shows the construction process with highlights being the installation of the modular factory built units and solar system installation. One interesting note is the project used both evacuated tube type solar hot water and solar electric panels as part of the system. The jury's out here on the efficacy the evacuated tubes but it's interesting this technology was used on the project.

All in all, this project is an inspiration to those of us in cold-climate regions and of use to others close to home here in Vermont. Perhaps some of the lessons learned from this project can be used here on our affordable housing projects. I know Efficiency Vermont is doing it's best to partner with other non-profit and for profit developers and housing authority's to continually upgrade our housing stock, whether new construction or renovation. It's Multi-family Housing Design Checklist is a very thourogh guide helping with efficiency measures and low-energy usage. They also provide financial incentives and technical assistance to clients and project teams to extend the value of the check-list.

Perhaps with the far-away inspiration of the Colorado example and the close to home specifics of the Efficiency Vermont's checklist this will help move us forward!

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Brews up 100KW of Solar Power

Today, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters mentioned here in a press release just issued, turned on it's new 100 + KW solar array comprising of over 500 solar electric panels in Waterbury, Vermont.

Our friends in Waterbury continue to amaze and astound in their very visible leadership in sustainability trailblazing. Of putting their coffee cup where their mouth is, all puns intended. GroSolar, headquartered in White River Junction did the installation.

Microgrid Houses, energy independance and giving back to the grid

In this summer's July / August issue of Fast Company Anya Kamenetz wrote an article an Why the Microgrid Could Be the Answer to Our Energy Crisis .

It identifies how the microgrid which is small scale consumer, commercial developer and municipality driven is at odds with the large scale smart grid, renewable energy industrialization efforts of large regional or national energy players. What's fascinating and powerful is how both together large and small can help provide needed renewable energy sources to all scales of users. And, the economic oppourtunity for redefining our troubled economy through the conversion to greener energy sources can only or the other but both together which is powerful. It's not Smart Grid vs. Microgrid but both, 1 + 1 = 5 etc. With multiple ways to deliver renewable energy in a more complex interdependant system we are all better off.

As she says "The microgrid is all about consumer control -- aligning monetary incentives, with the help of information technology, to make renewables and efficiency pay off for the average homeowner, commercial developer, or even a town. The name of the game is to scale up renewables big enough, fast enough, to bring the cost down to parity with conventional resources. "

Here in Vermont, one of our local energy companies, Green Mountain Power they have a 10,000 panels in 1,000 days program in their Choose to go solar campaign. They are committed to transforming the energy landscape in Vermont business, homeowners and municipalities and exemplify microgrid efforts on a more local scale. I believe we're in the midst of a viral consumer driven renewable energy revolution. Smart companies which realize this are stepping in like Green Mountain Power to help make it easy for consumers to green up their energy usage and create more energy independance on a local scale. It's the Wiki distributed and nimble consumer driven approach to change rather than old style large scale 1,000 acre wind or solar farm.

One thing however, the Microgrid house from the article which I include here falls short as an example but is worth including to get the conversation going. I agree the house can be a small power plant generating electricity but what's missing in the example are additional flyouts identifying smart choices for low use water fixtures, recycled materials in construction and finishes. Having a garage in the front helps make the case for the electric plug-in visually but speaks to broken conventional development patterns and attitudes. This is an incomplete picture at best.

Anyway, that's all with this post. I think I'd better offer some ideas about the ideal microgrid house in future posts. But please read the linked articles and information. And, any feedback or comments are welcome.