Toledo, Ohio is getting a new sustainable urban park!

The UpTown Green Park is located at 18^th St and Madison Ave., Toledo, Ohio. There are a number of green features such as a grey water system that will be used in the park rain garden. There are also native plants in the park and most of exciting of all, after 3 years of planning and development it’s expected to open in the coming days!

 

Also much anticipated, is the fate of a near-by and vacant building. Planning for it’s future and creating a budget for it’s goals are already underway. The source writes about the potential for it to become a mixed use, residential and commercial building among other things.

 

Source: http://www.toledoblade.com/Real-Estate/2014/07/14/Construction-of-UpTown-Green-nears-completion.html

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Refresing and original videos by @HumanBrainPower

Thepowerofbrain.com produces awesome videos that cover an array of categories such as biology, engineering, construction, technologies, entertainment and more in a captivating presentation.

“The coolest Nature Video Ever [Edited By Roen Horn] is a spectacular slow-motion film about the origin of life among focused shots. In addition to nature shots, their website shows a “Point of View Surgery Shown with Google Glass”, “Holographic Imaging Via Your Smartphone’s Screen”, “The World’s first “Invisible” Tower [South Korea], “Lamborghini Aventador Process Production HD”, and so many more videos that combine education with entertainment.

For your viewing pleasure please see:

 

Source: https://wastetracking.wordpress.com/

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

New @WholeFoods is super #efficient!

A new Whole Foods opened in Brooklyn, NY and it’s called “Third and 3^rd, Brooklyn” which has an awesome green parking lot. The parking lot roof has a lot of solar arrays, the streetlights are solar powered and wind-powered, and there are electric car charging stations as well

In addition to having one of the most efficient parking lots made so far, this Whole Foods offers:

Bike Repair and Parking: Bikes are beloved by Brooklynites and Whole Foods Market, so we want to support people’s ability to maintain and ride them. This form of alternative transportation contributes to a reduced carbon footprint and a healthier lifestyle.

Knife Sharpening: Knife sharpening services from Scott Jennings of X-Calibur Knife & Scissor Sharpening and Christopher Harth ofNYCutlery and products including knives and specially-made Third & 3^rd cutting boards.

Vinyl Records and Wrecords by Monkey: A vinyl venue featuring music as well as reclaimed vinyl jewelry and accessories fromWrecords by Monkey, a Brooklyn-based design and lifestyle brand

THE ROOF: Serving a variety of local and seasonal menu items from snacks to salads to entrees, including vegan and vegetarian offerings, as well as 16 beers on tap, The Roof, offers indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the Gowanus Canal, surrounding neighborhoods, and the Manhattan skyline. Hours 11 a.m. – 11 p.m.

YUJI RAMEN: Chef Yuji Haraguchi will serve his praised Japanese mazemen dishes with a twist; including Bacon & Egg, Salmon & Cheese, Miso Roasted Vegetables and Spicy Tuna. The takeout venue will be open for lunch and dinner, seven days a week.

JUICE Etc.: a made-to-order juice bar, offering fresh-pressed fruit and veggie juices and smoothies.

Shopping at Whole Foods is a pleasure, if you can make it out to Brooklyn to see this one let us know what it’s like! You can tag this store with #thirdand3rd and don’t forget, we are @GreenHaloUSA on Twitter!

 

(Source: http://wastetracking.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/new-wholefoods-is-super-efficient/ )

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Tiny Houses Big With U.S. Owners by @BloombergNews

 

Bloomberg showed glimpses inside the tiny houses that are becoming big with U.S. owners. In this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-09/tiny-houses-big-with-u-s-owners-seeking-economic-freedom.html Nina Glinski wrote about how good owners of tiny houses in the U.S. feel about making the decision to downsize their homes in favor of achieving economic freedom.

The article starts with Doug Immel who recently completed his custom-built dream home that has just 164 square feet of living space and saves him a lot of money which he invests for his retirement.

Aldo Lavaggi, a New York folk musician who lives in Hudson Valley built a 105 square foot home on a friend’s farmland in the Berkshires. His humble abode runs on energy from two solar panels and a car battery. Lavaggi “has money to splurge on artisanal break and gourmet cheeses from the local market” and pointed out that “there’s a fallacy of limited options” where people feel that they must have a full-time job, stellar credit or a lot of money to own a house.

This article looks at a lot of different angles regarding owning a house like the “biggest barrier”, zoning restrictions, and the freedom explained above. We hope that you enjoy, and please tell us what you think on Twitter @GreenHaloUSA or in the comments here!

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Understanding the #energy #efficiency of products is made more scientific than ever by #FLEXLABS

This is the outside of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s new FLEXLAB

 

FLEXLAB is the world’s first energy use lab that will help builders and manufactures test entire building systems down to the component level on a significant scale.

This lab offers solutions for people who bring products to test out and want to use all of the lab’s equipment to do so, to people who want to bring their product to test out with their own machinery and equipment.

Current projects involve measuring energy usage for the Genentech building, PG&E and more!

The lab has 4 stations (shown in the video above) to accommodate a variety of testing scenarios including:

1. “Test-drive technologies”

2. “Individual circuits and meters”

3. “Lighting and plug-load elements”

4. “On-site training”

5. “Compression testing”

and more.

According to the FLEXLAB, there is a problem that buildings are designed to be energy efficient, but once they are being used they end up using a lot more energy than was planned. A new study even pointed out that energy efficient buildings sometimes use more than twice the energy than was expected based on their design.

Here’s an except from the lab’s website about what they offer:

FLEXLAB is the first test bed in the world that can evaluate the energy efficiency of major building systems, as an integrated system, under real-world conditions. Stakeholders can evaluate energy-efficient building technologies individually or as integrated systems in advance of building projects or retrofits, in order to:

• Optimize integrated systems to maximize energy savings
• Ensure occupant comfort and user-friendliness
• Verify cost-benefit numbers
• Train building operators
• Build confidence in new technologies

 

( Source: http://flexlab.lbl.gov/ )

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Inspirational and #Educational #Sustainability Across the U.S.A.

Did you know that Chicago, IL has become the epicenter for LEED-certified buildings?

How about the fact that landscaping designed to conserve water is called Xeriscaping and it’s big in Denver, CO?

Freshkills landfill in New York, NY is a landfill that’s three-times the size of Central Park and it’s being worked on so that it can be turned into a park!

Portland, OR is home to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance whose mission it is to create healthy, sustainable communities by make bicycling safe, convenient and accessible.

 

Source: http://ecowatch.com/2014/07/14/ranking-sustainability-programs-u-s/

and 

http://btaoregon.org/

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Renewable #energy must be addressed to receive #building permits for single-family homes in Hawaii

Hawaii has become the first state in the US to mandate the installation of solar water heaters in new single-family home construction. According to an article by Mat McDermott from treehugger, this mandate that requires solar waters to receive a building permit, Act 204, went into effect at the beginning of 2010.

Encouraging renewable energy in Hawaii is supported by the facts that 90% of its energy was imported from outside the island chain in 2008 and oil prices have been high. In regards to the mandate, exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis in forested areas where such a system might be cost-prohibitive or if the dwelling utilizes another form of renewable energy in the building plan.

 

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/solar-water-heater-mandate-for-new-hawaiian-homes.html

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your #Carbon Footprint!

Here it is, a list of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint according to National Geographic and the folks @GreenHaloUSA

How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

1. Make your home energy efficient.
Your home can be responsible for creating twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as your car. Since half of the energy used in your home helps to heat and cool it, making your home as energy efficient as possible will take big chunks out of your carbon footprint. Steps you can take include: Getting a home energy audit; installing energy efficient windows; insulating your attic and walls; installing a programmable thermostat; turning your thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer.

2. Drive less.
Combine your trips in the car, so you don’t have to go out multiple times to the same location. When possible, use public transit, walk or bike to your destination.

3. Buy the highest gas mileage car for your needs.
Cars contribute 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels; the better your gas mileage, the less gas you burn and the fewer emissions you create.

4. Buy energy efficient appliances.
When replacing appliances, buy Energy Star qualified appliances (these use 10-50% less energy than standard appliances and can save you $80 or more per year).

5. Recycle.
Creating products from recycled materials uses up to 98 percent less energy than producing things from new materials.

6. Replace your light bulbs.
Switching to energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs will save you $30 over the life of the bulb, because these they use about 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs.

7. Buy local food.
Each ingredient in a U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. If we all ate one meal per week of local, organic food, we’d save 1.1 million barrels of oil per week.

8. Eat less red meat.
Beef takes a lot of energy and resources to produce. Replace red meat with fish, chicken and eggs and cut your food carbon footprint by 29 percent. Go vegetarian to cut it by 50 percent.

9. Lower your water heater temperature from 140 degrees F to 120 degrees F.

10. Buy carbon offsets for the rest and make yourself “carbon neutral.”

( Source: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/trash-talk2.html )

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

 Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

Indonesia had 16m hectares of deforestation from 2000 to 2012 and more from The Economist

Indonesia is now the country with the highest rate of annual loss in primary forest in the world. The area of forest that was lost between 2000 to 2012 is 16m hectares, an area roughly the same size as Greece. Of the 16m hectares of deforestation, 38% of that or 6m hectares was primary forest (the most valuable in terms of carbon and biodiversity) and the “…loss of primary forest is increasing by an average of 47,600 hectares every year”.

This was caused in part by “…corrupt local politicians, police and even army officers are still involved in selling off forest land to be cleared for palm-oil and paper-pulp plantations, illegal logging and much else. The land is most often cleared by burning, creating the dense and deadly haze clouds that drift across the island of Sumatra to Malaysia and Singapore, creating an almost annual diplomatic and environmental row. Last year the air pollution in Singapore and Malaysia as a result of the haze was the worst on record.”

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/07/indonesia-and-environment#sthash.tzQ5NgWv.dpbs

Another great Green article from Green Halo
Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com
Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa

 

 

“Voluntary Creative Simplicity”

L. Kevin and Donna Philippe-Johnson talk about their story here: http://earthstar.newlibertyvillage.com/thinkingsmall.htm

They downsized from an annual income of $42,000 to $6,500 by means of their voluntary creative simplicity.
Here’s an outline:
1. They were a middle class American couple who had an income of $42,000 a year in the 80’s but got sick of dealing with frequent layoffs and the instability of being unemployed and then employed off and on.
2. They decided to drastically cut expenses by moving to the country where they also met plenty of like-minded people.
3. Kevin and Donna decided to shake loose from the things holding them down and paid off all of their debt, cancelled credit cards, and followed an efficient financial plan to track every penny.
4. This led them to be able to save a little bit of money, so they decided that the next thing to do would be to change their eating habits to stay strong and healthy. They broke away from fast-food, pre-packed food and even prescription medicine to eating organic whole grains, fruits, vegetables and more.
5. They set up a special savings account for emergency first-aid treatment so that they could stop paying health insurance premiums.
6. Of course, the cell phone, cable television and internet bills were the next thing to go.
7. Eventually they began their “simple life” when they set up a dome tent to live in. They “happily lived in [their] tent that summer while clearing the land and constructing a rustic 10’ by 12’ room with a sleeping loft” on a pay-as-you-go plan.
8. The couple then build an underground cistern for collecting rainwater and finally, a 500 square foot cabin. Kevin took drafting, dish washing, courier, and other jobs to pay for the little cabin.
9. Kevin and Donna spent the next few years working towards their goals, building things, growing crops, spending quality time with one another and “replaced all of the costly false values that had occupied [their]time before”
10. In the end, the couple felt independent and truly self-reliant. Surprisingly enough, Kevin realized that the only thing he truly loved to do was to bake his own whole-grain sourdough bread to give away to his friends and family. He then came to the conclusion that he should stay at home and bake bread to sell to their neighbors. This provided for him and his wife. He also wrote this story to tell others that “little things” like baking bread for a neighborhood can be financially supportive and can make some people happier.

Another great Green article from Green Halo

Track your recycling at www.greenhalosystems.com

 Follow Green Halo on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greenhalousa