GreenClips.78 08.13.97 REFRIGERATING HOSPITABLY Hotels use lots of refrigeration. Rethinking kitchen food storage, ice machines, guestroom mini-bars, and regularly maintaining equipment could cut energy used for refrigeration in half. So says John Forte, environmental management advisor to the International Hotels Environment Initiative. Kitchen designers can reduce energy lost through open refrigerator doors by providing only a working refrigerator in the kitchen and placing larger storage units out of immediate reach. Glass doors allow stock checks without opening. Frequently opened refrigerators should include a fan to restore temperature quickly after the door closes. Look for features like an aluminum shell that will reduce energy use particularly near cooking equipment. Consider providing a mini-bar in a lobby area on each floor instead of every guestroom. If provided, mini-bar cabinets should have plenty of space for air circulation and maintenance access to save energy. For more information call John Forte, 44.0.171.467.3625. — Green Hotelier, July 1997, p. 16, by John Forte. ON THE ROAD TO KYOTO Preparing for the upcoming Kyoto conference, leaders representing the full spectrum of global warming viewpoints are gathered in Bonn to negotiate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier in this decade, industry lobbyists spoke with one voice on climate change — no to any binding agreement obligating countries to control emissions. But British Petroleum, the world's third largest oil company, recently broke ranks. The time to contemplate action, said its chairman John Browne earlier this year, "is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously," and BP "has reached that point." But others in Bonn think otherwise. Gail McDonald of the Global Climate Coalition, a Washington-based lobbying group representing core energy and manufacturing industries, formed zeros with her fingers when asked what her group would like to see happen in Kyoto. The coalition argues the impact of climate change is too uncertain and the risk of economic damage still too high to justify stronger, mandatory action. — The New York Times, August 5, 1997, p. 1, by William K. Stevens. HOK SPECIFIES GREEN EMBASSIES The Washington DC office of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum has developed environmental specification guidelines and product-specific recommendations for the US Office Building Chancery in Berlin, the State Department's designated environmental showcase. The State Department will consider these specifications for future embassies around the world. Using its green building material database, HOK drafted twenty master specification sections selected for their potential to improve environmental performance, for their applicability to State Department projects, and if related environmental performance regulations and guidelines exist. For the Berlin project, this third criterion included standards for German products that HOK recommended when their environmental performance significantly exceeded that of available US products. Besides answering HOK's environmental questionnaire on their products, manufacturers reviewed draft specifications to ensure that they reflect market availability. [For more information email sandra.leibowitz@hok.com.] — The Construction Specifier, August 1997, p. 36, by Sandra Leibowitz and Sandra Mendler. DOUBLE PLUMBING CALIFORNIA California's Governor Pete Wilson has signed legislation unanimously passed by both houses that promotes recycled water use in buildings. Bill AB 1522 defines the types of buildings — commercial, retail and office buildings, prisons, military barracks and dormitories, and some apartment buildings and hotels — that qualify for the dual plumbing systems needed to use recycled water. In effect January 1, the law will likely add one million acre feet of drinking water to the state's supplies by 2010. For more information email the bill's author Assemblywoman Helen Thomson [D-Davis], helen.thomson@assembly.ca.gov. — Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1997, p. D2. FROM ASHES TO AGGREGATE The 114 waste-to-energy power plants in the US produce nearly 10 million tons of waste ash each year and about 94 percent of it is needlessly landfilled, says the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. One of the hurdles to reusing ash from trash incinerators is the perception that it is hazardous, but the NREL's Carlton Wiles says studies show it's not. American Ash Recycling Inc. operates the largest commercial ash recycling plant in Nashville, Tennessee, producing an aggregate for concrete blocks and road construction. Much of the plant's technology is from Holland, where nearly all waste ash is recycled. American Ash is negotiating to build two more plants in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. — The Florida Times-Union, July 30, 1997, by John Finotti. MANUFACTURING TOPSOIL Replacing construction site topsoil is a common but environmentally questionable practice. Sites need fresh topsoil when poor existing soil won't support luxury plants or when contractors, lacking space, truck existing topsoil to a landfill. Instead of stripping replacement topsoil from the countryside, consider manufacturing it from on-site soil and recycled materials like compost, mine tailings, dehydrated limestone tailings from aggregate plants, fly ash from industrial smokestacks, even ground glass. Consistent quality in all manufactured soil components is important, but the quality of biosolids, the most commonly available compost, is particularly critical and varies widely from one wastewater-treatment plant to another. To avoid inconsistency, landscape architects should investigate local sources of biosolids, improve compost specifications, and monitor what arrives at the construction site. Soil scientist Phillip Craul, wastewater engineer Michael Switzenbaum, and landscape architect Thomas Ryan have written a book of manufactured soil specifications called Manufactured Loam Using Compost Material. It is available from the University of Massachusetts Transportation Center. — Landscape Architecture, August 1997, p. 38, by J. William Thompson.