Green Building Elements

Editor’s note: Today’s final installment of Low Impact Living’s “A Thirsty Nation” focuses on steps you can take to conserve water around the home. Make sure to check out the previous two posts in this series on water use and conservation, or take a look at the whole report on Low Impact Living’s site.

What Can You Do to Reduce Water Consumption?

Improve the water efficiency of your lawn.

For many homeowners in the southern United States, lawn irrigation is likely the largest source of residential water waste. There are many things one can do to correct this.

Adjust your irrigation controller to fit your climate conditions and landscaping. This alone can produce water savings of over 30%. Some water utilities offer water audits, so check with your local water provider to see if they offer this service. Or, find experienced landscape maintenance firms in your area.

Install rain and soil moisture sensors. Many people don’t turn off their irrigation when it rains. Also, most lawns receive far more water than they actually need when it isn’t raining. Both problems can be corrected using sensors attached to your irrigation system. See examples.

Replace existing landscaping with climate-appropriate options, keeping grass to a minimum. The biggest challenge with many yards is that they are composed of plants originally from other areas with vastly different climate conditions. The typical turf lawn can use up to 40 inches of water a year or more; many climate zones in the US have far less than that in rainfall. What most people don’t realize is that all regions of the US have native plants that are beautiful, durable, and adapted to local climate conditions. Some native grasses can provide the benefits of turf while requiring 1/3 of the water. So, if you really want to save water and also want to stand out on your block, cut down your turf use and rebuild your lawn using beautiful natives. Find landscape architects in your area who can help.

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Green roof manufacturers incorporate sustainable products beyond the greenery.

If it looks green, smells green and feels green, it must be green. Right? The answer, it turns out, is more of a maybe. It is common knowledge that green technology has large positive environmental impacts: large-scale energy savings, run-off reduction and heat reduction among their chief assets. But as green builders continue to define the standards and guidelines for sustainable construction practices, different levels of earth friendly products continue to circulate the market. Green roofs in particular are taking a harder look at the sustainability of their component materials.

Make it last
Brad Budde of Conwed Plastics, Minneapolis, Minn., believes the future development of sustainable green roof products lies in the hands of builders. He suggests that as companies continue to understand the commercial concerns regarding the application of sustainable and earth friendly products that the market as a whole will become more educated about their applications, benefits and uses.

His company is a leader of earth friendly, compostible packaging materials as an alternative to traditional plastic bags, as well as biodegradable plastics that don’t leave the harmful, long lasting resins of other industry plastics. “It’s a really great product that solves some of the disposal concerns for traditional plastic products,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m celebrating Boxing Day in a new way this year - I’m putting all the cardboard boxes saved up from Shipping Month, aka December, to use in my Permaculture garden, by making sheet mulch.

Google sheet mulch and Permaculture. (For those not in the know, Permaculture is a fairly recent term for cultivating an edible landscape that establishes positively reinforcing relationships between water, soil, insects, microbes, sun, etc…for the purpose of sustainably and organically feeding its designing human.)

Sheet mulches are an easy way to ‘compost in place’, delivering all the water-borne yummies to the plants instead of under the compost pile. Design-wise, sheet mulching also avoids the not-so-Neighborhood-Association-Friendly look of compost piles, so it’s a tricky way to subvert the negative effects of suburban sprawl - grow a food landscape!

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