1) Use Low- or classified Zero-VOC paints, wood finishes, adhesives, and caulks.

Even if you’re the master of DIY home projects, and you craft a beautiful dining room table with the eco-friendliest wood, choosing conventional paints, adhesives and finishes means that your final touches taint the entire effort by emitting harmful gases. These volatile organic compounds (VOCs) seep into the air in your home or mix with outdoor pollutants to create ground level ozone (smog). We’ll be talking more about the air-quality aspects of VOCs later in the series, but for now, it’s good to know how to avoid slathering toxins on your walls, floors and furniture.

When you shop around, you’ll see labels indicating “Low-VOC” and “zero-VOC” paints, meaning they contain a reduced number of grams of VOC per liter (under 150 grams for low-VOC and under 5 for zero-VOC). The majority of common paint brands now provide these kinds of alternatives, and some manufacturers, such as AFM Safecoat and Bioshield have built their businesses around the greener choices.

Water-based wood finishes, such as waterborne urethane or acrylic, also have decreased toxic compounds, but still provide comparable durability to their standard counterparts. You can also find paint with recycled content which keeps remainders out of the waste stream, cuts down on new production, and generally costs less. One great resource here is the Seattle-based Environmental Home Center, which is a little like an Eco-Home Depot. They have a great website with clear information and competitive pricing. Another to check out is Build It Green.

Many conventional interior grade composite materials, like carbon fiber and engineered wood, contain urea-formaldehyde binder, which has been classified as a Toxic Air Contaminant by the California Air Resources Board due to its potential to cause cancer. It’s now fairly common to hear about formaldehyde-free fiberboards, and those are the ones you want to look for.

2) Re-Use, Recycle, Use Rapidly Renewable, and choose Third Party Certified Products.

We put a lot of emphasis on the “R’s” in last week’s installment. In areas that call for conventional plywood or finished materials, such as cabinets, trim, doors, shelving and window frames, you want to be certain your products didn’t come from clearcut virgin forests. As it turns out, reclaimed lumber is often higher quality than new lumber, and grasses such as bamboo and straw (the stalk of wheat, rice, and barley) make a great MDF (medium density fiberboard) alternative for the cabinetry and built-ins; bamboo can be harvested in 3-5 years, and straw-based MDF is derived from an annually renewable waste product.

Zwanette Design Cabinetry (pictured above) is a perfect example of a business ‘doing good by being good,’ offering farm-grown domestic and exotic hardwoods, bamboo, recycled palm and wood, agricultural byproducts like kirei, formaldehyde-free products, and woods from FSC-Certified sources. Another is Terramai, which has created a niche market for sourcing old old growth wood for new applications.

3) Put Something Good Under Your Feet

When it comes to flooring, all of the points in sections 1 and 2 still apply. We cannot stress sustainable wood harvesting enough. Below is a list of the current key players in green floors, and for more info, the aptly named Eco-Friendly Flooring company is a great online resource:

- Cork, though not local in most parts, is a rapidly renewable, harvested from the outer bark of the oak tree and regenerates within 10 years.

- Bamboo and it’s younger cousin, Plyboo, are also rapidly renewable and particularly elegant.

- Linoleum is a mixture of natural ingredients like cork, wood flour, and linseed oil. Though it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between linoleum and vinyl flooring, the ingredients tell all. Both are resilient, but sheet vinyl and VCT contain polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a chemical that has been linked to many health concerns, and has horrendous environmental impacts during both conception and disposal. For more on this, check out the award-winning documentary, Blue Vinyl, which investigates the life-cycle analysis of vinyl at a very personal level.

And then there’s carpet…

Ideally your rugs and carpets would come from 100% natural and renewable resources, with biodegradable backing. If this is in your budget, Nature’s Carpet, Shaw, and Earth Weave Carpet Mills may be of assistance. But for conventional carpets, look for those with high percentages of recycled content from wool, cotton, nylon or recycled plastic bottles.

Ray Anderson, founder of Interface Carpets has changed the carpet industry at a global level by creating modular carpet tiles that can be mixed and matched, easily replaced, and recycled. Both the design and the industrial manufacturing of Interface’s products have been inspired by biomimicry and the patterns and processes of nature.

Interface is produced in accordance with the Rug and Carpet Institute’s Green Label Plus program, which is one of several certifications for carpeting and rugs. Another we’ve talked about in the past is Rugmark, which works with two of our favorite designers, Amy Helfand and Nanimarquina.

4) Cover Your Surfaces Wisely, From the Inside Out.

For countertops and backsplash, you can utilize recycled content tile, such as Sandhill Industries and Vetrazzo, which contain up to 70% recycled glass and other materials. There are also a number of cementicious countertops available with recycled and post-industrial by-products. Icestone is made of recycled glass and concrete and Richlite is actually recycled paper compressed into a warm, durable alternative to stone. LEED-H qualifies environmentally preferable counters with minimum 25% recycled content.

With concrete being so abundantly used both inside and out, LEED-H has required minimum 30% fly ash or slag substitute for cement, the dominant ingredient in concrete. Cement production is a prime contributor to green house gasses. Steel production produces a by-product called slag, and the burning of coal produces a post-industrial waste known as fly ash. Both fly ash and slag provide high-quality cement-substitute, and while both may take longer to cure, the end concrete product is stronger.

(Leger Wanaselja Dwellings, Berkeley, CA)

4. Envelope Your Building Wisely, From the Outside In.

Choosing exterior surfaces — cladding, siding, roofing, decking — is a bit like getting dressed; the possibilities are endless. But those key environmentally-preferred items in section 2 should be applied to all. Of the many siding options, FSC-certified or reclaimed wood, recycled metal, fiber cement board, and durable, recyclable materials, such as stone, brick, and stucco, are preferred over virgin wood, metal, or plastic.

Roofing materials such as tile, slate, fiber-cement, recycled plastic, and metal, are durable and can provide additional fire protection. Cool metal roofs may also contribute to LEED points. For decking, LEED-H requires minimum 25% recycled content. Trex decking is an easy alternative to raw wood, as it contains reclaimed wood particles and recycled plastic, and is more durable than wood decking. The deck picture above has a support surface made of salvaged road signs.

A few years ago, choosing environmentally preferred products usually narrowed the options, and didn’t necessarily yield a desirable aesthetic; but today manufacturers and suppliers are picking up on consumers’ demand for healthier products that retain a high level of style and design. It’s an accelerating market, and by purchasing within it, you support its growth. Soon we may not need an alternative home store for our green needs, because they’ll be filling the shelves where everyone shops.

Stay tuned next week for the next installment of Green Building 101: Indoor Environmental Air Quality.

16  print email thisemail