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Posts
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I couldn’t find the “Green Product” thread, but you need to check out this website, very interesting.
For better or worse, green is here and its not going away…The real challenge is to figure out what IS and isn’t green through all the bull. I know a solid surface that will remain nameless, that claims recycled products. I know that at least one of their products went from 20% recycled to 40% recycled overnight… and I know they also on occasions made virgin sheets to grind up for their “green” products.
Once some totally independant organization can actually certify that someone or something is green, in all aspects of the mfg process then Green will mean something.
I will be moderating a rountable discussion at KBIS on this very subject. Hope to see some of you there.
I will be moderating a rountable discussion at KBIS on this very subject. Hope to see some of you there.
Oooohhh would I love to be in that panel.
Good luck, man, Green is the scare product of the near future.
There’s gold in them there Gaiaists.
Tom
Green is so much more than recycled materials. Green in a new building is utilizing natural light to reduce the amount of electric used, its designing the building to reduce the load on AC and Heating, it’s how we handle products, get them to market, its something we all should embrace. Its doing two jobs in one area at the same time, to save gas.. We all laugh but it is something that is good for our pocketbook also. Im far from a tree hugger, but using what we have responsibly just makes sense. We have about 7 billion people on this earth. Someday our resources will run out. Green is not scare, it makes sense, bottom line. Don’t you want to save electric, water, fuel manpower at your shop?
Look at some of the products that are coming out and you will be amazed… they look good and are good for us also. Heck, appliances today use a fraction of the energy they used just 10 years ago. Green is nothing to be afraid of, its something to be embraced… if we have two ways of doing something, why not do the one that is more friendly to the air we breath or the water we drink?
Come join our discussion of Green… Id love to hear all views. Real green makes sense, fake green only makes $$ for a few. Lets learn to separate what’s real and what isn’t.
Wags,
I agree with you 100%, I have been researching green products for a while now and it can be very confusing. It would be great if someone could help us understand it better. I hope you have a chance to share how your roundtable discussion turns out. Will your discussion include how the leeds points work?
Shane
Wags,
Great idea. Wonderful concept. Should we all jump aboard?
Well that depends, doesn’t it?
It depends on if (as you suggest regularly) that manufacturers don’t “pad” their part in the business and choose easy profit over sensible practice. I don’t think it is as simple as it sounds.
Classic:
Granite is worth the hacking out of the ground, destroying a part of those limitted resources, because it will last so long in your kitchen that it replaces its own eco footprint. Solid surface? The same, thanks for asking.
Bull. Pure bull. If the average kitchen gets replaced in a fraction of the time these products can last, how on Earth (heh) is it legitimate to consider time as a factor? It’s crap to think that way, but that’s the claim.
By these methods, laminate is probably the most eco-friendly countertop product out there. Easily renewable material, the energy used to make a sheet of sol surf possibly makes a hundred sheets of Formica and the like. Befor it was cut and processed, laminate materials helped do their part to clean out air and replace our oxygen.So if we go green, don’t use stone or solid surface, right? I’m gonna raise my laminate prices and guilt-trip my customers into buying laminate. I’ll get right on that.
Please understand, it’s not good intentions I’m questioning. Of course we all want to find the compromise between good stewardship and honest product representation. I just don’t think you will ever see it. I don’t think we will know how much bull is in the promotion of items, and I don’t think it will help ecologically as much as it will hurt economically in the long run.
Tom
We were told that, unless we radically changed our ways, the Earth would be irrepairably damaged in twenty years. Twenty years later, it becam ten years. Now they are saying that it is not short term we need to worry about, it is the long-term effects. We had enough oil to last 30 years, then twenty, now we find reserves near equal to what is supposedly established now.
I would like them to settle on exactly what the problem is, and how much we need to change our ways before we get another Alar, or any of the other products that were ill-served by the hysteria that was found later to be too much too late.
Get everyone to agree how much needs to be done, then make an informed decision. Because right now, the way things are getting press they don’t deserve, we are not being served well by our eco-masters.
Please tell the President of the Sierra Club that he doesn’t need a Suburban. Please tell Al that his electric bill is more than everybody who posts here. Please tell the Arianna Huffingtons of the world to fly charter like the rest of us, before they talk about how we need to change our ways.
I’ll be on board with you then.
/rant off/
Tom
Just as in any segment of any business there are charlatans of course. You need to stop thinking just countertops.. Green is much more than that. Are you using citrus cleaners today in lieu of? That’s being green.
There are people working on a real way to tell if a product IS green. Once is a wheel. With spokes and rings. More green as you progress out of the center. Each spoke is a part of the process. Where raw materials come from, how they are obtained, how they are delivered, how it is mfg, etc. You may wind up with a green segment and 3 red segments. Or, you may wind up with a totally greet outter ring.. This needs to be beyond reproach, unbias, and reliable.
From your comments you seem to think Solid Surface is no way “green”. I think a product you can EASILY repair or RENEW IS green, over the long run. Heck I did my shower walls in 1975 with Corian. I Sold that house 7 years ago and the showers still looked like new. How many tile jobs or other products would I had to install in those 25 years? I think that IS green.. Stop looking for a way to fight what in your heart you know is important to all of us. When solid surface is looked at in terms of life cycle AND we can come up with a way to recycle solid surface post consumer, we have a winner. If we can recycle pop bottles, why not SS? Every # I can not dump in some big hole in the ground I think is great for my grandkids or great grandkids. . Does that make me a tree hugger? Does that make me a Sierra Club booster? I think there is a huge middle ground where we need to be, not on either extreme. Is the human population having an effect on the planet? Of course we are, when we have 8 billion people how can we NOT have an effect. When were screwing ourselves (litterally) into over crowded cities and roads we need to think beyond ourselfs, it just makes sense.
And im all for pointing out the hippocrisy of our “leaders”. ALL politicians are ego manics that care more about the almighty $ than they do about doing the “peoples business”. Its more important to be reelected than actually do something good for the American People. Being reelected is the #1 priority… sadly. Anyone want to discuss Term Limits and Sunset Laws?
This needs to be beyond reproach, unbias, and reliable.
And there is the problem. Simply put, it won’t be. It will cost more than it saves. How do I know this? History.
I’ll give you a for instance: One of the main backers of this for remodling and household products will be the large Home Centers. They will donate for the research, they will put up ads telling you how green they are, and think you should be. The reality will be that they will still make a mint selling the short term stuff. The diposable economy. To do anything else will change their business model, and they have refined that way too much. Look at the NKBA today (that, by the way, is only my opinion).
Think about this: Your shower was over twenty five years old, so you feel the product is green. We gussied up the first shower we did (Dawn Beige) back in ’73 or ’74. It was beautiful and it bears out your premise. The mud job in my parents house was over fifty years old. I helped take it out. What a bear that was! Took over two full days getting down to the studs. We don’t see that kind of quality these days. Why not? You know that answer as much as I – It costs so much more to do it that way, no one is doing it much anymore. So the cheaper fabricator won’t seal it as good as you or I would. A leak will develop, and the wall will need to come down. That job, that had a potential for so small a eco footprint, just screwed the pooch on the system.
So who is going to actually think to include “Old School” in that wheel? Not because they will refuse, but because it won’t occur to them. Are we going to be honest and not let fabricators who do crap work have the same chance at being labled green as the guys who take the time to do it right and charge accordingly? How is the color of the product going to get diffused by shoddy workmen? How about the way those guys leave a jobsite? Shouldn’t that count?
Wags, it comes down to this: Your shower was “green” because it was installed well, and it was treated well. You, my friend are the green one. Not your product. My parents were green (actually Scottish), and came from a time when you spent for the best and treated it well. That was what made their tile green. That was what made almost everyone green.
Train people to be thoughtful in their practice and their purchase. Teach them how their decisions on all matters economic are what will help the environment. Both way (mine and yours – or “theirs”) may add to what a consumer would spend, but with mine you get to the source and don’t load a bunch of extra buraucratic costs like conformity checks, etc. onto the ultimate product.
Want to get green? refuse to allow product made with petroleum to be sold in this Country. Electric cars? huh, the power that gets generated is a menace. The consumer gets a “cleaner” car, but we suffer at the plant. Is ethanol going to make gas greener? What about the engines that will have a much shorter lifespan? How will the price of corn be affected by this?
When were screwing ourselves (litterally) into over crowded cities and roads we need to think beyond ourselfs, it just makes sense.
Statistically the West has that one down. You’re speaking to the wrong audience, there. Paul Erlich was so morbidly wrong that it should still make your head spin.
Honestly, Wags, I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, but if it’s gonna happen it has to be right. I know deep down in my heart tht those who have the power to affect what gets called “Green” will get greedy and muck it all up. So we get little benefit at great cost.
Teach us how to schedule around less driving (installation and templating) and teach the consumer that this is worth a delay in getting your end product. Unfortunately, you will be helping the big boxes more than the small custom guys, and they are worse than we are.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. I agree we need to find the middle, but the wrong people will end up making the wrong decisions, for the wrong reason. I don’t want to be a part of that kind of solution.
Tom
We can fight this, or we can fight FOR this…. either way, it will happen. All the things you speak of can, will, or are happening. But there are very good people also involved, and the movement is growing each day. Architects are not stupid, ( no comments) They understand bull when they hear it. I have presented solid surface and other products at over 200 luncheons over the last 4 or 5 years, and they ask good questions…the right questions. LEED is happening and it’s growing. It is very big and getting bigger in commercial projects. We all have choices in life, I will choose to learn and point the light on those companies that are less than honest about their products. Each of us can choose to complain or get in the ring and go a few rounds. I have the luxury of being at a point in my life where I can speak my feelings and not worry about the consequences. I retired once, I can do it again. The future is up to each of us.
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