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Granville magazine
| Image:
Flickr / clango |
Published: July 15, 2009
When you retire your old, polluting vehicle, make sure it’s recycled responsibly.
Car Heaven and The Scrap-it Program are two options you can explore. Each offers incentives or rebates in exchange for your clunker.
Learn more about recycling cars: Car Heaven, 778-371-7123; The Scrap-it Program, 1-888-655-1000.
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By Granville
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Published: February 20, 2008
If you have garden space to spare, why not share it with someone with an itchy green thumb?
Visit City Farmer’s website and sign up for its Sharing Backyards in Greater Vancouver project (check out its handy map) and share the soil.
For more information call 604-685-5832 or go to www.cityfarmer.org.
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Published: February 20, 2008
Whether they leak or drip, faulty faucets and pipes can be big water wasters.
According to Metro Vancouver, a leaking faucet can waste an astounding 280 to 750 litres of water in a week.
By Janet Gyenes
| Image: Sean Campbell |
Published: February 20, 2008
We all know how to create instant ambience in a room: just dial down the dimmer switch and light some candles. But along with the soothing comfort of a flickering flame come the dangerous – and possibly carcinogenic – chemicals and soot.
“Many people are unaware that most candles are made from a petroleum-based wax called paraffin, which is a byproduct of fuel refining,” explains Sean Campbell of Simplicity Go Green Vegesoy Candles/ Rock Originals.
Simplicity candles are made from soybean and natural waxes that are water-soluble, so spills are easy to clean up. The scents used to give fragrance to a candle are naturally derived from essential oils. “As a result, our candles are made from a renewable energy source and are 100-per-cent biodegradable,” says Campbell. “And here’s the kicker: our candles burn 25 to 30 per cent longer than paraffin candles and are comparable in price.”
Simplicity Go Green Vegesoy Candles are available at Whole Foods Market in West Vancouver, and at Creekhouse Gallery on Granville Island.
For more in information, call Simplicity Go Green Vegesoy Candles/Rock Originals at 604-904-7964, or visit www.rockpotoriginals.com
By Janet Gyenes
| Image: Live Edge Design Inc. |
Published: February 20, 2008
When a tree falls in the forest, Live Edge Design partners John Lore and Evan Sadler find another opportunity to create one of their distinctive furniture pieces and bring the rugged beauty of nature indoors. All the wood used in Live Edge’s contemporary designs – such as weighty plank headboards, massive mantels and grand dining room tables – comes from salvaged or storm-damaged trees, while rustic pieces, such as lounge chairs, are crafted from unfinished driftwood.
John Lore, president of Live Edge Design, started working with local wood 14 years ago. His company’s name comes from the technical term for the growing cambium layer under the tree bark, where all the action is. Case in point: some of the Western bigleaf maple slabs that Lore and Sadler use are “spalted” with decorative black lines created by fungus. Other pieces have cracks and crevices, stripes and burls, making each look nothing like the next. Even the bark is left on some pieces, keeping the full personality of the wood intact.
“I see what I do as a lifestyle choice, a conscious decision to enjoy but also protect my surroundings,” says Lore.
Furniture from Live Edge Design is available at Homefront Ideas in Sidney on Vancouver Island, and at Salt Spring Woodworks on Salt Spring Island. For custom orders or information visit or contact Live Edge Design, 5195 Mearns Rd., Duncan. 1-866-748-0763.
www.liveedgedesign.com
By Janet Gyenes
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Published: February 20, 2008
If your tired home needs a little rejuvenation, or even a complete eco-overhaul, then HomeSpa, a new green home-advisory service, developed by the Light House Sustainable Building Centre, might be just what the doctor ordered. A range of services are available, such as the HomeSpa Checkup and the HomeSpa Facial, that can help you reduce your home’s burden on the environment and ensure it’s a healthy space for you and your family.
For $200, the HomeSpa Checkup is like a Healthy Home 101 introduction course, including practical tips to help you evaluate your home’s energy and water efficiency, ways to reduce waste, and tips for sourcing green cleaning products. At the other end of the scale, HomeSpa Complete ($200, plus an hourly rate dependng on the scope of the project) involves three phases: concept, design and construction.
The three-step program is aimed at giving you the tools and resources to create a healthy, beautiful and efficient home.
Lighthouse Sustainable Building Centre,
1575 Johnston St., Vancouver.
604-682-5960.
www.sustainablebuildingcentre.com
By Janet Gyenes
| Image: Gary Fitzpatrick |
Published: February 20, 2008
Find stylish, sustainably designed home furnishings at the tres eco-chic m boutique
Carmen Spagnola is enamoured with the letter m, the emblem she chose for her newly minted West Vancouver boutique that embodies all things eco-chic. Why m? She was inspired by a momentous occasion – the birth of daughter Mirabella, whose name means “wondrously beautiful life,” she says.
After Mirabella was born, Spagnola committed to eating organic foods and switching to organic cosmetics, cleaners and clothing. But when it came to finding stylish, sustainably designed items for her home, she found few options and decided to open m.
“All of our eco-friendly home furnishings come from carefully considered sources and vendors who share our values,” Spagnola says. Vinyl-free wallpaper from Mod Green Pod, Nature Girl organic skincare products, mouth-blown recycled glass barware from Esque, luxurious bamboo towels by Vancouver’s own Shoo-Foo, and biodegradable and chemical-free housekeeping items are just some of the planet-friendly items that can be found in her store.
Spagnola has also recently launched m’s own line of locally made wood furniture (dining tables, bed frames and dressers, with more to come), fashioned from sustainably forested wood and low-VOC materials.
m
Unit H5,
925 Main Street,
Park Royal South,
West Vancouver.
778-280-3610.
www.msmartdesign.com
| Image: Jupiter Images |
Published: February 20, 2008
We all know there’s a direct link between the air we breath and our health, but until now we’ve had no way of measuring that link. A program to measure the health quality of each community’s air has been developed over the past six years, and is now available in six Lower Mainland communities.
Metro Vancouver has provided local residents with an air quality index since 1985, but that index only told us how dirty the air is, not how it affects our health. The new index measures pollutants with a direct correlation to human health, including ozone, fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
The Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) is a federal government initiative, and has been developed in B.C. by the Ministry of Environment and local partners including Metro Vancouver, the Interior Health Authority and the BC Lung Association.
For the current AQHI reading in your community, visit www.aqhibc.org and select “All Communities AQHI.” (For an explanation of the measurement scale, click “About the AQHI.”)
| Image: Jupiter Images |
Published: February 20, 2008
Thanks to developers of Victoria’s Dockside Green, local manufacturers have produced a thermostat-type device that not only controls the temperature of a home or office, but tracks the unit’s entire carbon footprint.
The device, dubbed the Mach-Stet, is currently being installed at Synergy, which will be Dockside Green’s first completed building when residents move in in early 2008.
The Mach-Stet will be hooked up to each suite’s hydro and water meters, and to the hot water tank and heat fan. It will calculate energy consumption and related greenhouse-gas emissions, then roll all the data into one number, providing a measure of each suite’s total carbon footprint. The numbers can be compared from day to day, week to week, or month to month.
(The Mach-Stet is not to be confused with the “smart meters” recently mandated by Premier Gordon Campbell, which only measure electricity consumption.)
All of the data is accessible not only on the screen of the Mach-Stet controller, but on any computer via the Internet.
Residents will be able to monitor their suites’ energy and water consumption and resulting carbon footprint in real time from anywhere in the world.
The innovative device is manufactured by Victoria-based Reliable Controls Corp., and was customized for Dockside Green by Houle Controls in Victoria. The user-friendly graphics were developed by Syscor Research & Development, also in Victoria.
Don’t expect to see the Mach-Stet on sale at your local hardware store anytime soon. According to Joe LeRoy, control divisions manager at Houle Controls, a development the size of Dockside Green offers an economy of scale not available in stand-alone homes. Installation in a single house or condo would introduce a whole new set of complications, he explains.
That’s not to say a custom-built Mach-Stet is out of the question; LeRoy welcomes inquiries. But for now, he expects to see Mach-Stets going into new developments.
| Image: Kyle Bastien |
Published: February 20, 2008
When the City of Vancouver decided to take on climate change, it may have seemed a futile task: after all, what can one city do about global warming? But spend a few minutes talking with Sean Pander, the man entrusted with enacting the city’s ambitious Climate Change Action Plans, and you’ll be convinced that the city not only can, but already is, making a difference.
Pander’s official title is manager of the city’s Climate Protection Program. He was initially hired as a consultant to oversee the drafting of the city’s Climate Change Action Plans, which were adopted by council in 2005, before coming on board full-time to put the plans into action.
The 38-year-old Pander brings a unique blend of blue-sky optimism and engineering know-how to the task. A native of Red Deer, Alberta, he got an engineering degree at the University of Alberta, and ended up working in the oil patch, a job that eventually led him to Chicago. It was there that he had the epiphany that would lead him to Vancouver.
“Increasing throughput for stakeholder return on investment wasn’t something I could get really fired up about,” Pander recalls. What really fascinated him was the emerging field of sustainability.
“I started looking around and asked, where is this happening? Where can I learn something?” Those questions led him to Vancouver, where he first got a job at UBC’s sustainability office, then completed a graduate degree in resource management, before being hired by the city.
Pander is enthusiastic about the results of his recently completed 2007 progress report, which shows the city’s greenhouse gas emissions have plateaued, and may have even begun a slow decline. We still have a long way to go to reach the city’s goal of reducing emissions by 20 per cent (for City of Vancouver operations) and six per cent (community emissions) by 2012. But Pander is convinced he’s in a position to make it happen.
“Part of the City’s role is to make it easier and more attractive to do the right thing,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s infrastructure, and sometimes it’s information, and sometimes it’s just connecting people’s values to their behaviours.”
