I just read this article on St Louis Beacon. Among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country, St. Louis ranks 7th from the bottom. According to the report released by the Brookings Institute causes contributing to our high emissions include “low residential density, reluctance to use public transit, coal-based electricity generation and energy-inefficient homes.”

One of the more shocking revelations was that residential energy use was a larger contributor to our poor status than transportation emissions. “Between 2000 and 2005, the region’s residential energy footprint rose 16.4 percent at a time when the typical metropolitan area experienced a slight decline.

Although we have new builders in town like Sage and EcoUrban who are demonstrating that new construction can be extremely energy efficient, it is going to take a greater effort on the part of individual home owners to increase the energy efficiency of their homes with new windows, more insulation and more efficient systems. In one of the homes that I visited last week I saw a Bosch tankless water heater. When that home needed a new water heater, the owner made a better choice rather than replacing it with a newer model of less efficient design.

10 Simple Changes for a More Energy Efficient Home

Use CFL lightbulbs

Insulate your attic, walls and pipes

Install a digital thermostat

Install a low-flow shower head

Buy a jacket for your traditional water heater

Use a reflective paint on your flat roof

Weatherstrip doors and windows

Use Power Strips for all electronics and turn them off at night

Use a manual or battery powered lawn mower

Hang dry clothes rather than using your dryer

The next time you are thinking home improvement or repair check out Home Eco on Macklind. They have everything from insulation to solar panels and they often offer how to workshops.

Lately, I have become intrigued with the idea of redirecting the stormwater runoff from my garage roof into a rain garden. “Stormwater has been identified as one of the leading sources of pollution for all water body types in the United States.” Read more about stromwater runoff on the epa website.
When I first read that quote about stormwater it didn’t make sense to me. That was because I had no idea how storm sewers work. The conventional method of handling stormwater contributes to stream erosion and water pollution because it is designed to convey water off site and into the underground maze of pipes as quickly as possible. Once all the water from the storm event is funneled into the sewer system it picks up velocity and volume and literally gushes into streams and creeks which causes erosion of stream beds and banks. Additionally as it moves from the sidewalks to the streets and through the underground system, it picks up all the contaminants in its path (gas, oil, pet waste, trash, salt, yard waste, fertilizers, weed killers, etc.) causing water quality contamination.

Building a rain garden allows stormwater to be kept on site and naturally filtered through the ground where it can eventually find its way back to the water table. Rather than being contaminated along its path, it is purified as it filters through the layers of the rain garden. However, I am barely able to keep the cilantro and basil in my little window boxes alive, so the idea of a rain garden seems a little intimidating. Luckily, this Saturday there is a Water Festival at Hazelwood East High School (11300 Dunn Road, St. Louis, MO 63138). The Living Green in Watkins Creek Water Festival begins at 10AM and closes at 2PM.

From the press release:

Rain Gardens, rain barrels, jazz musicians, and fire trucks will highlight the array of topics, hands on learning and just plain fun expected at the Living Green in Watkins Creek Watershed community water festival…The first-ever event will feature water quality information and exciting learning activities for students and adults wanting to know more about their natural environment. More than 20 exhibitors will represent a range of environmental, education and community organizations. Come and learn about how our natural water system works to support the living ecology of our world….Learn about the steps that residents can take to help keep our rivers and stream clean. AmeriCorps Stream Team volunteers will lead a Confluence sponsored stream clean up of Watkins Creek near the high school on the morning of the water festival.

Living Green in Watkins Creek Watershed is a partnership with RegionWise, an urban center at Saint Louis University, the Hazelwood School District (HSD), Metropolitan Sewer District, Missouri Department of Conservation, and the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

With the coming I-64/40 shutdown those trips to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are going to be that much more cumbersome. Thankfully we will soon have a new alternative in the city at 3148 Morganford.

Local Harvest Grocery will have its grand opening on June 1 and is operating in conjunction with the folks who put on the Tower Grove Farmers Market. In addition to some prepared foods, they will stock locally grown produce, meats, chesses and grains and sustainably produced products from outside the region.

Did you know that the city of St. Louis has a recycling manager? Well, we do and she really knows what she is talking about. She was the most recent guest speaker at the Urban Affairs Committee, a group I belong to through the St. Louis Association of Realtors.

According to Jill Hamilton, each year the city produces 200,000 tons of waste which ends up in landfills and this waste constitutes $6 million in landfill fees.

Don’t despair. There are many programs in place to help us reduce the waste we produce, reuse much of what might be thrown away, and recycle the products that must be tossed.

For a full rundown of what the city has in place click.
REDUCE

In the hierarchy of waste reduction this is the priority, by reducing the waste in the first place, we eliminate the need for energy and natural resources required to produce, consume and dispose of products.

*Opt out of unsolicited credit card offers.

*Buy a water filter rather than bottled water

*Avoid disposable paper products

*Cook from scratch

*Buy in Bulk

*Replace recreational shopping

*Buy a canvas shopping bag

REUSE

There are several opportunities in the City to REUSE building materials, cell phones and computers.

Cell Phones

ALIVE’s Phone Drive info at alive@hotmail.com

American Cellular Donation Organization

CellForCash.com

Cell Phones for Soldiers

Good Stuff

Freecylce

Gigoit

Swap Thing

Construction and Demolition Waste

ReSource St. Louis

Habitat for Humanity St. Louis’ ReStore

Leftovers, etc

St. Louis Teachers’ Recycle Center, Inc.

RECYCLE

If you live in 63110,63108,63112,63113,63116,63139 or 63147 you can participate in curb side pick up. It is a grant funded program and the resident must pay a portion of the fee to initiate service. Call 353-7176 for more info.

For the rest of us there are over 27 drop off locations all over city.

And don’t forget to close the loop. Recycling only works if there is a market for the recycled goods.

BUY RECYCLED

Fehlig Brothers Box and Lumber Company, 314.241.6900

Plastic Lumber Company of America, 314.382.7766

Bee Cabinet Corporation, 314.533.1000

Greenfield Customer Interior Flooring, 314.481.6996

Hampton Carpet Shop, Inc. 314.351.6108

Clean Carton Company, 314.428.4777

Xpedx Paper & Graphics Store, 314.773.2832

Pedro’s Planet, Inc., 314.423.3898

The city’s site on recycling is really extensive and worth the visit.

Walk around almost any St. Louis city street in an older neighborhood and you’ll see some level of cracked and bulging sidewalks. This is typically the result of roots from a mature tree growing tired of the cement that’s layered on top of it.

Rubbersidewalks has an idea: “The modular sidewalk system allows air and water to reach the soil below, and can be pulled apart for easy tree and root maintenance, decreasing the need for urban tree removal.”

Rubbersidewalks are made from 100% recycled tire rubber, and can be collected and recycled back into the manufacturing process.

Read more about it here: Rubbersidewalks.com
Or through the Inhabitat Post: http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/02/21/rubbersidewalks/

St. Louis has a 50-50 sidewalk program for city residents; where they pick up 1/2 of the tab for any sidewalk work. I don’t think rubber sidewalks are part of this program, at least not yet.

Last night on the NPR program “On Point,” the topic was “Building Greener” and covered the basics and concepts behind building a more energy-conscious living space. I found this especially interesting as my husband and I are just starting to research how this is actually done, and seeing what kind of help is out there to make building a new construction ‘green’ home a financial possibility in St. Louis.

Here is a link to the program:
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/02/20070219_b_main.asp

I’ll be posting more in the coming weeks as I dive in deeper to the process and weigh some of the highs and lows. I have more questions than answers at this point, so if you have any good resources please post away!

This is a continuation from A Gilded Box?
In an effort to be part of the solution rather, than simply grumbling about what I don’t like, I did some research on what I thought would be better alternatives to the proposed Georgian Square.

In the course of that search I found a sustainable WalMart in McKinney, TX, a renovated strip mall, Abercorn Common in Savannah, GA, that has earned Silver LEED certification and a new construction open air shopping center in Denver, CO which in addition to being LEED certified has encouraged its tenants to go green as well.

What do all of these developments have in common?

They all could have been large asphalt lots bordered by Big Box retailers.

Instead the developers, Melaver, Inc aimed to have a profound, positive impact on the communities in which they lived and a notable lack of impact on the environments in which those communities existed.

So instead of simply courting retailers to fill physical space and the amenity void, they found a way to make the whole project environmentally and fiscally responsible.

None managed to delete parking lots altogether but adjustments were made to decrease the negative impact on the environment. For example in the Abercorn Common development, porous pavement was used in the parking lots to allow rainwater to drain naturally. Read about the other sustainable features here.