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REUSING BUILDING MATERIALS IS GROWIN
MICHAELLE KEARNS, BUFFALO NEWS - Buffalo's supply of empty old Victorian
houses, broken-down bungalows and closed factories is not blight to
some, but wealth lying in wait. Local treasure hunters are part of a
growing national interest in "deconstruction" - the salvaging,
dismantling and reselling of old building parts.
One Niagara Falls man salvages factory beams made of dense old growth
pine that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Buffalo, a
new nonprofit store called "Buffalo ReUse" sells a range of salvaged
items, such as solid pine paneled doors, oak flooring and old-fashioned
soaker tubs. . .
Deconstruction experts say national interest in leftover pieces of old
houses and buildings made with rare ingredients and style has been
growing in recent years. It fits with concern about the environmental
cost of producing new things, teeming landfills and new reverence for
the old. California found that construction debris is the third-largest
part of the state's annual 92 million tons of garbage. . . In Buffalo,
where an estimated 10,000 abandoned houses are slated to come down, the
city is collecting deconstruction and demolition proposals. Buffalo
ReUse is hoping to get a contract for $100,000 to take down 10 at
$10,000 each.
http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/139357.html?imw=Y
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BOTTLED WATER LOSING ITS SMUG NICHE
NY TIMES - In the last few months, bottled water - generally considered
a benign, even beneficial, product - has been increasingly portrayed as
an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media.
The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels
a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according
to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to
transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.
The issue took a major stride into mainstream dialogue earlier this
summer, after the mayors of San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis
and New York began urging people to opt for tap water instead of
bottled.
This added momentum to efforts by environmental groups like Corporate
Accountability International and Food & Water Watch, which have been
lobbying citizens to dump the bottle; environmental organizations had
banded together in several states to pressure governments to extend
bottle bills to include bottled water. Several prominent restaurateurs,
like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., made
much-publicized moves to drop bottled water from their menus.
And so people who had come to consider bottled water a great
convenience, or even a mark of good taste, are now casting guilty
glances at their frosty drinks. . . In interviews last week with dozens
of people on sun-baked streets around the country, former and current
bottled water devotees showed a new awareness of the issue's
complexities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/fashion/12water.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
REUSING BUILDING MATERIALS IS GROWIN
MICHAELLE KEARNS, BUFFALO NEWS - Buffalo's supply of empty old Victorian
houses, broken-down bungalows and closed factories is not blight to
some, but wealth lying in wait. Local treasure hunters are part of a
growing national interest in "deconstruction" - the salvaging,
dismantling and reselling of old building parts.
One Niagara Falls man salvages factory beams made of dense old growth
pine that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Buffalo, a
new nonprofit store called "Buffalo ReUse" sells a range of salvaged
items, such as solid pine paneled doors, oak flooring and old-fashioned
soaker tubs. . .
Deconstruction experts say national interest in leftover pieces of old
houses and buildings made with rare ingredients and style has been
growing in recent years. It fits with concern about the environmental
cost of producing new things, teeming landfills and new reverence for
the old. California found that construction debris is the third-largest
part of the state's annual 92 million tons of garbage. . . In Buffalo,
where an estimated 10,000 abandoned houses are slated to come down, the
city is collecting deconstruction and demolition proposals. Buffalo
ReUse is hoping to get a contract for $100,000 to take down 10 at
$10,000 each.
http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/139357.html?imw=Y
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BOTTLED WATER LOSING ITS SMUG NICHE
NY TIMES - In the last few months, bottled water - generally considered
a benign, even beneficial, product - has been increasingly portrayed as
an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media.
The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels
a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according
to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to
transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.
The issue took a major stride into mainstream dialogue earlier this
summer, after the mayors of San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis
and New York began urging people to opt for tap water instead of
bottled.
This added momentum to efforts by environmental groups like Corporate
Accountability International and Food & Water Watch, which have been
lobbying citizens to dump the bottle; environmental organizations had
banded together in several states to pressure governments to extend
bottle bills to include bottled water. Several prominent restaurateurs,
like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., made
much-publicized moves to drop bottled water from their menus.
And so people who had come to consider bottled water a great
convenience, or even a mark of good taste, are now casting guilty
glances at their frosty drinks. . . In interviews last week with dozens
of people on sun-baked streets around the country, former and current
bottled water devotees showed a new awareness of the issue's
complexities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/fashion/12water.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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