Recycled Televisions as Art

Check out one of the art exhibits currently on display at PowerHouse Arena here in DUMBO.

Those outdoor images seen on the TV screens are not moving images, they are photographs using the television boxes as frames; recycling the televisions that would have likely wound up in a landfill. Kudos to the artist for his creative recycling technique. (Its much more powerful in person - this picture doesn’t do it justice).

The Artist of this display, Christopher LaMarca focuses his work on documenting environmental issues through photography. This particular exhibit displays his recent work labeled “The Forest Defender Project.” This project discloses his account of documenting back-country activists in the Pacific Northwest since 2003 who focus their passion and energy in the battle to protect old growth forests against the harsh logging destroying them.

Jen

Come see us at the Eco*Fair - May 17th, JJ Byrne Park in Park Slope

Stop by to chat for a few minutes next Saturday, May 17th at the eco-fair in Park Slope. The fair begins around 11 am at JJ Byrne Park (look for the Old Stone House), 5th Ave. between 3rd & 4th Streets (R Train to 9th St, F Train to 4th Ave, B63 bus).

The fair will feature a FreeCycle Free Meet, Recycling info, Environmental info, arts n’ crafts, family activities, music and more.

(Image of JJ Byrne Park, from gowanuslounge)

We’ll have a table set up with some materials that may give you some ideas about ways to lower your environmental impact through your lifestyle or ways to green (or “blue” should we say after our previous post) your next home renovation project.

You can download the flyer here.

See you on Saturday,

Ellen & Jen

This years Brooklyn Designs, 2008

“Locally Grown, Internationally Known” read the headlines for this years 6th annual BKLYNDESIGNS in DUMBO, hosted by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce this past weekend, Friday May 9, Saturday May 10th and Sunday May 11th. If you missed it this year, be sure to check it out next year!

Close to 70 Exhibitors displayed their work in 4 locations around DUMBO (all in very close proximity) at St. Anns Warehouse, DUMBO Arts Center (DAC), Smack Mellon, and BD+ Tobacco Warehouse. Below are just some of the images taken from each of the 4 display locations:

St. Anns Warehouse:

Written display at entry wall

Handmade furniture display by City Joinery

furthurdesign, contemporary handblown glass

Sculptural led bug lighting designs by Site Specific Design

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Some of the Images of exhibitors at the DUMBO Arts Center:

Loved the toy “you put it together” version of the real thing, Mini Bamba by EcoSystems

This mini model kit measures about 4″ assembled, and mimics the larger Bamba (seen behind) version that you can really sit in. The chair is made of bamboo with no hardware required.

From the Source, handcrafted furnishings

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and at Smack Mellon

Industrial Art from reclaimed wood featured by, Eric Johnston

Lighting fixtures displayed within the record album dividers by Nicholas Furrow, featured conventional items such as a honey jar and strainer used in an unconventional way.

And if you’re looking for a skateboard made of scraps, you may find what you’re looking for at Funkinfunction Longboards

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and last but not least, the Tobacco Warehouse:

At the entry

The Tobacco Warehouse building primarily featured jewelry and textiles

In praise of tankless hot water heaters.

Given that I’m spending most of my days nursing and attending to my 13-day-old daughter, I’m sure our readers will forgive my indulgence of passing along good info found on other blogs.

This post by Jason Pelletier of Low Impact Living captures the pros, cons and requirements of tankless hot water heaters.  It’s one of those things that would be a great idea in some situations and wouldn’t work at all in others.

At the request of a colleague, I contacted a local plumber who did a great job on our radiant floors to see if they had done any of these tankless hot water heater installations. He said that they did but that they were so backed up with oil to gas conversions that they wouldn’t be available to even start work for 2-3 months!

You heard it here first! If you want to upgrade your heating or domestic hot water systems in time for next winter, line up a plumber NOW.

Ellen

Blue is the new Green?

I don’t know about you but I am SO SICK of the word Green. Yes, we use it all the time to connote earth-friendly products and services (actually, I prefer “future-friendly” which I saw on 3R’s storefront in Park Slope).

Maybe this is the year of BLUE, meaning water conservation, water purity, finally getting rid of megatons worth of plastic bottles filled with tap water…

I originally saw this invention on the Stephen Colbert show a while back. Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway has come up with a water regnerator that can turn any kind of disgusting, dirty water into clean, drinkable water and generates a small amount of electricity to boot (enough to run 70 energy efficient lightbulbs). It works via vapor condensation distillation and my favorite part is that it runs on cow dung. This is a world changing invention and I agree with the author of the post on Apartment Therapy - Green, that this has not gotten the press it deserves.

You can see the Colbert segment on newlaunches.com.

Welcome Sarah Yael Kipnis!

We proudly and joyously announce the arrival of Sarah Yael Kipnis.

She was born on April 26, 2008 at 11:23am, 6 lbs, 13 oz, 19.5 inches and a full head of red hair! Everyone is home and doing well.

–Ellen, Elliot, Jacob & Jonah

What I’m doing for Earth Day - Making Yogurt!

At 39 weeks pregnant, my Earth Day contribution is necessarily modest.

Solution I’m trying to come up with: Reduce the amount of non-NYC-recyclable plastics we use.

Now understand that we are great recyclers. My husband takes all the plastic bags, drycleaner bags and yogurt containers to the Park Slope Food Coop’s twice monthly plastic recycling event. However, it often takes us a while to organize a trip over there at the right moment so the pile of recyclables can grow to an alarming extent. We hide the bags in the basement but for some reason, the yogurt containers pile up on the kitchen countertop and it drives me crazy.

So now we are making our own yogurt to avoid having more plastic to recycle.

When I was in college, I had a friend whose parents were from France and I had homemade yogurt at their house for the first time and it was incredible. Ours is just as good. We have tried vanilla-flavored, coffee-flavored and plain and they’re all good. Plus the little 4-oz glass containers are too cute.

The unit cost about $24 at the Coop and uses about 13 watts of power per 32 oz batch (8- 4 oz. servings) and best of all…no plastic yogurt containers hanging around.

Good Green Fun - Sign up for Riverwired Newsletter

Hi all, If you didn’t already realize, we also blog for Riverwired.com, a national website that provides great green information in a fun and friendly way. Go to Riverwired and sign up for the newsletter to have the featured green news delivered directly to your email box. This is how Riverwired describes itself:

RiverWired.com provides must-see, eco-friendly news, entertainment, and community to help people live just a little greener — and have a lot more fun.

We know it’s dawning on everyone that the time has come to change the way we live on the earth. Forget cutting carbs — it’s time to cut carbons.

But how? What really works and what doesn’t? Which steps should we take first? And how on earth can we rev ourselves up to make any change at all — because change is hard and seems to take so much energy (the rarest resource of all)?

At RiverWired, we don’t pretend to have all the answers. But we do have a gathering place for people to share their stories.

The RiverWired editorial team scours the world and the web for the best writers, bloggers, photographers, videographers, and filmmakers. Then we create and filter content into six easy-to-navigate categories, showcasing entertaining and engaging material in a practical, accessible format. All to help our audience live a little greener – and have a lot of fun.

Here’s what you’ll find:

• RiverWired TV: The most popular source of original eco-oriented video on the Web, including award-winning mini-documentaries; celebrities doing the green thing, local heroes (people and businesses making a difference), people living off-the-grid.
• RiverWired Original Blogs: We showcase characters who’ve found practical and intriguing ways to live greener now.
• RiverWired Community: RiverWired offers best-of-breed user-created content tools within a positive, trustworthy, can-do environment.
• RiverWired Moneysavers and Green Products: Our green-living tips and products, videos and blogs
• RiverWired Entertainment: Original games and polls, quizzes, blogs and videos and articles all present fun and interesting tidbits and strategies for greener living.
• RiverWired Recommends: Every day, we feature the best-of-the-web in green news, blogs, videos, and information available internationally.

And our content is organized in six easy-to-access departments so you can get what you want and need fast:

• Business & Innovation (Investing, Corporate Culture, Sustainable Ideas, New Technology)
• Design & Lifestyle (Art & Architecture, Home & Gardening, Style)
• Food & Travel (Cooking. Dining Out, Farm to table, Eco Travel)
• Moneysavers & Green Products (Clothes, Gadgets, Products & Ideas)
• People & Media (Celebrities, Local Heroes, Pop Culture, Books & Music, TV & Internet)

• Transportation & Energy (Bikes & Cars, Energy Innovations, Public Transportation, Climate & Nature)

The State of the Green

Today’s NYTimes Sunday Magazine issue is devoted to all things green.

The issue opens with a great article by Michael Pollan entitled “Why Bother”.

This is the article to send to your naysaying, cynical, who-needs-to-be-bothered-with-all-this-sustainable-stuff-anyway friends.

This issue is sort of a “State of the Green in America” - I’m going to keep it somewhere safe where I can find it in a couple of years to chart how well we’re doing. Either things will be so bad that it will seem quaintly rose-tinted and naive or we’ll have discovered and implemented so many new technologies that we’ll wonder why each of these articles seem so isolated.

After “Why Bother”, the issue is organized along the following sections:

ACT: green things that people are doing.

EAT: green food-related articles.

INVENT: green things you probably never thought of (or heard of).

LEARN: green education related articles.

LIVE: green lifestyle issues.

MOVE: green transportation issues.

BUILD: green building issues

Mind you, I read a LOT about green stuff these days and have previously read about many of the issues included in this magazine but what impressed me was how the writers didn’t shy away from the current truths we all face…from the vagueness of actually evaluating our carbon footprint to the pros and cons inherent in the USGBC’s LEED accreditation system. One interesting article about eco-anxiety mentions a new ailment called “waking up syndrome” wherein people realize that governments alone can’t solve all of the environmental problems and that it comes down to an individual’s own behavior.

I read it cover to cover.

Our experience with ReGreen

Since its being launched in January, we’ve been referring to the ReGreen Program for Residential Remodeling for own internal questions about how to build in a more environmentally friendly way. We’ve also begun to reference the guide as part of our construction drawings to point contractors to (hopefully they’ll read the small print in our specs!). We’ll soon begin construction on one of our projects where we’ve referenced the guide, so we’re hoping it will act as a great resource throughout the construction process.

[You'll see this image on page 2 of the kitchen renovation section] -

The colorfully illustrated guideline (yes, there are even photos) delineates a best-practices construction approach for homes, whether its a simple kitchen or bathroom renovation, outdoor patio creation, exterior addition, or a major gut renovation. The guidelines give a very real, hands-on account of the before and after, lessons learned, budget constraints (when are there not?) and even comments from owners about the real issues.

[This image is found on page 56, the outdoor living chapter]:

While there are no certifications granted by following this program, it gives designers, builders and homeowners a strong reference and alternative for building green in situations where a project does not qualify for certification systems such as LEED, Energy Star and Health House.

For the time being, this reference may be our answer to finding a green rating system for urban residential projects, where there is not yet a certification system that directly applies.

[ pg. 44]