Moore, OK after yesterday's tornado.
Moore, OK after yesterday's tornado.
photo credit: Sydney Menees
If you've been following GreenTown Joplin's projects, you know that third-year architecture students from Drury University have been hard at work all semester designing a project for the Chain of Eco-Homes. Under the tutelage of professors Traci Sooter and Nancy Chikaraishi, they have painstakingly researched every aspect that goes into the Monarch Eco-Home - and last night they unveiled the results of their labors to a standing-room-only crowd at The Hive Business Center in downtown Joplin. The eager audience included not only GreenTown's sustainability advisors, but also several folks from the City of Joplin, most of our current partners on the project, the director of Drury's architecture program, builders, local leaders, a group of FEMA Corps members, and interested citizens.
Our hats are off to this international group of Drury students for their remarkable dedication, skill and enthusiasm: Beatriz Juan Miranzo, Cesar Valdez Jimenez, Paul Clements, Jamie Lu, John Pennekamp, Joshua Warren, Juan Calderon, Rich Conyers, Tiara Hughes, and Zehua Jia.
The home is designed for net zero energy usage, which means that it will produce at least as much energy as it uses. It will achieve this through a myriad of technologies and design features, including a south-facing bank of windows, with a roof angle that will maximize heating from the sun in the winter and reduce the need for cooling by allowing only a minimal amount of direct sun in the summer. A photovoltaic array on the roof will capture sunlight and convert it into energy. And the high-performance concrete wall system, donated by TF Forming Systems along with with Joplin Concrete (part of the Monarch Cement family of companies), will offer not only energy efficiency and noise reduction, but also extreme durability and wind resistance.
With the design unveiled, we move into the fundraising phase of the project, seeking investment partners and sustainable product donors. We look forward to sharing the vision of the demonstration home, a place in Joplin where everyone will be welcomed to learn about all aspects of sustainability - from recycling to repurposing to saving energy through retrofitting to building affordable high performance homes. There will be something for everybody. Plus, a bed and breakfast suite will enable visitors to spend the night and experience green living firsthand.
Reporter Debby Woodin from the Joplin Globe wrote an excellent article about the evening. And television stations KOAM (Joplin) and KY-3 (Springfield) each sent journalists to record the event.
We'll keep you posted here and will upload more images of the home soon. Thank you for your interest in this project!
Cedar seedlings available for planting.Shopping locally can also significantly reduce your environmental impact. Products bought locally often require less packaging and do not have to travel as far. Local business are also more likely to provide products produced locally; these products have a significantly smaller footprint than products that travel farther distances. Businesses set up in a centralized downtown or town center help to reduce community sprawl, habitat loss, and pollution. Local businesses also contribute 250% more, on average, to local organizations and community projects than do larger corporate businesses. We would like to thank the local artists and businesses who invested in our community through supporting our events during Earth Week.
Dillons (Greensburg, KS)
These donations were prizes for the entrants into the Nuisance Weed Roundup. We will be determining the winners within the week! Here's a picture from the weigh-in on Saturday. That's right, there are 19 pounds of dandelions on that scale. Way to go Kiowa County Residents! We enjoyed your participation this Earth Week.
19 lbs of dandelions collected during the Nuisance Weed Roundup
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Stop by the Silo Eco-Home this Saturday April 20th from 9 am - 3 pm to learn more about the Nuisance Weed Roundup! We will be showing Little House on the Prairie, Wall-E, and the Planet Earth series. You can also sign up to get a cedar tree to plant!
WANTED:
Origin: Europe. In Roman times, they were used as a medicinal herb. Today, people still use dandelion leaves in salads if they are free of chemicals because they are a good source of Vitamins A, C, and K, folic acid, calcium, and iron.
Crimes: Dandelions grow easily taking over turf, which causes lawns to look less uniform. When they take over fields used for sports, it can make for uneven footing.
How to help: Pick up a bag or bags from the City of Greensburg or GreenTown and help the community reduce the number of weeds in town from April 20-27! In order to remove dandelions, one needs to eliminate the seed head and roots (see picture below). Pulling out dandelions and using a tool like a screw driver to unearth the taproot is an effective way to remove a dandelion plant. Tip: It is easiest to pull dandelions when the soil is moist. Inorganic herbicides are not an ecological way to get rid of dandelions. Herbicides can be harmful to humans and animals, and when organic methods for removal are available they are preferable and beneficial to our natural environment, especially to our water. Use of inorganic herbicides also leads to herbicide-resistant plants.
Reward: Bring your collection to the Southern Plains Coop Saturday April 27 at noon. Those who collect the most dandelions by weight will win prizes (see GreenTown’s Facebook page for details). Community Service hours are also available at 4 hours per bag collected. Participants can compete individually or in teams and can sign up online, by calling (620) 723-2790, or by visiting GreenTown. You can sign up anytime before April 27th. Good luck and thanks for keeping Greensburg green!
You will need:
A properly pulled dandelion.
With the amount of chemicals that we are exposed to daily, we tend to steer clear of bringing these toxins into our home, and we therefore think we are living in a healthy environment. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. These chemicals and various microscopic critters can infect areas in your home that you would never expect nor see. From dust mites in your pillows to nasty bacteria on your cutting boards, there is more filth than meets the eye. Check out this inforgraphic to learn more about the toxins in your home and how to lessen the health risks. (Click here for a larger version of the chart.)
Attention, all you visionary home designers! Check out this opportunity to design a model off-the-grid sustainable home. All the pertinent details can be found on the Beyond the Grid website.
Beyond the Grid is an architectural design competition that challenges students and young professionals to create beautiful, sustainable shelters that integrate “off-grid” energy, water and waste system solutions for specific, pre-selected climate zones. The primary goal of the competition is to provide a showcase for design talent and provide media exposure and business opportunities for winning contestants. The competition also aims to promote sustainability and resources conservation in the residential housing industry.
]]>Greensburg and Haviland are fortunate to have monthly recycling pick-up through Nisly Brothers. Nisly’s recycling pick-ups in Greensburg occur on the second Wednesday of the month for east-west streets and the third Wednesday of the month for north-south streets. In Haviland, recycling pick-up by Nisly is the fourth Wednesday of every month. Nisly does “single-stream recycling” for their residential monthly pick up, which means that they do all the separating of papers, plastics, cans, etc. for you after they pick up your recycling, which saves your time.
Kiowa County's recycling facilty at 1002 S. Grove St in Greensburg.
All residents of Kiowa County have the option to bring their recycling to the Kiowa County Recycling Facility at 1002 S. Grove Street in Greensburg if you separate your recycling into the following categories: white paper, mixed office paper, newspaper, magazines, plastic bottles, colored plastics, milk jugs, mixed plastics #3-#7, aluminum cans, steel cans, mixed paper and chipboard, phone books, green/blue glass, clear glass, brown glass, corrugated cardboard, feed sacks, and egg cartons. To view a list of items accepted and not accepted by the Kiowa County Recycling facility, visit their webpage or call Joel Schmidt, Recycling Supervisor, at (620) 723-1034. In Mullinville and Haviland, there are county trailers located within each community as a drop-off point for pre-separated recycling. Drop-off points are located at the intersection between Highway 54 and Main Street (Mullinville) and behind the nursing home on Main Street (Haviland).
In addition to the items collected by Kiowa County Recycling, the City of Greensburg has started a few recycling initiatives of its own. You can turn in handheld electronic devices, cell phones, eyeglasses, spent batteries, and compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to collection boxes at the Greensburg City Hall. While one of the collection points for these items is City Hall, the eyeglasses collection is part of an initiative by the Lions Club where they provide glasses to the needy. The batteries, cell phones, and small electronic devices will be sent to The Big Green Box, which specializes in recycling these items. Contact City Administrator Ed Truelove for more information at (620) 723-2751.
In conclusion, recycle when you can! It’s good for you, good for the County, good for the Earth, and it gets us back to our resourceful roots. Special thanks to Joel Schmidt, Joe Blair, Ed Truelove, and Catherine Hart for their consultation for this article.
The diligent work of Kiowa County recyclers.
An important finishing touch to the Silo Home is that of landscaping materials. We received plant donations from Greensburg residents Randy Rinker and Joan Hayse, and from Tipsy Pix and NKP Media, with a tree donation from Sunflower Resource Conservation and Development. Plants are great sustainable additions to any property since they readily convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Trees and plants also prevent erosion and provide windbreaks (important in Greensburg!). After Greensburg’s 2007 tornado, many of the trees in the community had been destroyed or were severely mangled. Greensburg is still pretty sparse in terms of trees and each new tree planted is a wonderful addition to the town. Pearl’s Premium donated ultra low maintenance lawn seed to the Silo Eco-Home. In drought conditions like what Kansas has been experiencing in recent years, having a lawn that requires the least amount of water possible is important. The grass seed from Pearl’s Premium achieves this water-saving feat with a 12-foot deep root system. The grass also requires less mowing than more typical grass seeds.
Randy Rinker planting a tree at the Silo Eco-Home in 2011.
Even though the concrete Silo Eco-Home (designed and built by Florida contractor David Moffitt) is fashioned to resist hurricane-force winds, GreenTown also wanted to show other possibilities for safe shelter during severe weather. Dirk DeRose, owner of New Day Tornado Shelters, generously provided our Green Visitors Center with a unique option to demonstrate to our guests. The tornado shelters are retrofitted from propane tanks, which is an innovative way to repurpose. New Day is also committed to sustainable manufacturing practices. The shelters are bolted securely into the ground and they are designed to withstand an EF-5 tornado. Ours is on our backyard patio.
The OneCleanWorld Foundation and Ogden Publications both provided GreenTown and the Silo Eco-Home with sustainable donations in the realm of publications. OneCleanWorld donated over 500 copies of their book, Clean: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing, to residents of Greensburg, which we distributed at the GreenTown office. The book by Michael DeJong focuses on using only natural ingredients to fulfill cleaning needs, getting away from chemicals that are harmful to both people and the environment. (Additionally, Michael and partner Richard Haymes traveled to Greensburg from New Jersey to put on two educational sessions/cleaning demonstrations for the community, where they also signed copies of the book.) Ogden Publications donated ad space in Natural Home to the Silo Eco-Home and gave us a nice assortment of sustainable kitchen products. Natural Home and Mother Earth Living magazine feature an abundance of sustainable products and ideas.
Finally, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a program of the US Department of Energy located in Golden, Colorado, has left an indelible mark on Greensburg and Greensburg GreenTown. A group from NREL headed by Lynn Billman donated incredible amounts of time and resources to help Greensburg build back green. They were instrumental in the development of the Greensburg Wind Farm, which provides power to the community 24/7. They provided expert consultation to Greensburg homeowners, businesspeople, and civic leaders to help them build as sustainably as possible, and provided GreenTown with copious written materials for our visitors. Last year, they released a study of 13 of Greensburg's new buildings detailing how much energy is being saved in the community - it's over $200,000 annually! NREL’s assistance made Greensburg’s rebuilding educational, streamlined, and highly successful.
An associate from NREL leading a presentation for Greensburg kids.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the past 10 weeks exploration of green building products! I have certainly enjoyed reconnecting with the great companies and organizations that helped us build the Silo Eco-Home. We are deeply grateful for the time, energy, and money devoted towards making a sustainable future more accessible. We have several exciting projects in the works to perpetuate this goal, so keep your eyes peeled!
]]>Our organic mattress come from Savvy Rest. Why an organic mattress? This is beneficial because the long-term effects of chemicals found in conventional mattresses could have negative health impacts. Since you might spend around eight hours breathing off-gassing chemicals from your mattress every night, natural latex is a healthful alternative. The latex is encased with organic wool quilted between layers of organic cotton. Of course, the mattress also ensures quality comfort in addition to its health benefits. Read this if you'd like to learn more about natural latex.
Our Bed & Breakfast Suite
Another important aspect of our B&B is that guests have the option to use our kitchen. Our refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher were donated by Sears. They have earned ENERGY STAR certification, which is the EPA’s designation that the product uses 30% less energy than its uncertified counterparts. Our washer and dryer were also donated by Sears and have also received ENERGY STAR certification.
EO Products provides GreenTown’s B&B guests with luxurious shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and lotion. Not only does EO use clean ingredients for their bath products, they also use Post-Consumer Resin (PCR), a 100% recycled product which reduces energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. In order to learn about the positive effects of using EO shampoo, read this.
Finally, many of our furnishings came from the Schmidt/Magliery family, including rugs, dressers, and our iron. The Silo's beautiful kitchen cabinets were handcrafted by the late Kenny Schmidt for his parents' home when he was a teenager, and were reclaimed from the Schmidt homestead and carefully fitted for use our home.
Our quilt is mentioned in this previous entry. Our guests love our B&B thanks to these great products! More coming your way next week.
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It was a pleasure to see today that AOL Travel published two pieces on Greensburg by writer Diane Lambdin Meyer. The article After Devastating Tornado, Kansas Town Re-emerges "Like No Other Place in America" gives readers a brief history of the recovery and displays a series of before-and-after images. Coming up on 6 years post-tornado, it still stops you in your tracks to view images from the May 4, 2007 event.
The other post, Greensburg, Kansas: Five Places to Go, highlights GreenTown's Silo Eco-Home and Green Visitors Center, the 547 Arts Center, the Kiowa County Historical Museum and Soda Fountain (located inside the Kiowa County Commons building on Main Street), the Big Well Museum, and (the now defunct) "FEMAville". Greensburg is an intriguing place to visit, and the description "like no other place in America" is quite apt. Thanks to AOL Travel for the coverage and Diane for the glowing review of the community.
image credit: Diane Lambdin Meyer
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