Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

WASHINGTON — A mere 9% of plastic is recycled in the United States each year. Plastic waste in our country grows unabated because the U.S. operates a patchwork of largely ineffective recycling systems that don’t create enough incentives for consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic footprint. …Lawmakers should shift the financial responsibility of collecting, recycling and reusing plastic packaging materials from consumers and municipalities to the producers of plastic products by establishing a national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy. Under an EPR framework, companies would cover the costs of recycling their materials and face penalties for using packaging that’s difficult to recycle or for not including recycled materials in their packaging. As a result, recycled materials would become more readily available and economical over time. EPR policies have already been adopted in multiple states, including Colorado and California. …Members of Congress should take these practical steps now.

…bioplastics are proliferating across the food industry … electronics, clothing, building supplies and more. Bioplastics are defined as plastic materials that are either partly or wholly derived from renewable biomass like plants or are biodegradable or are both. The industry is projected to grow from $8.7 billion in 2023 to $31 billion by 2030 – a growth rate faster than the traditional plastics industry. Though bioplastics comprise just 1% of the plastics market, some tout them as plastics’ more sustainable future. … “Bioplastics are driving the evolution of plastics,” the European Bioplastics Association claims, citing “carbon neutrality” and biodegradability (in some cases) as bioplastics’ advantages over their conventional counterparts. But bioplastics haven’t fully lived up to the hype of faster decomposition rates, safer materials and smaller carbon footprints. Still, experts say the material could be among a suite of solutions if end-of-life management and chemical safety were factored into their design, alongside stronger greenwashing regulations.

As a low-carbon alternative to concrete and steel, mass timber is making headway into today’s architectural designs for institutional and commercial buildings ranging from life sciences to museums to office buildings. These multi-layered, pre-manufactured solid wood timbers are being embraced by architects, builders and facility managers alike. According to John Sullivan, AIA, partner and president of architecture at SGA, mass timber is a material that has captured the interest and imagination of the architectural, engineering and construction industries in recent years, and offers potential to enhance both sustainable performance and aesthetic presence. …“There is tremendous untapped potential to implement mass timber as a construction method for life sciences buildings, and through extensive research and studies, we are currently helping transform this potential into a reality,” Sullivan says. According to Bill Parsons, COO of WoodWorks, wood is a great solution for labs and health sciences. 

Inspired by shifting work trends worldwide, MITTZON was developed to help create spaces that enable various work activities and provide an optimised office experience. The family of 85 products prioritises wellbeing through design anchored in holistic ergonomics, including acoustics and nature-inspired elements. In MITTZON acoustic screens. …It’s the largest office system IKEA has developed and will be available beginning April 2024. …Biophilic design features have been shown to promote wellness by reducing stress and increasing productivity. As such, MITTZON borrows natural elements from the Scandinavian outdoors, such as sand patterns and wood finishes. …IKEA explored filling MITTZON acoustic screens with wood fibre, a material normally used for insulation in building construction. The filling, which is made of more than 90% wood and recyclable, was tested and proven to absorb and block sound effectively.

Edvin Bågenholm-Ruuth

Lund, Sweden — At present, viscose textiles are made of biomass from the forest, and there is no such thing as fully recycled viscose. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now succeeded in making new viscose – from worn-out cotton sheets. …Edvin Bågenholm-Ruuth, doctoral student in chemical engineering at Lund University, and his colleagues have found a way to loosen up and convert the complex cotton fibres into viscose fibres. Viscose, sometimes referred to as artificial silk, is a common constituent of clothes such as blouses, skirts and dresses. The raw material is cellulose, in most cases wood. This new technique could soon be a commercial proposition that produces viscose from recycled textiles – and therefore saves on valuable forest resources. …There are plans for a pilot plant in Europe. The inexpensive process requires a simple salt – zinc chloride – which dissolves in water, produces less toxic carbon disulphide and results in a good-quality viscose fibre.

Mass timber continues to gain traction in the built environment, breaking records and providing new solutions as a renewable, low-carbon building material that helps meet biophilic and sustainable design goals. Explore a few examples of projects in which this innovative material has helped solve a bevy of design challenges, ranging from a record-setting 25-story residential hybrid timber tower in Milwaukee to a carbon-cutting mass timber student facility at Seattle’s University of Washington, and more. Get inspired and see what’s possible with this collection of innovative mass timber projects.

The Department of Energy announced March 4 that it is making $90 million available to help states and localities adopt and implement building energy codes, which set energy efficiency standards for new buildings, additions and major renovations. This is the second tranche out of a total of $225 million designated by the 2021 infrastructure law for building energy code modernization. In July 2023, the DOE awarded the first $90 million to 27 projects nationwide, including workforce development programs and a national network to support state and local governments as they develop new codes. …Homes built with current energy codes are nearly 40% more efficient than those built just a few years ago, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. In the release, the DOE touts the benefits that updated energy codes promise for communities: lower utility bills, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved grid reliability. 

In the lineup of climate villains, architecture towers above many. …But there is progress. The use of renewable organic materials like wood, hemp and bamboo is expanding. Carbon-absorbing plants and trees are more widely integrated into architectural design. And even concrete is losing its stigma with the development of low-carbon varieties. Sustainability-minded architects are adopting these materials in buildings that not only are more environmentally sensitive but also look and feel different from modernism’s concrete and steel boxes. …One of the most potent symbols of the green building revolution is the plant-covered high-rise. …Another tool for achieving zero-carbon buildings is one of the oldest and most common construction materials: wood. Valued for sequestering carbon dioxide and keeping it out of the atmosphere for decades, if not centuries, wood is now widely engineered into components of so-called mass timber. [to access the full story a New York Times subscription is required]

Amazon generate a lot of trash. Precisely how much is a matter of some debate. In 2021, the company says it used 214 million or so pounds of single-use plastic in its packaging. Nonprofit ocean conservation firm Oceana, on the other hand, put that figure at approximately ~700 million pounds. That’s a huge gulf, but in either case, we’re talking about a lot of trash. The company has been making strides on this front, as it stares down the face of an ambitious 2040 net-zero carbon emission goal. Take for example, its ongoing efforts to reduce package weights and replace plastics with paper products. Or, more recently, a new deal with Glacier. This week, Amazon is announcing an investment through its Climate Pledge Fund and plans to implement the Bay Area recycling robotics startup’s technology to find out what happens to its packaging once it leaves consumers’ hands.