Archive for December 29th, 2010

Plastic: it’s pretty inescapable. Unless you are a Tibetan monk living on a mountain top or a Maasai tribesman in the wilderness of East Africa, chances are, you’re swimming in plastic. It’s not news that the landfills of the world are also miles deep in the stuff, and will continue to be hundreds of years from now, since petroleum-based plastics are estimated to take somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years to break down in today’s landfill environments. Read the rest of this entry »

image from DOE

The new cool roof installation on the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Headquarters West Building has been completed. No incremental cost was incurred by adding the cool roof as part of the roof replacement project, and it will save taxpayers $2,000 every year in energy costs. Earlier this year, Secretary Steven Chu directed all DOE offices to install cool roofs, whenever cost effective, when constructing a new roof or replacing an old one. Read the rest of this entry »