Abstract
One theme of this book is that inappropriate landscape design and construction—such as overpaving or invasive plantings—damages sites. Even landscapes that seem perfectly harmonious with their sites, however, can impact environments far beyond. Pliny Fisk, codirector of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin TX, illustrates this: “One can disturb a site to the least possible degree and be causing utter havoc on Earth at the same time—because of what you’re bringing to that site. Let’s say that landscape architects are going to do a large paved area and they decide to use granite pavers quarried in Minnesota. There’s a good chance that the granite is shipped to Italy, sliced up, sent back and delivered to Houston, or wherever the building site is. That’s an incredible imposition on the well-being of this planet.”1
Nature resolves everything into its component elements, but annihilates nothing.
—Lucretius, 57 BC
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Notes
- 1.
Quoted in William Thompson, “Is It Sustainable? Is It Art?,” LAM, May 1992, 56–57.
- 2.
Meg Calkins, Materials for Sustainable Sites (Hoboken NJ: Wiley, 2009), 24–27.
- 3.
Kathleen Baughman, “The Use of Recycled Materials in the Landscape,” unpublished, Washington State University, 1995, 16.
- 4.
Reported in K. David Pijawka, “Dozens of Activities Mark Second Annual ‘Arizona Recycles Day,’” AZ Recycling Review, Spring 1999, 16.
- 5.
Maurice Nelischer, quoted in Thompson, “Is It Sustainable? Is It Art?”
- 6.
See Table 7.9, p. 329, for these and other transportation energy rates.
- 7.
Candace Pearson, “Waiting for Take-Back Programs for Building Materials,” EBN, Nov 2013, 9.
- 8.
Kevin Killough, “The Recycling Crisis,” Santa Fe (NM) Crosswinds Weekly, 17 Apr 2003, 10–13. Statistics cited are from Killough’s interviews with solid-waste management specialists throughout the United States.
- 9.
Robert Weller, “Copper Snatchers Moving On to Aluminum,” Associated Press syndicated report, 6 Jun 2006. The article notes that such thefts have been common on the East Coast for years but have spread, partly driven by demand from China.
- 10.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, “Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures 2013,” EPA530-R-15-002, Jun 2015, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/&/2013_advncng_smm_fs.pdf.
- 11.
Even the formidable AIA Environmental Resource Guide (Joseph Demikin, ed. [New York: Wiley 1997]) misuses the term “renewable,” making it a synonym for recyclable (p. 06118:2).
- 12.
HOK Architects, Sustainable Design Guide, ed. Sandra Mendler (Washington DC: HOK Architects, 1998), iii. (This was the in-house edition; see above for Wiley’s publication of this title.)
- 13.
“Adobe” derives from Egyptian al-tub (“the brick”), showing how ancient this material is.
- 14.
A large population building expansive adobe homes could threaten its own farmland, as appears to have happened in some areas of Egypt. Whether this should be blamed on adobe, overpopulation, or McMansion consumerism is debatable.
- 15.
Baughman, “Recycled Materials,” 19.
- 16.
These projects were featured in an article in Dwell magazine, Apr 2002. The supplier/designer was the Glass Garden of Los Angeles, which has apparently gone out of business as of 2017.
- 17.
Baughman, “Recycled Materials,” 29.
- 18.
Barbara Ryder, “Glass: Landscape Applications,” LAM, Jun 1995, 28.
- 19.
Baughman, “Recycled Materials,” 29.
- 20.
Ibid., 39.
- 21.
“Waste Tire Problem Becomes Opportunity for Erosion Control,” Land and Water, Mar 1998, 36.
- 22.
“Recycled Tires Turn a Problem into a Solution,” Erosion Control, Sep 1998, 18–21.
- 23.
According to Pliny Fisk, tire surfaces pick up some pollutants from road contact, but these are removed by simple washing. Fisk notes that the EPA has tested the chemical content of tires because they are so com-mon in playgrounds and has found them inert.
- 24.
“Recycled Tires.”
- 25.
See www.epa.gov/smm/comprehensive-procurement-guideline-cpg-program. A good, though dated, introduction to the surprising breadth of recycled landscape materials is Wesley Groesbeck and Jan Striefel, The Resource Guide to Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City UT: Environmental Resources, 1995). It can still be found used on Amazon, and in libraries, and could be handy if the EPA disappears. Lists more than 2,000 products by CSI section.
- 26.
- 27.
Kim Sorvig, “Brave New Landscape,” LAM, Jul 1992, 75–77.
- 28.
Mark Piepkorn, “A Strawboard Manufacturing Update,” EBN, May 2005, 8.
- 29.
Andrea Johnson, “Turning Straw into Board Remains Daunting, but ‘Do-able,’” Farm & Ranch Guide, 6 Sep 2001, www.farmandranchguide.com/news/turning-straw-into-board-remains-daunting-but-do-able/article_b5fa1f33-387a-5202-afbe-1276746208d2.html.
- 30.
Alex Wilson, “Test Methods Approved for Plastic Lumber,” EBN, Oct 1997, 4. (In-cludes contacts for further information.)
- 31.
Daniel Winterbottom, “Plastic Lumber,” LAM, Jan 1995, 34. Updated from Calkins, Materials.
- 32.
Calkins, Materials, 394.
- 33.
See Emily Bragonier, “Recycled Plastics Enter Structural Applications,” EBN, Mar 2010, 8; other information is from www.axionintl.com.
- 34.
New Mexico designer Buck Dant refers to it as “woodworking with pasta.” It occasionally gums up power tool bits and blades temporarily.
- 35.
Anil Srivastava and Ronald van Rooijen, “Bitumen Performance in Hot and Arid Climates,” conference paper, Innovative Road Rehabilitation and Recycling Technologies, 24–26 Oct 2000, Amman, Jordan; online at www.e-asfalto.com/datoseuropa/Bitumen%20performance%20in%20hot%20and%20arid%20climates.htm. See also http://earthuntouched.com/plastic-roads-revolutionary-idea/.
- 36.
“Where the Rubber Meets the Trail,” Rails to Trails, Winter 1999, 5.
- 37.
San Jose Mercury News, “Old-Growth Forests Get a Break from Home Depot,” Santa Fe New Mexican, 29 Aug 1999, D-1. The Rainforest Action Network, which was instrumental in persuading Home Depot to make this decision, notes that by 2000, six other major lumber suppliers had taken the same pledge. See www.ran.org/ran30_30_years_of_preserving_rainforests.
- 38.
Daniel D. Chiras, Environmental Science: Action for a Sustainable Future, 4th ed. (Redwood City CA: Benjamin/Cummings, 1994), 203–9.
- 39.
This insistence that all environmental standards be voluntary and self-policing typifies American policy, from certified lumber to LEED to refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, or Paris climate accord.
- 40.
The EPA’s website, Sustainable Market Place (www.epa.gov/greenerproducts), provides information for governmental, private, and institutional purchasers, as well as manufacturers, about “EPP,” which stands for environmentally preferable purchasing, and is governmentese for sustainable products. “Preferable” avoids endorsing any particular product, conforming to the demand for exclusively voluntary standards (see the previous note).
- 41.
The following EBN articles provided information on illegal activity: Candace Pearson, “Forced Labor Common in Producing Bricks, Timber,” Oct 2016, 17; Paula Melton, “The Lacey Act and the Building Industry: Sourcing Legal Wood,” May 2016, 24; Paula Melton, “FSC to Use Forensics to Uncover Criminal Forestry Practices,” Dec 2013, 14; and Michael Wilmeth, “Illegal Timber Trade Targeted by New Law,” Oct 2008, 4.
- 42.
Pliny Fisk, Comparison of Available Wastes and Production of Wood Products (Austin TX: Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, 1993). This information is graphed from data by the US Department of Commerce, the Natural Resources Research Institute, the US EPA, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
- 43.
Information on AERT thanks to Pliny Fisk.
- 44.
Nadav Malin and Mark Piepkorn, “PaperStone: Panels Made with Cashew-Nut-Hull Resin,” EBN, Apr 2006, 10.
- 45.
Tristan Roberts, “Bamboo Dimensional Lumber? Lumboo Is Here,” EBN, Jun 2010, 8; current offerings at www.calibamboo.com. Abandonment of the Lumboo trademark as of January 2017 is recorded at www.trademarkia.com/lumboo-85005211.html. From personal experience using bamboo plywood, Cali Bamboo is helpful and innovative, and the company might work with designers to test bamboo dimensional products for landscape use.
- 46.
Calkins, Materials, 103–5. Conversion of GJ/tonne to Btu/ton by me.
- 47.
Candace Pearson, “EPA Finds Coal Fly Ash Safe in Concrete and Gypsum Wallboard,” EBN, Apr 2014, 19. This has been EBN’s position for some time.
- 48.
Nicole Saldarriaga, “Roman Concrete: A Forgotten Stroke of Genius,” Classical Wisdom Weekly, 15 Jul 2016, http://classicalwisdom.com/roman-concrete-forgotten-stroke-genius/.
- 49.
L. Bushi and J. Meil, “An Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Portland-Limestone and Ordinary Portland Cements in Concrete,” technical brief, Jan 2014, www.athenasmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CAC_PLCvsOPC_Final_Technical_Brief.pdf.
- 50.
Paula Melton, “Impact of Concrete Extends to Sand and Gravel Production,” EBN, Nov 2013, 25.
- 51.
Candace Pearson, “Sand, a Surprisingly Limited Resource,” EBN, Dec 2016, 16.
- 52.
Brent Ehrlich, “CarbonCure: Capturing Carbon in Concrete Blocks,” EBN, Jul 2012, 6. The process does not seem to be adaptable for in-situ poured concrete.
- 53.
“Buying Concrete—12 Tips to Determining Project Success,” 26 Jan 2014, On the House (blog), http://onthehouse.com/buying-concrete-12-tips-determing-project-success/.
- 54.
There have been objections from conventional ready-mix operators that volumetric trucks are classified as machinery or “plant” rather than as vehicles, and thus avoid weight limits and taxes; see, for example, Jim Taylor, “Volumetric Mixer Trucks Should Be Banned!,” 18 Nov 2015, www.linkedin.com/pulse/volumetric-mixer-trucks-should-banned-jim-taylor. IMHO, these objections don’t weigh up against the waste, fuel, and time savings offered by this system, and can be corrected by revising tax codes, rather than banning the technology. It astonishes me how often laissez-faire ideology is abandoned when a threat to one’s own commercial success is perceived.
- 55.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, “Stormwater Best Management Practice: Concrete Washout,” EPA 833-F-11-006, Feb 2012, www3.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/concretewashout.pdf.
- 56.
Audrey Copeland and Kent Hansen, “Innovation in Asphalt Pavements,” Civil + Structural Engineer, Sep 2014, http://cenews.com/article/9874/innovation-in-asphalt-pavements. “Thinlay” techniques are discussed. The authors are employed by the National Asphalt Pavement Association.
- 57.
The EPA’s recommendation for maximum indoor concentration of radon, 4 picocuries, was set at the average amount of radon found naturally in outdoor air, an example of zero-risk application of the Precautionary Principle (see the next note). European standards allow slightly higher concentrations.
- 58.
This concept is formally called the Precautionary Principle.
- 59.
Phillip J. Craul, Urban Soil in Landscape Design (New York: Wiley, 1992). Based on Craul’s Table 6.1, p. 186.
- 60.
Indoor air or environmental quality is IAQ or IEQ to specialists.
- 61.
Paula Baker, Erica Elliott, and John Banta, Prescriptions for a Healthy House (Santa Fe NM: InWord Publishers, 1998), xv–xvi.
- 62.
Ibid., 55–59.
- 63.
Kingsley Hammett, “When Building ‘Green’ Isn’t Green Enough,” Designer/Builder, Nov–Dec 2006, 27–28.
- 64.
Mark Matrusek with Bill McKibben, “Live Better with Less: Our High-Powered Economy Is Based on Growth, So Why Is All Our Stuff Making Us Less and Less Happy?,” AARP The Magazine, May–Jun 2007, 54–57.
- 65.
US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, “How Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs Compare with Traditional Incandescents,” https://energy.gov/energysaver/how-energy-efficient-light-bulbs-compare-traditional-incandescents. Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, for watts-to-toxins conversion rates.
- 66.
A conservative estimate of plutonium toxicity, from www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/pluto.htm.
- 67.
Alex Wilson, “Making Recycling Work,” EBN, Feb 2005, 2. Subsidizing fossil fuels has the added effect of making virgin materials, especially plastics, so cheap that recycling (and alternative energy and transportation) falsely appears not to be economically viable.
- 68.
Fisk’s work is reported in many publications but is not as well-known or widely used as it should be. In the following citations, “ASES” refers to the American Solar Energy Society, www.ases.org/. Pliny Fisk III and Richard MacMath, “Carbon Dioxide Intensity Ratios: A Method of Evaluating the Upstream Global Warming Impact of Long-Life Building Materials,” ASES National Conference Proceedings, 2000. Pliny Fisk III, Gail Vittori, and Roldolfo Ramina, “BaseLine Green and GreenBalance: A Step Beyond Sustainability in Building Performance,” ASES National Conference Proceedings, 2000. Much of this literature is available at www.cmpbs.org/flash/download.htm.
- 69.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, “Guide to Cleaner Technologies: Organic Coating Replacements,” EPA/625/R-94/006, Sep 1994, and the more recent www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/architectural-coatings-national-volatile-organic-compounds-emission and www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/fact-sheets-architectural-coating-rule-volatile-organic-compounds.
- 70.
On PVC, see AIA, Environmental Resource Guide, Mat-09652: 35–37. On wood preservatives, see Alex Wilson, “A Call for CCA Phase-Out,” EBN, Mar 1997, 2, and other articles in EBN.
- 71.
Meg Calkins, “To PVC or Not to PVC,” LAM, Mar 2006.
- 72.
John Motloch, quoted in Calkins, “To PVC or Not to PVC.”
- 73.
“The PVC Debate: A Fresh Look,” EBN, Feb 2014, 1–11. Brent Ehr-lich’s article is an excellent source of detail.
- 74.
AIA, Environmental Resource Guide, Mat-09652: 36. Additional information for the revised edition on PVC comes from Calkins, “To PVC or Not to PVC,” and from Greenpeace International, “The Poison Plastic,” 2 Jun 2003, www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/detox/polyvinyl-chloride/the-poison-plastic/.
- 75.
Tristan Roberts, “USGBC Releases Final Report on PVC Avoidance,” EBN, Mar 2007, 2.
- 76.
The quoted example, from the Greenpeace website cited above, emphasizes how downcycling uses the landscape as a “sink” for materials that are not acceptable in other uses.
- 77.
These findings are summarized from Calkins, “To PVC or Not to PVC.”
- 78.
Tristan Roberts, “Treated Wood in Transition: Less Toxic Options in Preserved and Protected Wood,” EBN, Aug 2006. Roberts provides an excellent historical perspective on changes in the industry and EBN’s involvement in calls for improvement.
- 79.
Tristan Roberts, “EPA Limits Wood Preservative ACC to Commercial Uses,” EBN, Feb 2007, 4.
- 80.
Alex Wilson, “Using Wood Outdoors,” LAM, Sep 1999, quoted from manuscript.
- 81.
Alex Wilson, “CCA Phase-Out,” EBN, Jan–Feb 1993, 10; earlier research backing up the phase-out proposal.
- 82.
Barry Goodell et al., “Brown-Rot Decay of ACQ and CA-B Treated Lumber,” Forest Products Journal 57, no. 6 (Jun 2007), www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Forest-Products-Journal/166092797.html.
- 83.
Tristan Roberts, “Smaller Copper Particles, Smaller Environmental Impact for Treated Wood,” EBN, Feb 2008, 8. See also Calkins, Materials, 306.
- 84.
Paula Melton, “Treated Wood for Ground Contact, Minus the Toxic Pesticides,” EBN, Sep 2016, 18.
- 85.
Information is from the company’s US website, www.kebony.com/us.
- 86.
EBN, Mar 2008, 10, and May 2008, 11, cover PureWood and Cambia wood, respectively.
- 87.
Tristan Roberts, “New Owner of TimberSIL Hopes to Put Failures in the Past,” EBN, Apr 2016, 24. This was the most recent of a series of articles going back to 2004. EBN (and I) had high hopes for this product; reporting on promising products inevitably entails a percentage of guessing wrong.
- 88.
Brent Ehrlich, “Cool Products from the Latest Greenbuild Expo,” EBN, Dec 2014, 2.
- 89.
National Research Council, A Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engi-neered Nanomaterials (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2012). Online at www.nap.edu/catalog/13347/a-research-strategy-for-environmental-health-and-safety-aspects-of-engineered-nanomaterials.
- 90.
EBN, Jul 2006, 11, and Apr 2005, 9, discuss this process, which reduces the need for terrestrial log-ging and often produces large logs of exceptional quality. Some methods disturb aquatic ecosystems; others, specifically designed to avoid this, have won environmental awards.
- 91.
AAPFCO’s rules on metals are found on its website, www.aapfco.org/. The Washington levels are noted in a report written by Erika Schreder, “Holding the Bag: How Toxic Waste in Fertilizer Fails Farmers and Gardeners,” for the Washington Toxics Coalition, an activist group, available at https://48h57c2l31ua3c3fmq1ne58b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/holding-the-bag.pdf. The latter table shows levels found in fertilizers in the state.
- 92.
Associated Press, “Report: Toxic Chemicals Recycled into Fertilizers,” Santa Fe New Mexican, 7 Jul 1997, and other reports subsequently.
- 93.
The source of these quotes is www.epa.gov/agriculture/agriculture-nutrient-management-and-fertilizer#Wastes. Unlike most EPA pages, this one has no link to any legally binding policy, nor to any guidelines about converting waste to fertilizer. It also acknowledges that some states have passed regulations more stringent than the federal ones, which is disingenuous given that interstate commerce is often involved in these conversions.
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Sorvig, K., Thompson, J.W. (2018). Consider Origin and Fate of Materials. In: Sustainable Landscape Construction. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-811-4_7
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