Photovoltaic Systems

Archive for the ‘Recycled’ Category

When Vanillawood founders Kricken and James Yaker outgrew their home office and started shopping for a design studio in Portland’s hot Pearl District, opening a retail store was the farthest thing from their mind. Yet they happened upon a 1000 square-foot warehouse with beautiful natural light and too-good-to-pass-up lease terms, so the design/build team seized the opportunity to showcase their organic contemporary style.

The Yakers took a sustainable approach to the store build-out, using an OSMO natural wax finish on the pre-existing hardwoods, no-VOC paint from local manufacturer Miller Paint, and plenty of reclaimed wood, their signature building material.  Kricken and James are forever on the lookout for unique sources of reclaimed timber, like the live edge Oregon Black Walnut they transformed into shelving for their store to add warmth and interest to Vanillawood projects.  Here’s a round-up of their coolest new finds:

Shipping Dunnage:  The inexpensive timber used to secure cargo during shipping makes a stylish statement on walls, surfaces, and floors (as seen below).  Enthuses Kricken, “Shipping dunnage has an amazing patina of light and dark, thanks to visible strap marks.  The color variation is just stunning!”  Unwanted crating material from around the world has long been a source of consternation for shipping companies, who have no use for it after they’ve delivered their cargo.  Not only is it a burden on landfills, dunnage is a major polluter of our oceans, where it’s often dumped offshore.

Boomsticks:  Once an important part of the logging industry (tied together, they kept logs corralled as they made their way down the river), abandoned boomsticks of Douglas fir are back in fashion!  After being resurfaced from the bottom of the Columbia River, the logs are then planed into strips of varying widths and thicknesses. The Yakers used this beautiful wood liberally in their Vanillawood retail store and showroom, as wall paneling (below left) and countertop (below right).

Bleacher Benches:  Wooden benches from old high school gyms and community centers have become a particular favorite of artisan furniture makers.  These renovation cast-offs, often made of prized Douglas fir or mahogany, are perfectly planked for counter and tabletops. And in the case of this cool mirror, the designer made no effort to hide its origins!

The Vanillawood design team source a lot of their treasures through Viridian Wood Products — see our prior coverage here and here — whose ever-changing inventory fuels their creativity.  Kricken loves to find surprising ways to incorporate the wood beyond flooring in her interiors, wrapping it around columns and creating cozy niches with wood-paneled walls. “It’s all about layering textures, colors and materials — and using those materials in unexpected ways!”

To learn more about Vanillawood’s design projects and store, please visit their website.

Photos courtesy of Vanillawood.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Viridian Intros Reclaimed Wood Veneers
2. Kirei Debuts New Reclaimed Wood Panel
3. Cross-Laminated Timber Opens New Possibilities for Wood Construction

When Aquafil began manufacturing carpet fiber almost 50 years ago, sustainability wasn’t an option but a must.  Doing business in the Lake Garda region of Italy, where environmental protection has always been top priority, meant constantly innovating to keep up with strict mandates on noise, water, and air pollution. “Preserving the environment is in our DNA,” says Giulio Bonazzi, President and CEO of what is now the second largest worldwide supplier of Nylon 6 yarn for carpet producers like Interface and Desso. A timeline of unprecedented milestones, including the recovery and reuse of all their own internal production waste, has led to their most important environmental undertaking to date: the Econyl Recycling Project.

The Econyl Recycling Project (or Econyl for short) is a multi-faceted initiative involving hundreds of companies, a few national governments, teams of specialists, millions of dollars invested, and a whole lot of waste rescued from landfills and oceans.

To fully appreciate the significance of this endeavor, it first helps to know a little bit about the science behind modern carpet manufacturing.  A recent tour of Aquafil’s North American headquarters and manufacturing facility (an hour drive north of Atlanta in Cartersville, GA) with VP of Operations Robert Rebello was my personal introduction to Carpet Chemistry 101.

As we walked amongst the rows of funnels, water baths, and spinnerets, Robert explained how petroleum-based caprolactam undergoes a chemical reaction with heat and pressure, a process known as polymerization. The resulting material is Nylon 6, a synthetic fiber used for a plethora of everyday products: toothbrush bristles, thread, fishing nets, guitar strings, surgical sutures, pantyhose, and of course, carpet fibers. I watched in amazement as Nylon 6 went into a texturizing machine as plastic strands only to re-emerge as the soft, silky yet super-resilient yarn coveted by Aquafil’s carpet designer clients.

The remarkable thing about Nylon 6 is how easily (chemically speaking) it can be brought back to its original building block, caprolactam. With the latest in technology, this reprocessed caprolactam can be polymerized once again into usable Nylon 6 without any degradation of its qualitative properties.

Anything made of the Nylon 6 polymer can feed this continuous loop of regeneration: old carpeting once destined for the landfill, abandoned fishing nets polluting the sea and endangering marine life, as well as a variety of other plastic products at the end of their useful life cycle.

Theoretically, not another drop of oil need go toward the creation of carpet — and that’s a goal Giulio Bonazzi and his partners in the Econyl Recycling Project are striving for.  Says Mr. Bonazzi, “My dream in the near future is to produce 100% of my products out of 100% post-consumer recycled material.  This is the direction we are heading!”

As of 2011, Aquafil’s premium branded carpet fibers (the Alto Chroma) start as 25% post-consumer caprolactam, blended with a remainder of post-industrial waste in their new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Slovenia.  They are on target to bring the post-consumer content up to 50% by 2013, thanks to the ever-growing partnerships they’ve established with consortia, organizations and firms to supply them with recyclables.

Along with many of their other textile flooring customers, Interface provides Aquafil with carpet fluff (the facing) through their own take-back programs.  In fact, Interface founder Ray Anderson was a major inspiration for Mr. Bonazzi.  As he explains:

My first meeting with Ray was at Interface’s 25^th anniversary party.  There, he mentioned their 2000 sustainability strategy and I realized we had like minds. I began to watch Interface closely, saw the excitement and motivation their employees had about the work they were doing under Ray’s leadership.  This inspired me as Aquafil began our Econyl journey.  During our last Christmas celebration, I received so many Thank You’s and Congratulations from my own employees — they all wanted to express their happiness to be working for a company that lets them do something positive for the environment.  This made me so proud!

[+] More about Econyl and other Aquafil environmental initiatives.

Photo credits: Theresa M. Grant.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. A Durable Soft New Carpet Tigressa
2. Cleaner Indoor Air with Desso Carpet
3. Get the Complete Picture at Greenbuild

When Aquafil began manufacturing carpet fiber almost 50 years ago, sustainability wasn’t an option but a must.  Doing business in the Lake Garda region of Italy, where environmental protection has always been top priority, meant constantly innovating to keep up with strict mandates on noise, water, and air pollution. “Preserving the environment is in our DNA,” says Giulio Bonazzi, President and CEO of what is now the second largest worldwide supplier of Nylon 6 yarn for carpet producers like Interface and Desso. A timeline of unprecedented milestones, including the recovery and reuse of all their own internal production waste, has led to their most important environmental undertaking to date: the Econyl Recycling Project.

The Econyl Recycling Project (or Econyl for short) is a multi-faceted initiative involving hundreds of companies, a few national governments, teams of specialists, millions of dollars invested, and a whole lot of waste rescued from landfills and oceans.

To fully appreciate the significance of this endeavor, it first helps to know a little bit about the science behind modern carpet manufacturing.  A recent tour of Aquafil’s North American headquarters and manufacturing facility (an hour drive north of Atlanta in Cartersville, GA) with VP of Operations Robert Rebello was my personal introduction to Carpet Chemistry 101.

As we walked amongst the rows of funnels, water baths, and spinnerets, Robert explained how petroleum-based caprolactam undergoes a chemical reaction with heat and pressure, a process known as polymerization. The resulting material is Nylon 6, a synthetic fiber used for a plethora of everyday products: toothbrush bristles, thread, fishing nets, guitar strings, surgical sutures, pantyhose, and of course, carpet fibers. I watched in amazement as Nylon 6 went into a texturizing machine as plastic strands only to re-emerge as the soft, silky yet super-resilient yarn coveted by Aquafil’s carpet designer clients.

The remarkable thing about Nylon 6 is how easily (chemically speaking) it can be brought back to its original building block, caprolactam. With the latest in technology, this reprocessed caprolactam can be polymerized once again into usable Nylon 6 without any degradation of its qualitative properties.

Anything made of the Nylon 6 polymer can feed this continuous loop of regeneration: old carpeting once destined for the landfill, abandoned fishing nets polluting the sea and endangering marine life, as well as a variety of other plastic products at the end of their useful life cycle.

Theoretically, not another drop of oil need go toward the creation of carpet — and that’s a goal Giulio Bonazzi and his partners in the Econyl Recycling Project are striving for.  Says Mr. Bonazzi, “My dream in the near future is to produce 100% of my products out of 100% post-consumer recycled material.  This is the direction we are heading!”

As of 2011, Aquafil’s premium branded carpet fibers (the Alto Chroma) start as 25% post-consumer caprolactam, blended with a remainder of post-industrial waste in their new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Slovenia.  They are on target to bring the post-consumer content up to 50% by 2013, thanks to the ever-growing partnerships they’ve established with consortia, organizations and firms to supply them with recyclables.

Along with many of their other textile flooring customers, Interface provides Aquafil with carpet fluff (the facing) through their own take-back programs.  In fact, Interface founder Ray Anderson was a major inspiration for Mr. Bonazzi.  As he explains:

My first meeting with Ray was at Interface’s 25^th anniversary party.  There, he mentioned their 2000 sustainability strategy and I realized we had like minds. I began to watch Interface closely, saw the excitement and motivation their employees had about the work they were doing under Ray’s leadership.  This inspired me as Aquafil began our Econyl journey.  During our last Christmas celebration, I received so many Thank You’s and Congratulations from my own employees — they all wanted to express their happiness to be working for a company that lets them do something positive for the environment.  This made me so proud!

[+] More about Econyl and other Aquafil environmental initiatives.

Photo credits: Theresa M. Grant.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. A Durable Soft New Carpet Tigressa
2. Cleaner Indoor Air with Desso Carpet
3. Get the Complete Picture at Greenbuild

Today my alma mater Southern Methodist University celebrates a new master’s degree program in sustainability and development.  The degree covers sustainability-related topics from policy to design in both developed and developing worlds.  SMU will kick off the endeavor mid-day Friday with London sustainability strategist Peter Bishop and the unveiling of a low-cost Pallet House prototype designed by I-Beam Design.

The Pallet House recently made an appearance in an exhibit in Prince Charles’ Royal Gardens as a statement that “84% of the world’s refugees could be housed with a year’s supply of recycled American pallets,” according to an SMU press article.

The project* was built using 100 recycled pallets placed by 4-5 workers with hand tools.  The 250-square foot prototype home takes no more than a week to raise and can be used as a transitional shelter or as an alternative to something like a tent.

[+] More about the Pallet House prototype at I-Beam Design.

*I’ll update the article with SMU pictures when obtained.

Credits: I-Beam Design.

Related Articles on JetsonGreen.com:

1. Fresh Pallet Style Office in Amsterdam
2. New Container House Prototype for Haiti
3. Tiny House Arc Prototype for Hawaii