b'Some Do\'s and Don\'ts in Picking Green Products By.Howe Dr Jeff Achallenge faced by individuals trying to improve their pur building where anis aenvironmen l choice. IF significantalternative materialbettertachasing habits and trying to "green" their building practices is the difficultythe substitutebetter in the specific function or IF it has aesthetics performs in deciphering which products are truly green and which are not. Sortingthat are more desirable, THENmight consider the substitute as long as you os envthrough green claims is important to anyone dedicated to p itive environ it has relatively neutralironmental consequences. mental change. With this in mind, Isome simple "DOs" and "DON\'Ts"Don\'t assume that a p t made with recycled con aenviofferroduc tent isgood of green purchasing.ronmentalBeyond theenergy requirements of recychoice!question of the Don\'t substitute for substitution sake! The most common error we seecling itself,"recycled content"is frequently just aused todescribe term people make is automatically assumingthat whatever is currently beingbetter utilization of the material within aplant. Only post-conmanufacturing theasmental done is bad, and thus any new option is better. This is not necessarilysumer contentreally h a significant positive environ impact.In case. Many current building practices in the U.S. are actually very good fromaddition, and perh more importantly, most products w hconapsit recycled an environmental point of view and have been driven by improvements intent only containbetween 30-50 percent recyc materials. This means led building codes over the past 25 years. As an example, aEnergyS more than 50-70 percent of the product is made from v in, extracted matecertifiedirgtar home may al ready be the most energy efficient option youcreate,rials (something that is often forgotten) - and the sourcingof the virgin can even if it wasn\'t specifically built for "green"purposes. So, don\'t changematerial is the critical issue. clearlymparison without adefined better option.Doremember, always, that a product is only greenin co to Don\'t substitute ANYTHING for woodproducts produced either in thesomething else! Thus, athat50 percent recycled content can be producthas U.S. or Canada without aof researchback that substitution up! Woodsubstituted tor one with ar r content (and so on and so forth). In hosttolowe ecycled is the only widely availablematerialis renewable and pro general, n substitute arenewable product for ale constructionthatevernon renewab one. duced using solar energy. We have yet to findmany situations in green very Continu on10 edpage'