N. Smithfield Co. Goes Green; Saves Green

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

Members of Team CURB found that signage is key for instituting recycling in the workplace. (Dave Fisher/ecoRI News)NORTH SMITHFIELD — Given the current economic situation, small businesses are looking for ways to stave off rising operating costs. To many business owners, going green doesn't top the list of solutions to a ballooning break-even point.

But through some simple energy-efficiency measures, and by turning its waste stream into a revenue stream, a small, local supply-chain management company is proving that doing right by the planet and doing right by your business are not mutually exclusive.

Banneker Industries has operated in Rhode Island for the past 20 years. In 2009, due to market forces, customer and client pressure and, according to general manager Charles Braun, "wanting to do the right thing,” the company convened a group of employees, christened Team CURB (Conserve, Unplug, Reduce/ Reuse/Recycle, Believe), to explore ways the company could clean up and green up its processes. You can imagine there is a lot of room for improvement in a company that deals in warehousing, shipping and inventory control. 

The first step the company took to reduce its electricity bill was as a simple phone call. “We thought something was off with our electricity bill after moving to this (North Smithfield) location,” Braun said. “As it turns out, National Grid was billing us at a different rate, based on the last business that occupied this building.”

After rectifying this error, Banneker went ahead and converted all of the office and warehouse lighting to energy-efficient fluorescents, most of which are on motion sensors. These actions alone have reduced the company’s electricity usage by nearly 40 percent. The average monthly electric bill has been cut nearly in half.

Banneker’s energy and cost savings, while impressive, were small ball compared to how the company took complete control of its waste stream.

“We definitely started small and went for the low-hanging fruit,” said Meagan Pontbriand, Banneker’s customer support specialist. That fruit turned out to be cardboard and paper recycling. Initially, Banneker had limited success with its recycling efforts. Not due to lack of initiative, but lack of outlets.

“When we first started separating the cardboard and paper, recyclers wouldn’t take cardboard from China,” employee John Balcarcel said. “When they started to accept it, we went ahead and bought a baler. That’s when we saw the real difference.”

“Everything that can be recycled, is recycled,” said Dave Dalpe, the company's inventory specialist. He’s not kidding: shrink wrap, bubble wrap, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, Styrofoam, paper and cardboard, you name it. Banneker employees now separate every bit of waste generated and nearly everything is baled onsite.

These measures have not only reduced the company’s waste-removal costs by a third, but because all of the material is segregated and baled, the company can now sell that material to a recycler. The company now sends one trailer full of recyclables to Full Circle Recycling in Johnston about three or four times a year. The trash compactor that was emptied once a month is now emptied twice a year; 70 percent of Banneker’s waste stream is now recycled, and the recyclables have become a revenue generator.

The changes to the waste stream at Banneker wasn’t without cost. The baler and bins to collect recyclables cost about $10,000, but that investment has already been recouped in lower operating costs. Braun said  Banneker’s operating costs have dropped "almost 60 percent.” The existing systems and infrastructure at Banneker's N. Smithfield office certainly helped.  They already had a large warehouse with room for a baler, forklifts to move the bales, and someone willing to take the segregated materials. After that , it was just a matter of turning their supply chain solutions into waste stream solutions. 

Having seen the benefits to the bottom line that going green has provided, Banneker plans on continuing down that road. “Our next project will be really addressing our peak electricity load," Braun said, “and we’ve had some discussion with the building’s owner about attempting to have the building LEED certified.”

Banneker has also begun institutung these changes at their North Kingstown, Seekonk, Mass., and Indianapolis facilities.

Intoxicating Energy Savings at Local Package Store

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

CHARLESTOWN — The building at 4625 Old Post Road is a green dream come true. The building was designed from the ground up with an eye toward extreme efficiency. Geothermal heating and cooling, computer-controlled lighting, reused and recycled materials used in its construction. The building’s “green cred” is enough to make you want to visit, but most visitors have another thing on their mind: adult beverages.

Charlestown Wine and Spirits opened its new location to a flurry of media attention earlier this year. While this may be old news to some of you, we at ecoRI News understand that the opening of the uber-green business, while newsworthy, isn’t the real story. Now that the store has been operating for a few months, the real news — how much of the business’s energy and operating costs have been offset by the efficiency of the structure? — comes to light.

Oyster Works' Andrew Baer shows off a cutaway of the custom fabricated wall panels used to build Charlestown Wine and Spirits. (Dave Fisher/ecoRI News staff)The building itself is quite a marvel. Designed by Charlestown’s own Oyster Works design and architecture firm, and employing its "Sensibly Green" design principles, the building began with the fabrication of wall and ceiling panels that have a ridiculous R30 and R40 insulation ratings, respectively. A series of three closed-loop geothermal heat pumps — embedded 450 feet underground — provide all of the heating and most of the cooling needs of the store, and that includes one of the two beer coolers. The geothermal system was designed to capture the specific amount of BTUs needed to heat and cool the store. 

The second beer cooler — chilled by conventional electric compressors — is activated only during the tourist season, allowing a complete shutdown during non-peak seasons. All of the excess heat from cooling the building and the beer coolers is returned to the bedrock via the geothermal system, increasing the ambient heat in the bedrock and effectively storing the BTUs for winter heating purposes. The store uses no oil, propane or natural gas for heating purposes.

Andrew Baer, project manager for Oyster Works, explained the system in terms of the building's envelope. “Every building has an envelope,” he said. "The envelope dictates the amount of BTUs used. If the building’s envelope isn’t tight, you will have loss of heat energy.”

The store’s envelope is comprised of four “micro-climates” and heat is delivered or removed from each of the sections as needed by a system designed around each climate, rather than by the traditional "one-space, one-thermostat" approach.

To achieve that tight envelope, the individual panels used to construct the building were fabricated to specification offsite, then connected and sealed onsite. The panels have no timbers running from the sheath of the building to the interior, reducing thermal bridging and increasing the overall R-value of the solid Styrofoam panels. This offsite, custom fabrication also reduced the amount of onsite waste created during construction.

The store’s heat is delivered through radiant floor heating, which heats only the first 7-10 feet of the space, rather than the entire two stories of the open timber structure. The building's cooling system begins with a dehumidifier — an essential component to deal with New England’s super-humid days of summer — and finishes with air circulated over water-cooled coils. The cooling system, which like most heat-pump applications, is just the heating system running in reverse, pulling heat from the air and depositing it into the groundwater and bedrock surrounding the site.

So what does this all mean vis-à-vis energy usage and savings to the business owners? Well, to qualify for a U.S. Government Energy Star rating the average annual electrical usage for a grocery and convenience store must 52.5 kilowatt-hours per square foot or lower. Based on National Grid bills for the past four months, the store’s electrical usage is 19.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity per square foot. This represents 62 percent less energy than the U.S. Energy Star benchmark for comparable stores.

The energy savings are the result of Oyster Works’ detailed analysis, design, energy-efficient building systems and its critical attention to detail, but the “green-ness” of the building doesn’t stop at the heating/cooling system.

The building’s lighting is computer controlled and task and use specific. That is, each light switch has multiple settings that range from “open for business” to “special events” to “receiving.” Two-thirds of the parking lot is covered with permeable pavers that allow stormwater to enter the soil almost immediately rather than being accelerated by impermeable surfaces such as concrete and asphalt. The lot also gently slopes toward the back of the property into a retention pond that mitigates the infiltration of stormwater from heavy rain events. The building's siding is made from recycled PVC, and the fieldstone wall in front is comprised of stones from dismantled walls on other sites. On top of all of this, all of the labor and contractors used in the onsite construction of the building were from the Ocean State.

“The concept of value in a building is changing," Baer said. "Sensibly green design equals efficiency plus affordability. That must include the construction, operating and life-cycle costs of the entire structure. Real efficiency is achieved through reducing demand through conscious design.”

R.I. Seas a Possible Growth Industry

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — The next growth industry in Rhode Island might be one that's been here all along: local seafood.

Making Rhode Island locally caught fish, clams and other aquatic delicacies more retail friendly and promoted by restaurants is the goal of the state Seafood Marketing Collaborative, which held its first meeting last week.

Commissioned by the General Assembly in June, the group of fishermen, researchers and seafood buyers is following the approach used by the local food movement. In about three years, collaboratives such as Rhody Fresh milk and innovative distributors like Farm Fresh Rhode Island have spurred dramatic growth in the number of farms, farmers' markets and overall access to quality local produce, meats and dairy.

The local seafood industry wants Rhode Islanders to know that eating Ocean State fish is healthy, better for the environment and benefits the local economy.

"That's why we are here," said Derek Wagner, owner of Nick's On Broadway restaurant, "to get (consumers) to want it and demand it at their local restaurants and their local stores."

Much like the sustainable agriculture movement, the collaborative wants to keep more of its locally produced product from being sent across the country or around the world.

John DelGado, fish buyer for Dave's Marketplace, said he sees more Rhode Island seafood sold in Philadelphia, New York and Boston than here. 

"For years (Rhode Island) has never been a place to buy it. It's always shipped out on a truck," DelGado said.

DelGado and several fishermen emphasized that local seafood, such as Point Judith squid, is often superior to the fish shipped to Rhode Island. "We have to open up and get the local guys going. It's what the consumers want," he said.

Ken Ayars, head of the state's agriculture programs, assured the fishermen that the collaborative is simply a public-relations campaign. "This is not about catch limits, this is not about regulations. It's about marketing," he said.

Ann Cook, of the boat-to-plate program The Local Catch, explained that in one year her business has had success selling fresh-caught flounder, blackfish, scup and little necks at farmers' markets and directly from the boat in Narragansett to restaurants and consumers. "The idea is to make the whole dining experience move beyond the plate," she said.

Fishermen can remove the middlemen and earn a premium for their catch if it's based on quality, not quantity, she said. "It's making the seafood about the experience."

To create that experience members of the collaborative will design a marketing and public-education plan to report to Gov. Lincoln Chafee and the General Assembly by April 30.

Waste Veggie Oil Thieves Prove Slippery

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

In the past few years, as the market value of metals has spiked, so has the theft of these materials. Given the current high prices paid for copper, steel, aluminum and other metals, people have taken to stealing pipes, flashing, gutters and wiring from construction sites, abandoned homes and, at least in one case, a church.

But metals aren’t the only commodities that have enjoyed a spike in market prices recently. The market value of waste cooking oil, which is used in large quantities in most restaurants — think deep-fryers — has almost quadrupled in value during the past five years.

In fact, the waste-oil market is big enough right now that, what once was waste that restaurant owners would have to pay to have removed, is now collected for free by such companies as Newport Biodiesel.

This increased market value on waste grease has pitted waste-oil recyclers against not only their legitimate competition, but also against theft of their raw product from restaurants and institutions that contract for waste-oil removal.

“We don’t think this issue comes from our legitimate competitors,” said Myles Standish, co-owner of Newport Biodiesel. “Most of the theft we’ve seen probably comes from individuals that are either refining biodiesel at home for their cars or heating oil, and people who are stealing it to sell on the open market.”

The waste-oil open market has become very lucrative in the past few years. With used oil selling for about $2 a gallon — a little more than 30 cents a pound — in its unprocessed form, more and more people are seeing the collection of waste oil as a viable business model. This poses a problem to legitimate collectors of waste oil and refiners of biodiesel, because, unlike petroleum-based fuels, waste vegetable oil (WVO) and biodiesel are not considered hazardous materials by the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and therefore there are no hauling or handling requirements. For the most part, if you can afford a tank, a pump and a truck to put them on, you are in the WVO collection business.

In order to sell the waste oil on the open market, one must find a buyer, and if you’ve stolen that oil, preferably a buyer who won’t ask too many questions regarding the source.

“Everyone in this business experiences theft,” Standish said, “but it has recently become a serious problem for us. Some months we lose up to 1,000 gallons to theft.”

When that 1,000 gallons can sell for $2,000, people begin to see dollar signs. “It’s easy to justify a trip well out of state to sell waste oil when the return on the investment is so high," Standish said.

The problem has become so prevalent for the folks at Newport Biodiesel that they’ve installed locks on many of the covered 55-gallon drums that store the dirty fryer grease prior to pickup, and they are installing cameras at some of the more frequently pilfered-from locations.

Standish was hesitant to name any particular location that has experienced this theft because, “we’re still actively trying to catch these people. We don’t want to tip them off.”

Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities, the largest — with 13,000 collection accounts — collector and refiner of waste vegetable oil in southern New England, has experienced theft of the fry oil in proportion to their size. Their local refinery is in Billerica, Mass.

“It’s difficult for us to quantify how much oil is being stolen, due to the size of our operation, but we certainly have experienced theft," Joe Huelsman, vice president of Baker Commodities, said. "We’ve had a couple of these guys caught by local police, but district attorneys have declined to prosecute them.”

That left the thieves with a slap on the wrist in the form of a $500 fine, which is easily recouped with another illicit oil run.

Huelsman believes that many of the thieves come out of the New York/New Jersey area, and said that, “Our L.A. office has been working with the California Legislature to try to stiffen the fines and jail time for WVO theft.”

Huelsman also noted that the thieves have gotten a bit more savvy about when and how much oil they take. “Most of these guys work on the weekend, when other collection companies aren’t on the road,” he said.

Some have even started using scouts to scope out potential targets. “We’ve caught a pair on camera. One will come in and check out the situation and the amount of oil in the drum or bin, he makes a call, and sure enough, five minutes later, here comes the pump truck.”

While Newport Biodiesel has gone the lock-and-camera route to ensure security, Baker Commodities has begun to “over-service” their accounts, which means more pickups, and a greater financial cost to the company. And while Baker buys WVO from outside sources, Huelsman said each of the companies is vetted to make sure everything is legit.

Given the regulatory ease on WVO haulers from most states, and the ease with which one can obtain oil collection equipment — at a relatively low cost — from sites such as Craigslist, Standish doesn’t see this problem getting any better in the near future. Search your local Craigslist for biodiesel, WVO, waste oil or fryolator oil, and you’ll find several ads for what one can only assume are private citizens willing to collect and transport, buy or sell waste vegetable oil; you’ll also find people selling storage tanks, vacuum pumps and biodiesel refining equipment.

One of the major problems faced in catching these slippery thieves is that the pumping process happens very quickly. The pumps that Newport Biodiesel uses on its trucks can empty a 55-gallon drum in less than a minute. It is difficult to catch these thieves in the act, and without photographic evidence or eyewitness accounts, nearly impossible to prosecute them without doing so.

WVO haulers have contracts with restaurants and other producers of waste oil to collect the stuff, and usually the hauler assumes responsibility and ownership of the oil as soon as it’s placed in the company’s pre-approved receptacle, whether it is a drum or the larger oil “Dumpsters” that sit behind some restaurants.

Legitimate grease haulers will have their company’s name emblazoned on their trucks, so if you see any suspicious, unmarked tank trucks collecting waste oil in your neighborhood, call the local police.

Skin-Product Company Thrives Under Teen CEO

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Barrington resident Ava Anderson was one of this year's Clean Water Action/Ocean State Action environmental achievement award winners. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News)WARREN — Read the back of the label, not the front. It's a practice most health-concious consumers follow while shopping for food, but not always when buying toothpaste, deodorant and sunscreen.

Ava Anderson Non-Toxic, a skin-care company based locally, is helping broaden the public's label-inspection habits with a simple premise: What goes on your body is just as important as what goes in it.

Trouble is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't have jurisdiction over personal-care products like it does with food. So companies don't always list every ingredient on their moisturizer or shampoo. In fact, there are some 600 chemicals that qualify as a "proprietary" fragrance or parfum that don't need to be disclosed.

So in 2009, at just 15, Ava Anderson, a Barrington resident and high school student at Moses Brown in Providence, started a for-profit business to educate consumers about the pervasive and harmful chemicals in everyday products — chemicals that if not absorbed by the body eventually wash down the drain and work their way into the environment, drinking water and food supply.

Following in the footsteps of her grandfather Charles Collis, former owner of Princess House, a successful giftware company in Taunton, Mass., Ava adapted the direct sales, party-plan approach to selling personal-care products. The person-to-person model helps deliver an alternative perspective to the feel-good branding from companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Clorox and even Tom's of Maine, companies that sell "trusted" products with unsafe and unhealthy ingredients consumers have dabbed and lathered on their skin for decades.

Ava, with business guidance and financial backing from her parents, first launched a hand soap, body lotion, shower gel and shampoo — all free of dyes, synthetic fragrance and other noxious chemicals.

Adding "non-toxic" directly to the company name sent a message that skin-care products can be both healthy in substance while having plenty of style. The high school student considered other names, said Kim Anderson, company president as well as Ava's mom. "There are many brands out there claiming to be natural, organic, pure, etc., who also have many toxic chemicals," Anderson said. "(Ava) wanted to push through the clutter and say, 'I am Ava and I will not put any harmful chemicals in your products.'"

Ava's entrepreneurial story and can-do teen appeal is reaching a mainstream audience that traditional health-conscious products and organizations have struggled to achieve. Ava and her company have been extensively profiled across the state in print and on TV and radio. Nationally, she's been featured online and in magazines such as People, Seventeen and Glamour. In interviews, at a product seminar or in front of the General Assembly, Ava speaks with authority and poise on a subject with plenty of technical terms and abstruse concepts.

At a seminar last December, Ava noted that the United Kingdom follows "a precautionary approach" to product safety, banning 1,300 ingredients from personal-care products. In the United States only a handful of substances are prohibited. "We don't even ban known carcinogens," she said.

And she's the head of a growing local business. The headquarters may resemble more of an upscale spa than blossoming national enterprise, but in less than two years, the company has grown to 1,000 sales consultants across 46 states. The product line has also expanded to 16 items, including a hand sanitizer and lipstick. And in June, it released a chemical-free sunscreen — a product the company promises is the safest on the market, free of nasty toxins such as synthetic tropical scents or claims that a single application lasts all day or is waterproof.

Referring to data from the Environmental Working Group's chemical online analysis on cosmetics, shampoos and other drug store staples, Anderson shows the astonishing "body burden" or load of toxins humans are exposed to daily. The diseases they are linked to are certainly well known: cancer, autism, ADHD and Alzheimer's disease.  

She notes the chemical makeup of a name-brand shampoo with a high hazard rating for containing red dye (neurotoxin), 1,4-dioxane (cancer) and fragrance (neurotoxin). "We're not saying this is the cause," Anderson said. "We're saying there is a lot of body burden going on."

The cosmetics/chemical industry will tell you the amounts of parabens, phthalates and triclosan are too low to threaten humans. But that's only at their word or based on tests that lack any broad-based studies with humans, much less children, pregnant women or at-risks groups. 

This bio-accumulation of synthetic material in the average person, Anderson said, suggests there's no reason to take chances with untested and unsafe products. And with a small army of consultants to educate, advocate, improve people's health and sell quality products, consumers will ultimately demand that companies sell safer items. "It's a win for humans, a win for the environment, a win for the economy and a win for people who want an extra income," Anderson said.

Greenwashing: It's not Just for Corporations Anymore

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

Woonsocket has six bins on and around Main Street that have separate inputs for paper, commingled recyclables and general waste. (Dave Fisher/ecoRI News staff)WOONSOCKET — Many a company has been accused of “greenwashing” by environmentalists, and while you may think this practice is reserved for faceless multinational corporations like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Cargill and S.C. Johnson, ecoRI News has stumbled upon a few local examples.

Earlier this year, the city of Woonsocket began participating in a pilot program from the company Go Green Solutions Inc., based in Grafton, Mass. The program, designed to increase recycling rates in high-traffic public areas, donates segmented recycling/trash bins to municipalities that have separate inputs for paper, commingled recyclables and general waste — much like the green/blue/brown bins used in the city’s residential waste collection system. Go Green Solutions makes money on this arrangement when local businesses buy advertising space on either side of these bulky bins.

The city has six such bins on and around Main Street.

“The bins have been a success so far," Mike Debroisse, the city’s solid waste coordinator, said. "We’re seeing less trash on Main Street, and from what my guys report, the waste has been properly sorted for the most part.”

Two bicycle-riding police officers who often patrol Main Street said they haven’t noticed less litter, but they did note that the bins are often overflowing, sometimes for days at a time. The city also places ads on the bins that read, “Please Recycle. It’s Your Choice.” Technically speaking, stealing a car is your choice as well, but it’s still illegal.

For those who pray at the altar of recycling, this is fantastic news. Plenty of recyclables that have heretofore been relegated to a slow death in the Central Landfill in Johnston are now being recycled, as per state law. These bins should probably be in use statewide, and kudos for promoting recycling should be given to the local businesses that advertise on them. But what if those businesses aren’t separating their recycling themselves?

Altogether, five businesses advertise on the bins, one of which is affiliated with Go Green Solutions. The other four businesses are 2^nd Time Around Sports (Cranston), P/M Computer Services Inc. (Woonsocket, Lincoln), Thomas Sparks Law Offices (Woonsocket) and two of the bins have ads for Box Seats restaurant (Smithfield, Woonsocket).

ecoRI News contacted these businesses to find out if they were recycling at their individual locations. Of the four businesses with no affiliation with the manufacturer of the bins, representatives from two of them spoke to us on the record.

The law office of Thomas Sparks advertises on one of the bins, but rents their office space, so the onus of segregating recyclables is on the owner or manager of the office building.

Derek Signorielli at 2^nd Time Around Sports assured us that, although he doesn’t contract to have his recyclables picked up, he makes occasional trips to the Central Landfill to drop them off.

The owner of P/M Computer Services Inc. declined to comment on the record, but was under the misconception that his waste hauler sorts his trash.

The remaining two bins — one at the southern end of River Street; the other at the intersection of Main and High streets — present a low-cost advertising opportunity for restaurateur Jim Casciano. His restaurant, Box Seats, is less than a quarter-mile from either of the bins. The ads are emblazoned with the Box Seats logo and small arrows indicating to passers-by the location of the pub.

But the Box Seats in Woonsocket does not recycle, at least not with any regularity, and doesn't have a recycling program, according to a former and current employee.

Co-owner of Go Green Solutions, Jim Fisher (no relation to the reporter), when asked if he was aware of Box Seats disregard for state recycling mandates, said, “We do have some guidelines as to who can advertise on the bins. We won’t accept ads from tobacco companies, liquor stores, porno shops, things like that, but we don’t inspect how our advertisers do their business. I seem to remember that (Casciano) mentioned that he does recycle at the restaurant."

When asked if he was aware of the lack of recyclable separation at Box Seats, Debroisse said, “Our objective was to get the amount of litter on Main Street reduced, and to get some of that trash recycled. To that end, the program has worked. We didn’t really look into the recycling practices of the companies that were interested in advertising on them. That was not our objective in getting the bins.”

Casciano, when asked if it struck him as disingenuous to promote recycling in a public area while disregarding mandatory recycling laws concerning his business, said, “First, I’m not required to recycle. The law, as I understand it, requires that only businesses with 50 or more employees are required to recycle.”

ecoRI News disabused Casciano of that notion and informed him that separating recyclables is mandatory for all businesses, but those with less than 50 employees are not required to report their rates to the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

He continued, “Second, ... I didn’t advertise on the bins to promote recycling. I advertised to promote my business. If they were barrels for aborted fetuses, I would have advertised on them."

Box Seats is hardly the only business, big or small, in Rhode Island that doesn't recycle. In fact, many business owners in Rhode Island balk at the idea of having to pay a waste hauler to pick up recyclables, so most of them don’t contract to have their recyclables properly disposed.

According to the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, which operates the state landfill, if businesses contract for refuse only, then they are free to contract with anyone for recyclables collection. There also is nothing in Rhode Island law that prohibits a business from using local recycling collection as long as it is agreeable to the municipality.

Still, according to a 2007 DEM report on commercial recycling percentages, 95 percent of restaurants in the state recycle 13 percent of their solid waste. However, that 13 percent can be deceiving, because if any recycling is being done, it’s typically only cardboard. Bottle and can recycling rarely occurs in the business community, according to the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation.

"We recycle in Smithfield,” Casciano said, referring to his second Box Seats location. “Sometimes I take the recyclables to the Smithfield location, but we don’t do enough business in Woonsocket to warrant separating the recyclables. So it probably amounts to a couple of dozen bottles a week. And what does it matter? Most trash haulers I’ve talked to say that they just put it all in one truck and dump it in the landfill anyway.”

ecoRI News asked if Casciano was aware of any debris from the ongoing renovation project at his local restaurant being tossed into its Dumpster — a practice that is prohibited by DEM solid waste regulations. He said this wasn’t happening to the "best of my knowledge.”

A recent peek into the restaurant's Dumpster proved enlightening. Along with all of the trash, there was recyclable glass, plastic, metal and cardboard, and quite a few sawn, pressure-treated two-by-sixes, a couple of window frames and an old trash can filled with what was clearly construction debris from the recently removed porch.

The current situation at the Central Landfill should demand better enforcement of state recycling laws in the business sector. Twenty-five of the state's 39 municipalities hold their residents to strict waste segregation guidelines through either "no bin/no barrel" or "pay-as-you-throw" programs, while, for the most part, the business sector gets a pass.

The most obvious choke point in which to enforce these laws — or at least eliminate some of the misconceptions about waste segregation — is at the waste haulers level. Currently, waste haulers are not even required to mention the mandatory nature of recyclable segregation in Rhode Island. Another way to address this problem would be to require business owners who contract for just a Dumpster to prove that they have a recycling program in place before that Dumpster can be delivered.

There are a lot of misconceptions about state recycling laws, and solid waste disposal in general. Waste haulers do not bear the responsibility of separating recyclables. If all of your trash goes into a Dumpster; all of your trash gets buried in the landfill. Rule seven of the most current DEM guidelines for recyclable segregation from commercial solid wastes states:

"Any person who generates commercial solid waste or accepts responsibility for collecting, storing or disposing of their tenant’s waste, shall segregate their solid waste" and "subsequent to the point of generation, no person shall combine segregated recyclables with solid waste in a manner that renders the material not marketable."

Admittedly, advertising on a recycling bin isn’t a flag saying, "We recycle," per se, but those ads do plant a seed in the public’s mind. Advertising on the side of a bus doesn’t mean you have to take the bus, but taking the bus is your prerogative. In Rhode Island, recycling is not. When someone chooses one business or product over another because of a perceived environmental benefit that doesn’t pan out, that’s greenwashing.

The Box Seats Woonsocket location remains closed for renovations. Casciano is unsure if he will reopen the business. We hope he does, and we hope that he begins to comply with state recycling mandates — as we do for the many other Rhode Island businesses that ignore this law.

Bright Outlook for Landscape Industry

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff
The demand for rooftop gardens is growing.

Times may be tough for Rhode Island’s landscape designers and growers, but businesses that embrace the constancy of change can make the most of a future that holds near-unlimited potential for this vital state industry.

Communities across the country are adopting the ideals of smart growth. Those ideals include not only creating functional living spaces, but also the need for green cover in our cities as a mitigating factor of climate change. The demand for green roofs and walls and well-designed community gardens and leisure space is forcing builders to scramble to acquire the knowledge to execute these designs, to stay relevant.

The truth is the necessary expertise already exists within the ranks of Rhode Island’s landscape designers and horticulturalists.

Carrot City, a Toronto-based touring display of new and redeveloped buildings and neighborhoods, incorporates agriculture as a community with innovative design principles. It showcases a transformation of not only where we live, but also how we live. And while these developments focus on the growing of edible crops to foster communities, the systems incorporated have to be designed and maintained.

Green roofs and walls and rooftop gardens require modified growing systems that may include hydroponic systems and lightweight growing mediums. It offers practical ideas, such as preventing soil from a rooftop garden from winding up on the first floor.

These elements of green building design have been studied and utilized by landscape designers and growers for years. These designers are, in many cases, more familiar with those elements than their counterparts in the construction trade. This positions the industry to take advantage of not only new development, but also the redevelopment of existing structures, which Rhode Island has in spades, to green standards.

This new demand for environmentally sound and low-impact design, and the increasing knowledge of the work that our ecosystems do for us, have poised the landscape industry to move boldly into new business territory, but Charles Hall, Ph.D., economist and floriculturalist at Texas A&M University, insists “If we don’t get there, the construction guys will.”

As the demand for more sustainable design grows, the line between architect and landscape designer becomes increasingly blurry. The next generation of architects will be required to address and reduce the environmental impact of future development and redevelopment.

The future health of Rhode Island’s landscape industry is vital as design moves toward a world in which buildings function as more than just the places where we live and work. Much of the expertise and knowledge of the technology needed to design the homes and businesses of the future resides within the landscaping business community. 

Desperate Times at Some Local Nurseries

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

In the days of global climate change, the necessity of well-engineered landscape design can't be second guessed. In order to combat The Man’s effects — and affects — on climate change, green cover plays many roles. Stormwater control, erosion control, carbon sequestration, open space preservation and urban heat islands are all problems that proper land usage can address. Oh yeah, they also look purty and clean the air.

The necessity of the landscape design, nursery and turfgrass industry to Rhode Island’s economy is unquestionable. Rhode Island sod is world famous. The soccer field at the 2004 summer Olympics was made from Ocean State turf, and it's used on golf courses around the world. It also ranks nationally as the No. 2 cash crop. Locally, no other Rhode Island crop is poised to take the top spot away from the inappropriately named “ornamentals” anytime soon. It's a belittling title for plants that do so much for us.

However, the current economic situation in America has taken its toll on the growers, architects, purveyors, installers and performers of maintenance in this green industry. Greenhouse, nursery and turfgrass sales in Rhode Island dropped by $3 million between 2004 and 2009.

Unfortunately, owners of large tracts of land like nurseries and turf farms don’t have many options when the going gets tough. It’s basically diversify or sell. And in a state where land can sell for three to four times more than in other areas of the country, according to Shannon Brawley of the Rhode Island Nurseries and Landscape Association, “The most lucrative option is usually to sell some or all of your land to a developer."

As it is with most agriculture, flat, graded land, with relatively few interruptions or anomalies, is prime real estate in the turfgrass business because it is easy to seed. Flat and graded happen to be ideal for real estate developers as well, who covet Rhode Island's 3,000-plus acres of graded, flat land growing turf.

There are other ways to offset financial hardship for the owners of this prime real estate. Some have seen potential in the new food movement and have diversified into edible crop growing; others have sought alternate routes before capitulating to development.

“We’ve seen our membership expand into food crops and commodity crops pretty heavily in the last five years,” Brawley said. “There is a lot of growth in the local food movement, and it’s causing commodities like wheat to start having potential in the Northeast.”

Grains and corn are two of the options to turf farmers feeling the economic pinch on their preferred product. They are relatively easily planted, harvested and marketed, so they present a low-cost solution to unused land.

Sodco Inc., on Indian Corner Road in Slocum, has begun growing corn, but not for eating. It now markets a home heating fuel made from corn, and not its oil. Sufficiently dried corn can be burned in a stove that is similar to a wood-pellet furnace. The compnay markets this corn under the name “Blazin’ Corn.”

“People have been burning grains for heat for centuries,” said Pat Hogan of Sodco. “This is not a new technology.”

Grains and vegetables aren’t the only options. One large local nursery is considering growing medicinal marijuana as a way to offset potential and incurred losses. Some may rail against this, but former state Department of Environmental Management chief W. Michael Sullivan recently called the wacky tobacky "very possibly Rhode Island’s next cash crop."

Idling Green Economy Needs to Find First Gear

By SARAH SCHUMANN/ecoRI News contributor

Building and installing renewables is only one aspect of the green economy. Energy efficiency is also a big part of the equation.Many Rhode Islanders hope that the tenet “green means go” will hold true for the state’s dragging economy. But pressing the accelerator on a nascent green economy has so far proven challenging.

“We’ve been hearing that the green economy is going to create so many jobs, but it’s not really done that yet,” said Jeff Polucha, head of the Green Technology Consortium, a Governor’s Workforce Board business partnership focused on spurring green jobs in the state.

As green-jobs-training programs begin to produce a steady stream of skilled and energetic workers, finding a formula to fuel green economic growth becomes all the more urgent.

The barriers to green economic development, said Connie McGreavy, director of the Rhode Island chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, “fall into three distinct, but related buckets: finance, knowledge and behavior.”

Other leaders in Rhode Island’s green economy point to complex interconnections between the three.

Take energy efficiency, the field that most green-jobs-training programs graduates are poised to enter, said Andrew Cortes, director of Building Futures R.I.’s Energy Training Partnership. The primary problem, he said, is not a lack of funding for green initiatives, but the difficulties employers face in accessing existing funding to fuel job growth.

Refering to state and federal aid for home-energy-efficiency improvements, Cortes lamented that despite “the massive influx of dollars, it is a very difficult delivery system, and it’s hard to achieve impacts at scale.”

“Some of our students have been very frustrated,” said Mark Kravatz of the Apeiron Institute, which conducts energy-auditing classes. “You would think that with all these millions of dollars coming down for weatherization, that there would be more opportunity to get this off the ground.”

For homeowners, there are two streams of weatherization funding available. Low-income homes are eligible for the Weatherization Assistance Program, which distributes money from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources. All ratepayers are eligible for free energy audits and weatherization incentives through National Grid’s Energy Wise program.

The problem with Weatherization Assistance Program opportunities, Kravatz said, is that “the bureaucratic process for getting on the contractor list is very private and very difficult. As a result, the pace is not there.”

The problem with the Energy Wise program, he added, is that “for the past 25 years, they’ve had the same vendor (RISE Engineering) providing that service. When you have one company that has a contract, they don’t have to educate consumers about the beneifts of energy efficiency.”

The solution, accoring to Kravatz, is to allow weatherization providers to compete directly for those jobs. “Creating a competition swell,” he said, “will catalyze that market.”

But targeting individual homes is a relatively slow way to generate jobs, Cortes noted. The next step, he said, is to think about, “How do you bundle these into a package of 250 units at one shot? That’s where you’re starting to create some broader impacts.”

Another area with high job potential, Cortes said, is the greening of existing buildings. Our current buildings, he noted, "are the absolute worst offenders in terms of carbon footprint. They consume a lot of energy and they waste a high percentage of it.”

McGreavy, whose organization was instrumental in pushing the state to pass the Rhode Island Green Buildings Act requiring all new public buildings more than 5,000 square feet and all renovated public buildings more than 10,000 square feet to be built to the LEED standard for green design, said the state could speed things up if it looked toward established models for promoting a green economy.

"While the state has undertaken various unscientific attempts to create a roadmap for itself,” she said, “a four-year, data-driven analysis undertaken by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development already exists, at least in terms of addressing energy efficiency in buildings — oft referred to as the low hanging fruit. Why aren't we plucking it?”

These comments echo a common theme among green-industry proponents in Rhode Island: workers are prepared; financing is available; and opportunities for improving green practices in the state are clear.

There’s a green light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s time to get moving.

R.I. Workers and Employers Get Green

By SARAH SCHUMANN/ecoRI News contributor

Building a green economy may differ from the kinds of building that Rhode Island’s construction workers usually perform, but they are similar in one fundamental way: you won’t get far without the right tools.

Programs around the state are giving workers those tools, in the form of the skills, experience and certifications necessary to lead the state to a greener economy.

Building Futures Rhode Island’s Energy Training Partnership is one of those programs. The partnership gives low-income and minority residents of Providence the opportunity to succeed in energy-efficient building and renewable energy jobs.

It accomplishes this by leveraging a century-old union apprenticeship model, described by director Andrew Cortes as “one of the best kept workforce development secrets out there.”

Seven unions have committed to offering apprenticeships to a total of 650 entry-level workers through the program. Each apprenticeship lasts from three to five years, and contains green building modules. Unions in the partnership also are committed to using these same training modules as skill upgrades to 850 displaced journeymen.

In addition, Building Futures leads a five-week pre-apprenticeship program for up to 100 unemployed youth. Participants receive green skills, GED services and employment coaching. Graduates may then apply to one of the apprenticeships offered by participating unions.

“We focus on leveraging that registered apprenticeship model,” Cortes said, “because there’s no way that anybody could mimic the investment in workforce training that’s already happened in the unions.”

Moreover, Cortes said, unions have longstanding relationships with local businesses. Through labor agreements with project owners, unions can assure that apprentices find opportunities to work and train.

“We’re working on both ends of the spectrum,” he said. “It’s not like we’re training people in a vacuum. We’re training people in the context of the market.”

The Green Pathways Out of Poverty program, run by the city of Providence, is open to low-income and low-literacy individuals, ex-offenders, public housing residents and veterans and aims to eliminate barriers to workforce entry.

Now in the second of five 16-week training cycles, it intends to train at least 190 individuals.

Each training cycle begins with remedial academic services and case management services such as job place etiquette and job placement assistance. The second segment consists of training — provided by the Apeiron Institute and Ecotope — in energy-efficient construction, green renovation and deconstruction, renewable energy and lead/asbestos removal. In the last 10 weeks, trainees participate in the “greening” of four homes in Olneyville donated by the housing authority.

The program places graduates, who receive four to five certificates apiece, with private companies, unions and nonprofits. The Workforce Solutions Board pays for the first six months of their salary, provided employers commit to providing on-the-job training.

Tanya Harris of Green Pathways Out of Poverty said this program has given hope to people who need it the most. She tells the story of a student whose wife had just given birth to twins.

“We expected him to be out for a couple of days. But on Monday morning, he comes in and says, ‘My wife and I talked about it. It’s important for me not to miss a day. This helps me get a job. It’s for my babies.'"

“Hearing that," Harris said, “was just awe-inspiring.”

The Energy Training Partnership and Green Pathways Out of Poverty programs hope that the emerging green economy will offer opportunities to those excluded from the mainstream economy. Through these programs, say their directors, participants not only get a better chance at finding a job, but they also can take pride in becoming part of the state’s new green workforce.

Meanwhile, other programs are training the people who, it is hoped, will hire the graduates of these programs.

Last month, the Apeiron Institute began its fourth cycle of energy audit training. A total of 60 students have graduated from this program, each obtaining nine certificates that open the door to a job or to starting a company.

Executive Director Mark Kravatz said training this group was key to spurring a green economy. “I looked at the market and decided we had to build the infrastructure for employers to compete in the market," he said.

The Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) partners with the Apeiron Institute on these energy auditing classes, but also offers 52 in-house and online green courses of its own, ranging from green building techniques to indoor air quality to photovoltaic design and installation.

Keith Stokes, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, highlighted CCRI’s role in creating a trained green workforce. “At a community college, the student body represents working people, and particularly working people in transition," he said. "And Rhode Island has a significant portion of our workforce that needs access to additional training and education so they can pursue a pathway into a quality job.”

The New England Institute of Technology (NEIT) has taken a different tack. Rather than create a new green technology degree, said Steve Kitchin, vice president for corporate education and training, “we’ve elected to add green features to the curriculum in all of our programs.”

Rounding things off, the Rhode Island Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, chaired by Kitchin, offers continuing education courses to building professionals.

The council attempts this primarily through its LEED credentialing program. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system that considers all environmental aspects of a building or home in context. But the council's certification of buildings has come under fire recently, and it has been named a defendant in a class action lawsuit claiming that LEED standards are fraudulent and lead builders away from proven energy efficiency techniques. 

Thanks to programs like these, a green workforce is taking shape around the state. Certifications in hand, its members are ready to report for work.

But a trained and motivated workforce by itself may not be enough to galvanize a green economy in Rhode Island.

“You can’t train for the sake of training,” said Jeff Polucha, who chairs the Green Technology Consortium, a business partnership sponsored by the Governor’s Workforce Board. “And the economy is so bad that there’s not a lot of employment in any sector.”