Replishing the Earth, LLC helps you green up your business

Replenishing the Earth, LLC helps corporations, schools, restaurants, institutions, and you save money, significantly reduce waste, and "replenish the earth."

The company helps your business apply cradle-to-cradle concepts to waste management and the product choices you make.

Service they offer include:

•Perform comprehensive waste audit to identify composting & recycling opportunities. Ninety percent of waste sent to a landfill can be composted or recycled (e.g., new construction site, institutions).

•Provide cost analysis of composting and recycling versus landfilling. Significant savings in waste disposal costs can be obtained.

•Outline opportunities for reducing waste by replacing disposables with recyclable, compostable, or reusable alternatives.

•Supply tools, education, collection containers, and signage for sorting and collection of compostables and recyclables.

•Manage collection, pickup, and delivery of food waste, compostable food serviceware, and other organics to a commercial composting facility.

They also offer product lines such as: compostable food service ware, green paper products (janitorial and food service), green janitorial supplies, pet supplies, and more.

This is a women-owned business RTE that is the flagship within the BEGIN New Venture Center (BNVC), an innovative business incubator located at the St. Patrick Center, a homeless center.

For more information, please visit their website at: http://www.replenishingtheearth.com

LEED for Homes Event - An Overview for builders and contractors

"A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF THE LEED – H PROCESS AND HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOUR PROJECT."
November 10th, 6:30 to 8:30 PM

This is a two hour class prepared specifically for builders, contractors and trades-people. They will cover in detail the LEED for HOMES process as it would apply to a traditionally built new home, or gut rehab.

The following topics will be covered:
• All required submittals; Durability Risk Form, Durability Evaluation Form, Point Credit Review spread sheet, Accountability Forms.
• Project flow; timelines, deadlines, etc.
• Roles and responsibilities of team members; LEED AP, Builder, Key
Trades, Green Verifier, Client.
• Comprehensive overview of all mandatory measures (Prerequisites)
• A comparison of other green home certification programs.
• Q & A and a discussion of concerns and strategies.

LEED for Homes Certification is becoming a frequent request in the building market and stands to have a significant impact on how homes are built, now and into the future.

Instructors - This class will be taught by LEED AP Jen Loui (Project Manager and veteran teacher) and LEED AP Gary Steps (Senior Consultant and founder of Butterfly Energy Works.)
Date - November 10th, 6:30 to 8:30 PM.
Where - The Butterfly office: 146 West Lockwood, Webster Groves, MO 63119
Cost - $40 per person

To register call 314-961-8418.

Beer, wine and snacks will be provided at the break.

More on Energy Star

Today's newsletter made mention of the Missouri Energy Star tax holiday. Here's a fun little calculator from Energy Star that can help you look at how much you could be saving if got rid of your old fridge (by recycling it on Craigslist or Freecycle =) ) and bought a new Energy Star model. Per the calculator, Missouri's average kWh is $0.0745 (For you hard core number crunchers, AmerenUE's quoted prices are .0792/kWh for their summer rate, with winter pricing on your 1st 750 hours at .0548/kWh and .0348/kWh for each additional).

Growing Green Awards Gala - STL-USGBC

The St. Louis Regional Chapter of the USGBC held their first annual "Growing Green Awards" March 31st, and it was an absolutely wonderful event. The setting, the Coronado, was gorgeous and the food and drink delightful -- and it was green as could be.

From the program...

"All communication (in creating the event) has been electrionic rather than printed.
We wanted to provide this printed program as a momento of this occasion. It was printed with an ink-saving font on recycled paper. However, when you no longer have a use for it, please recycle it.
Awards are made from FSC wood and recycled paper.
The food is locally grown and/or organic.
The Coronado uses only eco-friendly cleaning products and recycles.
The wine is from Trinity Oaks, which plant a tree for each bottle sold.
The centerpieces are made frmo all natural and/or local materials.
The soy candles are locally made. Their containers are returned and reused.
The power for the event is being off-set with wind energy through Ameren/UEs Pure Power Program."

We were thrilled to be nominated twice, and to have one of our homeowners nominated (Dale and Sharon Becker, whose home took Platinum in the green category of St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles magazine awards).

The list of nominees was a who's who of the people who are taking going green as far as they can. The nominees for Residential were:

Dale and Sharon Becker
Matt Belcher, Belcher Homes
Champion Floor Company
Beth Gellman, Lewisites Landscape Architecture
Habitat for Humanity
James Holtzman Architects
Home Eco
Laclede Gas Company
Jim and Deb Matush
Tim Montgomery, TMA Architects
Tim O'Hallearn Smilin'O'Associates
Greg Polanik, Polanik Architects
Red Brick Community and Trust
Sage Homebuilders
Jason Stone, Sage Homebuilders
Trout & Co.
Tim and Christina Williamson

Habitat for Humanity came away the winner, and the award was well deserved. 27 homes - LEED Platinum! Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

Reclaimed Lumber

Once in a while you have something on a project that just comes out so good that you just want to share it with everyone. I think this photo was taken on a cell phone, so it doesn't do the work justice (I'm still having technical issues loading my own photos so I'm stealing this one from our clients' blog =) ). Major kudos go to Bill Newberry (newberryfurniture.com) for the custom-made newel posts that he made from reclaimed lumber (from an old school house, I'm told). These are quarter-sawn oak, and if I may so, they are beautiful.