Laura Allen lives in the San Franciso Bay Area and is an active gardener, elementary school teacher and aspiring inventor. She teaches urban gardening, creek restoration and sustainable technologies. Co-author of the notorious Guerrilla Greywater Girls Guide to Water, she has been scheming and constructing greywater systems for years. Favorite activities include smashing concrete, hanging out in wetlands, visiting people’s eco toilets, and drinking tea.

How do you eco?

We work towards creating a sustainable water future for all through presentations and workshops about greywater reuse and ecological sanitation. In our workshops participants learn the concepts of greywater use and practical hands-on skills. We also published Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground, that highlights water struggles and solutions from around the globe.

Why did you go eco?

I do this work because water is crucial to all life. Clean water is a basic human right, and clean rivers and healthy aquatic ecosystems are vital for the earth and all living creatures. Our society has created an unsustainable water infrastructure; damming rivers, transporting water far from its source, supporting wasteful habits and allowing people to “flush and forget” their sewage. It damages rivers, fish and cultures who depend on healthy rivers, as well as all the people who have their water piped to them and don’t know what’s behind the tap. Society views the water we’ve used once as “waste”, and the nutrients we excrete from our bodies each day also as “waste”, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When I realized this I started taking small steps to reconnect to my water cycle. Now I live in a house where we have a urine-diverting composting toilet using no water and returning nutrients we excrete to the land. We recycle all the greywater from our showers, sinks, and the washing machine to the yard to irrigate fruit trees and other beautiful plants.

What’s your favorite eco tips?

1. Catch greywater with a 5 gallon bucket! It’s cheap and easy and you can do it most anywhere. Put a bucket under the shower while you wait for it to heat up. This water is actually “clear water” not dirty at all. You can use it to water plants or flush the toilet (pour it into the bowl of the toilet quickly and the toilet will flush).

2. Catch greywater with a bucket under the bathroom sink. Detach the drain from the sink (leave the curved “P-trap” in place), put a bucket under the drain. Details

3. Look into a washing machine greywater system to have your greywater automatically and irrigate outside plants, my favorite is the drumless laundry.

EcoLinks

• Greywater Guerrillas
• Environmental Advocacy
• Greywater Systems

Michelle Kaufmann, founder and chairman of Michelle Kaufmann Designs, is happy everyday to just play with blocks. Her blocks though are five eco principles, modular technology and prepackaged green solutions her firm uses for architectural projects.

How do you eco?

My mission is to make thoughtful, sustainable design more accessible and to make is easier for people to live greener lifestyles. No one should ever feel that it’s too expensive, too complicated, or just too difficult to go green.

My design/build architecture firm uses off-site modular technology and prepackaged green solutions as a means to create beautiful, eco-friendly homes and communities. We design each one so that it incorporates our 5 EcoPrinciples: Smart Design, Eco Materials, Energy Efficiency, Water Conservation, and Healthy Environment.

I also want to connect with people beyond the world of traditional architecture. That is why we take part in museum exhibits, like the upcoming Smart Home: Green + Wired at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It’s why I started my blog. I’m always looking for new ways to reach out and educate people about how to go green in their everyday lives.

Why did you go eco?

Growing up in Iowa where people’s lives are so tied to the land, I developed a deep understanding of the relationship between humankind and the environment and an appreciation for the need to balance our demands on this planet. I think I was green before I even knew what it meant!

In 2002, when my husband and I relocated to Northern California, we looked for a house in which we could live a healthier, more sustainable life together. We instead found a sad lack of affordable green houses. So we built our own green home. Soon friends and colleagues were asking if I could also design a green home for them. I then decided to start my own architecture firm to fill the need for more affordable green homes.

What’s your favorite Eco tip?

Oh but how to choose just one? I post new green tips to my blog every week.

EcoLinks

• Michelle Kaufmann Designs
• Michelle Kaufmann Blog
• Smart Home: Green + Wired
• Architects

James Sheppard, Olivia Teter and Jeff Gustafson
Vetrazzo
vetrazzo.com

How do you eco?

Vetrazzo produces a distinctive countertop surface made from 100% recycled glass in a cement binder. We take last night’s Chardonnay, Perrier and Heineken bottles after they’ve been thrown in the bin and transform them into lovely works of art that are durable alternatives to granite and other quarried stone.

Why did you go eco?

We have the opportunity to create a sustainable product from local waste glass that can be used instead of petroleum-based resins like Quartz surfaces or natural resources like marble and granite. And because Vetrazzo makes a stunning and beautiful statement, often at the heart of the home, it sparks discussion about the value of recycling.

What’s your favorite eco tip?

Naturally it’s recycling and buying recycled. They go hand in hand.

Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling. The energy saved recycling a single bottle is enough to watch TV for 3 hours. Vetrazzo is made directly from crushed recycled glass, without melting it, so it is a particularly energy-saving recycling process. And when you buy products with recycled content you are building and supporting the market for those products and closing the recycling loop.

EcoLinks

• Ed Begley Jr. shows off his Vetrazzo countertop on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
• Vetrazzo on ABC 7 News

Eric Corey Freed believes that if he builds it green-they will come. We chatted about the inevitability of eco-friendly building design and a new 100-year plan.

How do you eco?

As architects, we design green homes for people around the country. All of our projects are green. We force it on all of our clients! I get to travel around the country and talk to people about this work and show them how to do it themselves.

As consultants, I get to work with all types of companies to find the sustainable opportunities in their work. Whether this is for a Fortune 500 company, product manufacturer or a real estate developer.

And as members of the community, we are involved in many worthwhile causes and organizations. I sit on the boards of several non-profits and the advisory boards of over a dozen other companies. I do this because it is fun - but it is also crucially important.

And finally, in my personal life, I’m your typical greenie. Organic food, non-toxic cleaning products, walk to work, carbon neutral hybrid car, graywater toilet, blah blah blah. But that stuff just makes sense.

Why did you go eco?

You ask as if I had a choice!

Buildings are the most environmentally destructive industry, producing half of our carbon emissions and consuming 40 percent of our energy and materials. How can I, as an architect, let this continue?

Simply because we have been building this way for the last hundred years does not justify why it can continue. Things must change.

What’s your favorite eco tip?

Stop talking about it and do something. Think big. Get friends involved. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

EcoLinks

• organicARCHITECT
• Green Building & Remodeling For Dummies