Teaching the Merits of Going Green

Fertilizer - a healthier, cheaper way
Adopting a green lifestyle begins with recycling. Nature's Way, a landscaping and lawn company, takes organic materials usually destined for the landfill to create greenhouse gases, and instead composts them to use as mulch and soil to give homeowners healthier lawns and gardens that are void of dangerous chemicals and safe for children and pets.

"Organic fertilizers don't kill beneficial microbes in the soil," said John Ferguson, owner of Nature's Way Resources. "We have products to control insects that don't cause health disorders. It's better for the environment, it's safer for people and it costs less money."

Ferguson will teach fall show visitors about the need to change how they nurture their lawns to prevent poisoning helpful insects and the cost-effectiveness of organic products, such as compost, which can cut the use of watering each year by 50 percent.

Technology - recycled
Recycling extends beyond biological trash in the digital age. Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a common sight in landfills, but Zac Trahan, program manager of the Texas Campaign for the Environment Houston office, hopes to change that with education. Trahan will speak with visitors about how they can use home renovation projects as an opportunity to donate or properly discard electronic equipment.

"Most people have no idea what to do with old televisions, compact discs, cell phones or computers,” said Trahan. “We want to tell them what they can do with e-waste to benefit the environment, and how they can take advantage of available programs."

E-waste is a leading cause of lead poisoning in landfills, seeping through the earth in groundwater. Discarded technology is ripe for recycling with multiple metal components, such as copper and aluminum, Trahan said, and there are companies in the Houston area that collect trashed tech, safely strip it and convert it back into separate elements, including plastics.

A better way to build and remodel
The green lifestyle is part of everyday living and involves not only personal habits but most importantly, our homes. LaVerne Williams, AIA, LEED AP, a nationally renowned Houston-based authentic green architect, emphasizes the importance of designing and building healthy environmentally conscious homes to benefit all of society now and for the future; and doing likewise when remodelling and retrofitting our homes and property.

"By striving to live green, we're making the planet a better place not only for us, but for all living things," Williams said. "It also allows us to sleep better at night. I wasn't sleeping well with the architecture I was creating back in the 1970s. So what I've been doing for over 35 years now is teaching people about better ways for creating home and properties that is more rewarding and more beneficial to the overall enjoyment of life, and to all life, period.”

Williams said home show visitors will learn how to lower the “Living Cost” of their homes, including how low cost vegetation and natural methods and climate-adapted principles can be used to decrease their home’s maintenance and lower their energy bills while enhancing their comfort. Some methods will even reduce flooding. 

“It is design that provides the most cost effective, long term solutions, not devices” he said. "Besides, most people are just now beginning to realize how our lifestyles and the homes we live in today are slowly poisoning us.  For decades my firm has been creating homes that are green and healthy because our chemically sensitive clients can’t tolerate or afford any other kind.

“This era of homes that make you (and the Planet) sick has to end.  We must start judging and comparing homes according to their overall “Living Cost” to our health and peace of mind and their ongoing monthly energy and maintenance and upkeep costs, not just their move-in cost and monthly mortgage bill.”

Reduce heating and cooling costs
Dan Marshall, owner of Innovative Skylights & Attics and a speaker at the fall home show, helps reduce annual heating and cooling costs by better insulating the attic and adding new green technology that works with nature instead of against it, similar to Williams’ architectural strategy. The company can install windows that use natural light more efficiently and build skylights that shield against solar rays.

The natural world of landscaping
Landscapers like Ron Thompson of Thompson's Landscape Service and Jason McKenzie, owner of The PineyWoods Nursery and Landscaping, understand how to utilize the natural world and draft green gardens that incorporate fruitful plants, literally.

McKenzie advocates habitat gardening, the idea of crafting a garden using plants and trees that provide fruit and nectar for wild life in additional to the ornamental vegetation common to most suburban yards. Instead of using a generic evergreen shrub, McKenzie said homeowners could plant blueberry bushes and use strawberry plants as ground cover. As people shift toward using organic foods, they can stop perusing the grocery store and start growing their herbs in their backyards, McKenzie said, which is healthier and cheaper.

"I still like ornamental gardening. What we're trying to do is combine and mix it up," he said. "It's more a blending of the traditional and the functional."
McKenzie said homeowners are beginning to see the benefits of growing their own food and are buying fruit trees that bear peaches, figs and apples.

"You're seeing a transformation from people going out and buying an ornamental tree to buying something that produces," he said. "It's a fundamental shift. The benefit is peach trees bloom pink in the spring and have great fall colors. We now have several varieties of blackberries that are thornless that you can grow on trellises that produce nice white flowers in the spring."  Home show visitors do not need to uproot their yards, McKenzie said, but rather merge their gardens with native and beneficial flowers and plants.

Now sit back and enjoy!
Not every aspect of living green requires hard work. Jeff Cunningham, owner of Cunningham Gas Products, builds outdoor kitchens, firepits and installs gas lighting and indoor and outdoor fireplace products around the pool and patio.

"The backyard, otherwise known as the outdoor room, is by far the fastest growing area in residential homes today," Cunningham said. "As far as being green, cooking outdoors is much more efficient than cooking indoors. Not only does the food taste better and there's no lingering odor, but any appliance that generates heat uses gas more efficiently than electricity."

The company installs every conceivable appliance in the outdoor kitchens, from stainless steel refrigerators, ice makers, to the grill and the kitchen sink. Cunningham said homeowners will save money using natural gas as compared to using electricity, and they can build a great family gathering space in their own backyards.