Secrets of the City

Yeah, it’s pretty good. Another fav of mine is Autolog Green.

Speaking of green, we got a nice writeup on the Taget Commercial Interiors website.

I’m guessing you haven’t looked at the feed in, like, a month?

((It is a cool site with lots of good stuff, though. And the renovation underway is gonna be awesome!))

Taget?

You know what irks me about Target? They have all this furniture online that isn’t in their stores. Hello! I might like to sit in a chair before I buy it. If yer going to sell furniture, open some damn Target Home Interior Stores or don’t sell it at all.

Taget! What a great store! Oh wait…

Please tell me your not self-linking, Practica. No self-promotion is one of the rules for posting.

Anyway, this is the last livegreensmart post you should probably do for a while.

There is no possible way Target could have everything they have online in the store. They also don’t warehouse most of the furniture from online, it drop ships from the vendor when it is ordered.

The RSS feed is to the cleantechblog: I wouldn’t think of self-promoting: The site carries the RSS feed it but don’t produce the blog: you can also find it at http://www.cleantechblog.com which is out of California and is run by very very smart young entrepreneurs and venture capital people who get it that green is good earnings. And, jderusha, I haven’t looked at the feed in about two months.

The Target partnership with the Lung Association is pretty terrific, though the new corporate offices on the Mall leave a lot to be reimagined. It’d be great to see Target catch up to Wal-Mart, which is greening the world’s largest commercial fleet – and there’s coverage of the non-greenwashing of the W-M effort on another site I don’t produce: http://www.treehugger.com

Who says these message boards devolve into clannish potshots, eh?

Kevin, if you are a 28-38 year old woman with 1.5 kids Target might listen to what you have to say.

This site I linked to is for office furniture, kevin. However, if you wish to sit in an office chair before your boss buys it, you can go here.

Mpls Simpleton: I would agree with you, but then I went to IKEA.

I know, Bob, that’s why it bothers me. They make such a big deal online about home furniture, why dont’ they just make a damn home furniture store!!!

I just go to IKEA, too. Free gift card for 20% of your upholstered furniture purchase now through the end of the year. Of course the Salen chair I want doesn’t qualify, but plenty of other ones do! Shop now! You can actually sit in them first!

Sadly, even with today’s medical advances, few of the .5 children born in this country survive.

Thanks, practica. Sherwin-Williams is another partner — it’s great to use paint that doesn’t smell and won’t make you sick as if off-gasses. My new office is smaller, but cooler.

Yeah – we used Sherwin Williams’s Harmony paint in our offices and the House, and combined with the non-off-gassing new carpets we’re much more comfortable, hence, productive – and we didn’t spend a lot of time waiting to breathe.

Are you at Target or at Am Lung, Bob? What do you do there? We’re building a Healthy Home house, and the Target interiors people were out to tour – would love to keep the fun going. Someone from Schwarxenggger’s team visited this summer – Minnesota can take back the lead on these things if the political goofies of the parties will get out of the way.

I’m gratified to see that some corporations are finding green good business – a guy by the name of Eric Woodruff contacted us, he consults with businesses converting to sustainable practices – something I’d like to do in another year.

Small planet…

It’d be great to see Target catch up to Wal-Mart,

This is a joke right?

Until about 2002 Walmart didn’t even have an environmental department. They just did what the wanted then paid the fine because the was cheaper.

Target just doesn’t put out a press release everytime they do anything. Check here for Targets Environmental Information.

Wal-Mart is also a big proponent of the the Green Roof movement.

How dangerous are paint fumes? Cause, uh, I’ve been living with them now for a week.

Wal-Mart may be getting it’s green on, but Wa-Marts suck.

Kev: *teasingly* well, you’ve eating a lot during your comments today (nom nom nom) so my guess is that the paint fumes are getting to you or you need to cut down on your pot intake.

Practica: my friend is in the process of writing a green business curriculum for the University of Montana. She speaks to business leaders on how green can be profitable. It’s pretty cool to see how universities/colleges are creating programs to address this growing industry.

It’s no joke. We (American Lung Association of Minnesota) was invited to the Wal-Mart Sustainable Summit down in Arkansas, to talk biofuels, but had to decline.

Paint fumes (volitile organic compounds or VOCs) effect some people more than others, kev, but they are not healthy for anyone. That’s why professonal painters often wear masks. They should!

Sh*t.

Wal-Mart Settles Clean Air Violations with Campaign to Reduce Diesel Pollution

Release date: 11/01/2005

Walmart normally will do nothing unless they have been caught.

Good news: there’s a lot of good low and no-VOC products out there now, kev (too late for you, however!).

Believe me when I say that there are other sources of indoor air pollution that are much worse than paint fumes.

Walmart normally will do nothing unless they have been caught.

That’s how a lot of people — and corporations — change for the better.

Fox News has gone green, too. No, I’m not kidding.

(faints, dies, spazzes out, whatever happens to you when you inhale too many paint fumes)

Speaking of eats, I had a deelish chicken pesto grilled sandwich with a pasta salad at MnDOT today. For only $5!!!!!!! Soooeey was that something else!

The MnDOT Cafe is the best in the Capitol campus. I always eat there when I have business in kevinville.

Bob: can I neutralize my smoking with carbon offsets? Kidding. BTW: it’s day 12 of smoke-free, but I will not promise it will last, but I’ve noticed that the longer one goes without the less of a desire there is for me… for now.

Paint fumes haven’t killed me yet… but I did finally get a respirator last year. Know what though? It sucks. My breath condenses inside and makes the screen drip. Plus, the huge circle around my mouth/nose area takes hours to fade.

Plus, the huge circle around my mouth/nose area takes hours to fade.

“The MnDOT Cafe is the best in the Capitol campus.”

As long as you can survive dodging the falling granite facade.

Exactly, grote.

Cat – I’d love to talk with your friend at U Montana

No kidding – my director is a business turnaround guru who consults all over, and has made green homes his passionate indulgence after making much of the other green. He’d be a terrific resource. He talks around the country on creativity and new businesses and saving the farm (so to speak). Also on avian influenza, of all things.

Hey – good for you on Day 12, and thank you: the butts are toxic little hazards for kids and critters. Why is it, off thread, called “secondhand smoke” anyway? I am often inhaling smoke from a cig before the person who lit up remembers it’s in their hand or ashtray. I think it should be called Involuntary Smoking, or Captive Smoking – ah, a little imperialist lurks in the best of us….

Seriously – have UofMt get hold of me, and forget the carbon offsets: stay on the wagon.

And, Bob: I like the Autolog Green website – thanks for sharing that one – great that the corn film is getting attention from public broadcasting.

Bob – can you elaborate on the other sources of indoor air pollution.

Also I am interested in some sweet filtration system which will make my tiny apartment have good air. Do you have any recommendations?

I’m glad I checked back in — so many questions!

Ranty — I know what you mean with the masks. I think I heard our HH consultant mention some masks that solve that problem, yet still offer good protection. I’ll ask him nect time I see him and send you an email.

Practica — the people in the business prefer the term ETS, environmental tobacco smoke. Since everyone else calls it secondhand smoke, so do I.

Cat — yea! Good Kitty!

Vlado4 — You can find a ton of info under “consumers” at our website http://www.HealthHouse.org. Best rule of thumb for good IAQ — source control! In other words, look for ways to keep pollutants out of living areas in the first place, rather than filter them out later. One hint — don’t buy an ozone-generator. They do more harm than good. California (there they go again, kevin!) may even prohibit their sale soon.

“Are you at Target or at Am Lung, Bob?”

While I rarely post under my old nom (ALAMN), just plain Bob still works as the communications director for ALAMN. I also was the director of the Health House program for a few years, so that’s where that comes from.

Paint Fumes, Corn Fuel, Cedar Waxwings…I get to cover a lot of ground on this site.

The MnDOT Cafe is the best in the Capitol campus. I always eat there when I have business in kevinville.

That contradicts everything you’ve ever said about healthy lifestyles.

Fair enough practica! Didn’t mean to be a clannish potshot– I’m sorry for raising it. The radar went up because it seemed like such a random post… and since your last post last month was from the exact same source, it seemed fishy.

I’m all about self-promotion, I just try to do it in the comments. Anyway, I am sorry!

“Kevin, if you are a 28-38 year old woman with 1.5 kids Target might listen to what you have to say.“

Nope. Not even then. We’ve warned Target about him.

I recently bought a can of green Rustoleum paint. Does that count?

It just bugs me that they push this furniture so hard online without letting you see it in person before you buy it.

“I’m all about self-promotion, I just try to do it in the comments”

Amateur!

“The MnDOT Cafe is the best in the Capitol campus.”

As long as you can survive dodging the falling granite facade.

One of the reasons they haven’t done anything about the facade is that the adhesive they used to help adhere the panels to the building contains asbestos. This means that they have to use asbestos abatemate workers to remove the panels and that you would have to take alot of care when removing the panels. This makes the whole deal pretty damn expensive.

Ranty,

Many women are extremely hard to fit for respirators because the angles of their faces are different than men. You might want to look into a full face respirator. They tend to be much more comfortable and seal a lot better since they seal on the flat portions of your face instead of over the bridge of your nose. In the asbestos biz they call that ring around your face a “rookie ring” because after the first few weeks people wear them so loose that they barely provide any portection. Go for a PAPR (Powered Air Purifying Respirator) if you use one a lot. They cost some cash (~$350) but it provides a nice stream of cool filtered air over your face while you are working and you won’t get better protection this side of a SCBA.

“One of the reasons they haven’t done anything about the facade is that the adhesive they used to help adhere the panels to the building contains asbestos. This means that they have to use asbestos abatemate workers to remove the panels and that you would have to take alot of care when removing the panels. This makes the whole deal pretty damn expensive.”

Interstesting. And surprising. I thought that the building was new enought that asbestos wouldn’t have been allowed.

I spent a good two years in that building removing asbestos from every nook and cranny, mostly floor tile, pipe insulation and ceiling tile adhesive. It is one of the only buildings in the capital complex that is likely asbestos free inside, well maybe the old Boiler Building NE of the Capital.

Guess I was wrong. For some reason I thought the MNDOT building was built in the 70s or after. Quick search shows it was built in 1958.

Closed circuit to practica: thanks for the call today. I look forward to seeing your project.