Out of all the items in your home, your mattress is likely the most indispensable and at the same time, taken the most for granted.  Manufacture and supply schemes of the leading mattress companies require long, costly shipping chains often originating over seas, shipped, and then trucked from storage warehouses to retail stores where they end up getting trucked again to be delivered to your home.

The other problem with synthetic, petroleum-based foam mattresses is the issue of “off-gassing.”  The scent, or VOC, produced when a mattress is taken out of its package may contain toxic vapors like acetone and toluene that can lead to serious irritation of the eyes and mucus membranes and can accumulate in the body, never to be expelled.

One company hasn’t been sleeping on the ill effects of the mattress industry and has developed an innovative, completely centralized manufacture and direct supply chain from the product’s inception to your bedroom.  Keetsa Mattress Company figured out a way to eliminate harmful off-gassing using a natural, plant oil-based foam which can be recycled when it’s life cycle is complete.

Joe Alexander, General Manager of Keetsa Mattress.

You know, “green” doesn’t just mean you throw an organic cover on your mattress and now you’re a green company. We’ve addressed it from the manufacturing, from the shipping, from the distribution, to getting it to the customer’s home, to the product itself, and to ultimately, the demise of the product.

For more ways to save the planet while you sleep and the full interview with Joe Alexander, click here.

Photo courtesy of denizen8.

JA: My name is Joe Alexander, Keetsa Mattress.

GA: Title?

JA: General Manager of Keetsa Mattress.

GA: So this is a new store.  Right?   I mean, you just moved in here.

JA: Just moved in a few months ago.

GA: How’s it been going? People been treating you right? Is this the right demo?

JA: You know, I get the “demo question” from a lot of advertisers a lot. “What’s your demographic?” You know, anybody with a brain who has a mattress, everybody needs to sleep somewhere and we’ve got something that hits people for their price point, we’ve got people who are concerned about their health, we’ve got people who are just, “I need a bed right now, this moment! We’ve got almost every niche covered with this product.

GA: So you can actually have access to this product and not have to be a millionaire.

JA: Well that’s (been) my catch phrase from day one.  You don’t have to spend a lot of green to go green. We’ve attracted a nice little bevy of celebrities. The other day I sold to Roger Craig, former 49er and Calvin Klein model. Roger Craig saw our commercial on TV in San Jose and called my store and said, “I’m looking for that guy on TV.” And so I’m like, “Yeah right, it’s Roger Craig,” and he went and bought a bed and now he wants to tell everyone about it, he wants to come on the TV show. Craig (Newmark) from Craigslist, Jaime (Hyneman) from Mythbusters, Jerry Brown the (former) Governor of California, Matt Cain the pitcher from the San Fancisco Giants. Here we’ve had TV Caprio, she’s one of the lead actresses from “Across the Universe,” she’s gonna be in the next Spiderman musical, and George C. Scott’s son. You’re right, you don’t have to come in and spend five grand to get something that’s good and comfortable and good for the environment and good for your health. We were doing another radio interview the other day and it’s funny how a lot of people, just because it has the green label will buy something without going out and doing any research so hopefully part of this job is not only providing people with good mattresses but educating people on whether you buy our product or not, this is what you should be looking for and this is what really constitutes “green” or “organic” mattress.”

GA: Let’s talk about your industry, on the whole, I mean, mattresses are products that get used and then discarded. What’s the life cycle of a typical mattress.

JA: You know what, when you say “typical mattress,” that encompasses Sealy, Serta, Simmons. Those are the top-selling brands in the world. And those beds, the lifecycle on those beds, is very short. The reason why is because those companies are all publicly held, so they’ve got to show a high profit margin to their investors. So there’s a lot of hands in there, a lot of money already up front and by the time it comes to you, they’ve got to sell it at a reasonable price. So the only place they have to cut, is the quality of the material and we see those customers on a daily basis. “I’ve had my bed two, three, four, five years and it’s already got a big body impression.” It’s because the quality of the foam is a very low, cheap quality of foam. The springs don’t give out, that’s not why it’s got a big body impression, it’s the foam that compresses very quickly. It’s a 1.2-1.8 density foam and it’s not designed to last very long. People go out and buy it because (they) recognize the name and they come in and go, “Gosh, I’ve had my bed just a few years and it’s already got a body impression.” So a typical Keetsa will last you about 12-15 years. We warranty it for 20. I never really encourage anyone to keep it that long. As long as you keep it covered nicely in a breathable space it should last you a good 12-15 years.

GA: How much of it is foam and how much of it is other stuff?

JA: Well, like your bed isn’t all memory foam. A lot of people think, “Oh, that’s all memory foam.” If it was all memory foam, it would be this big gooey mess. There’s everything up from 5 (inches) to down to an inch and that’s really where the difference in the pricing is. With our cheap model, we don’t go, “Oh, we’re gonna cut back on the quality of the spring or the quality of the foam.” From the top to the bottom, it’s the same density, it’s the same coils, the same materials.  As you go up in price, it’s just more foam.

GA: So, I want to talk to you about Keetsa’s manufacture and supply chain.

JA: Yeah that’s a really important aspect. Another thing I was explaining just the other day, you know, “green” doesn’t just mean you throw an organic cover on your mattress and now you’re a green company. We’ve addressed it from the manufacturing, from the shipping, from the distribution, to getting it to the customer’s home, to the product itself, and to ultimately, the demise of the product. Most of that supply chain that I was just talking about of the typical mattress company is they’ve got factories set up around the United States, little regional factories, and they will buy their springs from Leggett and Platt and Leggett and Platt has a factory and they make the springs and they truck it to the manufacturer and they truck the fabric and DOW chemical trucks the chemicals and the foam companies truck everything. So all this stuff is trucked to this central location. Then it’s manufactured. Then it’s packaged and it’s trucked to these companies warehouse like Mattress Firm or Sleepy’s and stuff like that and it’s trucked to their warehouse. You buy it in their Sleepy’s store and you buy it and they put it on a truck and take it to your house. It’s a tremendous amount of carbon footprint and gas. Now we manufacturer overseas. It’s all done in one location. We source everything from inside our own company in China. It’s in the “fair trade zone,” it’s not a Chinese-owned company, and it’s a Green America certified company. So everything’s sourced in that one place. It’s put on a tanker, it’s put on a barge with millions, and I tell people all the time, with millions of iPods and iPads, because if anybody wants to talk smack about it, if they’re carrying around an iPod or an iPad…

GA: Yeah, I don’t have an argument against setting up shop in China…

JA: Well as long as they do so responsibly.

GA: It can be mutually beneficial.

JA: Well, we got more of an argument about it before the economy tanked. Then, when people started being more cost-conscious those arguments dried up real quick. I’m very conscious about that because I’m a consumer as well. There’s a lot of unregulated junk that comes out of China like the lead that was found in drywall several years ago and things like that but there are, in the 80s, foreign trade zones that were set up and the factory that we ship from is in one of those foreign trade zones so it’s not really regulated by the Chinese government. But everything’s shipped over with millions and millions of other products, lands in our warehouse in LA and you come in and you buy it and you either take it from here, it’s UPS’d here, or we UPS it straight from the factory to your house. So the amount of carbon footprint, coming farther distances, is actually smaller than ones made domestically.

GA: So the foam itself is made of what.

JA: The foam itself is just like a synthetic, and this is one of the things that I go into with people as well, there are two types of foam in the world: there’s latex foam and there’s memory foam, that’s it. A lot of people will go, “Well I’ve got a regular bed. What’s the difference between a regular bed and memory foam?” Well, if you have a regular bed, it’s memory foam. They might call it convoluted foam or high-density foam or something – it’s memory foam. Memory foam is a synthetic-based foam. Now, within those two sub-categories you’ve got, Simmons has a latex mixed with about 50% synthetic, 50% latex.

GA: Which is a petroleum product.

JA: Exactly. Then you’ve got companies like Tempurpedic which is 100% petroleum. But then you have people like our who do 80% synthetic, 20% plant oil. It’s a caster bean oil and what that does, obviously, it lessens the dependency. There’s another step, though, that’s important in that it goes, the foam itself goes through a three week process that accelerates the “off gassing” so by the time you open up that bed at home there are no detected VOCs, there are no detected harmful VOCs. A VOC, obviously, is a scent. You smell a rose, that’s a VOC. Everything has a VOC to it.

GA: Petroleum products often have…

JA: Oh, well they have a toxic VOC. Theres toluene, there’s formaldehyde, there’s a whole host of…

GA: I remember when I first got my mattress from your petroleum-based competitor before I knew better that it reeked!

JA: Oh, of course it did! I remember when I used to sell it I had customers coming in with bloody noses, eyes all beet red. Well, there’s toluene, all those chemicals are going into your blood stream, going into your brain, you know, your body doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s probably not a bad thing that your body is sensitive to chemicals so you know what you’re dealing with but it’s not good for anybody. Just like when you paint your house with new paint and it smells like that for a while and it goes away, there’s a finite amount of material in there that will “off gas.” It’s not like it’s an infinite supply of chemicals that’s coming out. And that’s what happens with this product. Thought the curing process, we accelerate that so you have the benefit of the memory foam without the toxicity normally associated with memory foam. So that’s an important distinguisher between our products. We’re currently working on getting a Greenguard certification, we’ll be one of the only foam mattress companies in the world that have that. What we want to focus on right now, if you go to Keetsa.com, you can download our VOC report. We have a third-party VOC report that shows all the things normally associated with memory foam. The other aspect of that, as well, is the fire barrier. Basically if you go into any of the mattress stores around here and ask, “What do you use for your fire barrier?” They’re going to tell you it’s a “proprietary blend.” Okay, well that’s tantamount to going to the grocery store, pulling down a box of cereal and where it says “Ingredients” it says, “Trust us, it’s good for you.” I guarantee you in this age of “eco” and “green” and “organic,” if there was one thing that was good in that fire barrier they would have banners throughout the store trumpeting that information. The fact is, they buy it from DOW Chemical and it’s not good and most of the major brands use it because it’s cheap. What we’ve done is taken the time to engineer something that’s non-toxic to make the beds fire retardant.

GA: This is the outer layer of the mattress?

JA: What companies do is they treat the fabric and they wrap the foam in the fabric and that fabric is beneath all the other fabrics. And that’s just to provide (protection) that if there was a heat source, it wouldn’t catch the petroleum-based foam on fire. Latex? Latex uses wool. To make synthetic foam fireproof with wool you’d have to have a hugh-freakin-mongous stack of wool on top of it and it’s just not practical. So we use stuff like glycerol which is a sugar, phosphate salts which is a food additive to make the bed fire retardant. The Federal Government doesn’t care what you use, you could use dead baby seal skin, it has to pass the test. So we took the time and the money and the research to find alternatives to the cheap DOW Chemical treatment. So those are the aspects of how the mattress, the foam is a more, when we say “eco friendly,” it’s better for your home’s environment and your overall health in that it’s not gonna subject your body to a lot of chemicals and it’s not going to fill the air in your house with a lot of chemicals. It’s not going to “off gas” in your house, basically.

GA: So, now I’m done with my Keetsa mattress, I’m ready to get rid of it or replace it. What do I do? Is there a company take-back?

JA: There are places throughout the United States, not very many at this point, but where we have stores set up in California there are a couple different recycling places. There’s one in Oakland that will take all the mattress that come through, a lot of the waste management companies will filter the mattresses that they pick up and several places that do pick up and take there and they also have bins there where you can take your mattress to the dump. They’ll filter them over to a company called DR3 and DR3 has people that’ll take them apart, shred a lot of the stuff, and then they have third party purchasers for all that material. Let’s say you live in Beutte, Montana and there’s no mattress recycler there. Now, the nice thing is that this will outlast most major brands by two or three times.

GA: Are these mattresses subject to things like bed bugs and dust mites?

JA: Any surface you can get bedbugs. If you’re in that surface you could get bedbugs in your couch, you could get bedbugs on a 100% latex mattress, you could get bedbugs in a sleeping bag. Bedbugs eat you. Insects just need food and water, that’s all they need. And dust mites just need organic material, skin cells and stuff that sloughs off of our body and your sweat for a food source. So you hear sometimes how latex is dust mite resistant. Well, latex itself might be but and insect is not gonna make the distinction of whether or not that dead skin cell is sitting on a latex mattress or a foam mattress. It’s gonna eat the dead skin cell.

GA: How about mold?

JA: I had a customer in San Francisco, they moved from back East, they had a 100% latex mattress, they had intended to get furniture for it, they set it on the ground and a couple months later they got a Keetsa, they got a bed frame, and they moved their (old) bed and there was all mold underneath. It’s because everybody’s body sweats. When our bodies go to sleep they shut down but actually it increases the metabolism because your body’s rebuilding and so we sweat. Gravity takes that moisture, pulls it down. That’s why beds need to be on a box spring or a platform, wood slats, to allow for air flow. Old houses, there’s mold already in the wood because they’re over 100 years old. Moisture and warmth and darkness – mold. So the whole bottom of their bed was moldy, the floor was all starting to raise up with mold and that was a latex (mattress). Latex itself may or may not but when materials are around that and get introduced to it…

GA: So we’re here in Soho in New York City where you can try out one of these beds. Where else can we find Keetsa?

JA: Well, we’ve got six stores in two countries. We’ve got five on the West coast, one here, one in Toronto… or four on the West coast, one here, and one in Toronto and we’ve got about 45 retailers throughout the United States as well, so a lot of major cities carry Keetsa.

Thanks for listening to Green Air, I’m Rich Awn.

Photo courtesy of Tomonaldo.

Green Air Filter:

Jean Hill of Concord, Massachusetts is proposing a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles. She first spoke at a town meeting in April 2010, taking the initiative to start helping the environment. Many voters have turned out to support her plan but the town is unsure what to do. The most noteworthy part is that bottled water manufactures are also involved. Hill plans to begin the ban on selling plastic water bottles on January 1, 2011. If this passes, a lawsuit may be on Concord’s hands from the bottled water industry.

Photo by elycefeliz.

Every year, Penn State’s main campus at University Park, hosts a challenge between the different dorm hall areas – East Halls, South Halls, Pollock Halls, West Halls and North Halls – to see which area uses the least amount of energy. According to Penn State’s newspaper, The Daily Collegian, this competition is run by University officials who keep track of the amount of energy used by each dorm. The competition culminates at the end of the month and the dorm area that conserved the most energy is listed on top. While no prizes are awarded to residents of the building who conserves the most, there is a difference in the amount of energy used.

Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs also hosts a challenge amongst the dorms called “Unplugged challenge.” Skidmore dorms compete against one another for “the greatest reduction of energy consumption,” according to Skidmore News, for three weeks. However, Skidmore offers an incentive that shows a larger reduction in energy usage – a burrito party hosted by Chipotle.

This proves that reducing energy consumption is a trend across the board, including at higher education institutions, whether they are big or small. Skidmore College has about 2,400 students while Penn State’s University Park campus has about 40,000 undergraduate students. Saving the environment through energy consumption is easily done at all levels.

For more information about Skidmore College and Penn State University’s 2009 Challenges, click on the following  links:

Penn State University (The Daily Collegian)

Skidmore College (Skidmore News)

Photo by abby o.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

- Carl Sagan

In it’s heyday, the Brooklyn waterfront was a booming center of maritime trade and manufacturing, also a great political and military base of operations for most of North America.  But as the revolutionary turf wars subsided, shipping technology increased, and modern economic realities set in, the site on which the Brooklyn Bridge Park is being constructed was for the last century or so, a miserable shell of forsaken urban decay.

Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

It would be safe to say (that) in New York City at least and perhaps around the country or around the world, this is the world’s first almost completely recycled park.  It’s an incredibly sustainable park.  Everywhere you look and even in places you can’t see underground are things that were done here that are revolutionary and that will be probably setting a new standard on how to make a sustainable park.

Michael Van Valkenbergh Associates is the firm leading the landscape design charge on this project and have introduced progressive systems like irrigation ducts that use storm water runoff.  Recycled materials like reclaimed granite blocks from the old Willis Avenue and Rosevelt Island bridges are being reshaped for use on the promenades, and the careful extraction of reclaimed wood from existing buildings on the site, some dating back to the time of Columbus, is being reconditioned for use on park benches and the frames of new structures within the park.

While it’s only 7% complete, these home town eco sluggers in Brooklyn are looking to knock this triumph of a sustainable landscape design ball well out of the park.

For the  video on the project and full interview with Commissioner Benepe, click here and here.

Photos courtesy of jackie weisberg and Michael Van Valkenberg Associates (via the New York Times).

SK: How has the design and build of parks changed in New York City over the last 100-150 years?

AB: We are currently in the midst of the third large period of park expansion in the history of New York in the last 150 years.  The great romantic landscape parks like Central Park and Prospect Park get built in the 1860s, 1870s, 1880s.  Then you have in the 1930s, WPA and Robert Moses and all the big recreational parks and ball fields and the big waterfront highway developments.  And then, now, in the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century you look for new opportunities to build parks and it’s not like they could do in the old days.  In the 1930s, we simply filled in wetlands or built out into the river with landfill.  Now we have to find the orphan properties, the formerly industrial infrastructure, the piers, the factories, the abandoned pieces of property no longer being used for commerce.  In some cases, actual brownfields or garbage dumps; that’s the new frontier for urban park development in New York City and I suspect in many other cities too.

SK: The predecessors you mentioned both your predecessor and the big park designers, would they recognize the opportunity that’s here like this or would this be completely foreign to them?

AB: Well, I think that people like Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and Clinton Lloyd and Mike Rapuano, the people who did, and Glibert Clark, the people who did Riverside Park, they totally would’ve recognized this opportunity.  The first great waterfront park in New York City was Riverside Park under the West Side Improvement done in the 1930s.  People tend to view Moses as a highway builder but in fact the first and earliest waterfront esplanades were created by Robert Moses.  They would’ve completely recognized this opportunity however it wouldn’t have existed in the 1930s because these piers and warehouses here would’ve been used for commerce and as the shipping commerce moved elsewhere, these piers and waterfront factories and all the other kinds of commercial infrastructure was no longer needed and this site we’re standing on was very likely to have been turned into a large office or residential housing development because, of course, this was state-owned land owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  To be proper fiscal stewards, they could’ve and should’ve sold it to the highest bidders for developments.  Luckily, they had other thoughts and the neighborhood here had other thoughts and instead of seeing this whole site full of other purposes it’s being turned into a park at a rather great expense to the state and the city so it’s a tremendous opportunity but we have to remember in the case of Brooklyn Bridge Park and Hudson River Park a significant amount of income for the city and the state is being forsworn, we’re saying we don’t need that income we’re gonna spend, instead, hundreds of millions of dollars developing parks and in both cases, they wisely as they commissioned the parks, we’re also going to make sure there’s money to maintain the parks.  Both here and in Hudson River Park there are certain nodes of public land that are used for commercial development to fund, the income of which will fund the ongoing maintenance of these enormously expensive parks.

SK: Is this a new school of study now of maintaining funding and maintaining parks?  I mean, is this something no one’s really had to deal with in the recent past?

AB: It’s a rather unique situation.  Most city parks here and in other cities are paid for by the taxpayers and maintained by the taxpayers.  In the two instances of Brooklyn Bridge Park and Hudson River Park, you had very large pieces of commercially operated property owned by the city and the state which were effectively taken off the grid and re-purposed as parks.  I think they looked at it and said, we’re going to take away millions and millions of dollars of income and add hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses, we need to get a little bit of something to help balance it out.  I think, at the end of the day, it’s still public dollars paying for the construction of these parks and a lot of them.

SK: Where (do) the “green” and “sustainable” principles of this park sit on the pecking order of the imperatives of this park?  Is it at the top?

AB: It would be safe to say, in New York City at least and perhaps around the country and around the world, this is the world’s first almost completely recycled park.  It’s an incredibly sustainable park.  Everywhere you look and even in places you can’t see underground are things that were done here that are revolutionary and that will be probably setting a new standard on how to make a sustainable park.  For example, off to my right, are the hills, the hills that create the relief in this park; those hills are completely artificial.  This was a flat site, it was a series of warehouses.  Those hills were built out of stone dust taken from the construction of tunnels under the East River providing access for commuter trains into Grand Central (Terminal) from Long Island for the first time.  Underneath these hills are giant underground reservoirs so that the rainwater which percolates down through the sod, into the soil, will be captured in tanks and recycled onto the site to irrigate the site.  The benches behind me, the wood for the benches comes from the old cold storage building, these beautiful yellow pine floors that are being repurposed as benches.  The stone, the magnificent stone of the staircases and of some of the sea walls is taken from two old bridges, the Willis Avenue Bridge and the Roosevelt Island Bridge.  So almost everything you see here is recycled or recycling, it’s possibly one of the greenest parks ever built.

SK: It’s morally the right thing to do, is it necessarily the easiest thing to do or the cheapest thing to do?

AB: As it turned out, some of these things, you save a great deal of money.  All of that stone that we repurposed from the old bridge projects would’ve gone to waste, it would’ve been carted away by a contractor and possibly been dumped someplace; we saved an enormous amount of money reusing that stone.  All of this fill that came from the tunnels would’ve been trucked off someplace else so a great deal of money was saved there.  By draining the water through the land and not going to the sewer system, you’re avoiding combining sewer overflows so, and also saving water to be used on the site.  In the event of a drought, if there’s an official drought declaration, you’re not allowed to water city parks but if you have a cistern system, which is effectively what this is, and you can re-purpose rainwater than you can water so it would become very handy in the even that there is a drought and droughts are sort of inevitable as cyclical phenomena.

SK: You want, obviously, when this thing opens and runs, you want people to enjoy the park, do you want it to be kind of a model for the rest of the country, the rest of the world for what can be done?

AB: We hope that this park will be a model for the rest of this city, the rest of this country; we’re in the biggest period of park expansion since the 1930s here.  The mayor, previous mayor, Mayor Bloomberg and the previous mayor Mayor Guiliani, Governor Pataki, the current governor, Governor Patterson have all committed a great deal of public funds toward this purpose.  We have over 200,000 million dollars already committed to this park.  It’s a big expenditure of public funds.  It will be a huge public space improvement for this neighborhood.  Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, the surrounding neighborhoods are all very short on park lands and we’re creating an 80 acre waterfront park that runs for more than a mile along the Brooklyn waterfront here.  It’s probably the most important park built in Brooklyn, certainly since the 1930s when Marine Park was built, an 800 acre park in the south shore of Brooklyn, but I think in some ways as important as the building of Prospect Park in its ingenuity in terms of its importance for the community, in terms of its design.  Michael Van Valkenburgh is a designer of romantic parks.  He works in the tradition of Frederick Law Olmsted.  He’s not embarrassed to make a beautiful park, a park that’s a 21st century park that’s sustainable, that uses his own designs for benches and other things.  It’s not “ye olde park” but it is a park that works in the best traditions of the romantic landscapes and the landscape of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and even the more romantic landscapes of the 1930s.

SK: Do you think that laypeople, visitors, people that pay for the park are going to visit the park, do they understand what goes into creating a contemporary beautiful park?

AB: I think most people don’t really understand it but they do appreciate it.  A good example, when we opened the Highline a few months ago, which was a very different kind of a park, it’s a re-purposed elevated railroad track which has been landscaped as if the weeds had simply grown there the way they grew there after they stopped running the freight trains, people got it right away.  You didn’t need an interpretive panel to explain that this was a very special park and they use it in a different way than other parks.  It’s a strolling park like the Ramblas in Spain, it’s a park where you go to have the unique experience of looking down a street from 30 feet up and looking down a street all the way across town where you inhabit the city 30 feet in the sky.  This park is similarly astounding.  There is no park anywhere in the city which has these views.  We’ve got some very nice waterfront parks just across the river and up a bit, East River Park, it was interestingly also built by Robert Moses around 1940, but the view is not nearly as compelling of this view of Downtown Manhattan, of the Brooklyn Bridge, and as you get up on top of the hill of the Statue of Liberty and the great harbor of New York.  This park has the best views of any park in New York City and perhaps any park in the world.

SK: How do you kind of knit together three, what seems to me, disparate elements?  You have piers and uplands and then the shore itself.

AB: Well, in some sense, some of this homework has already been done about how you knit together all of these disparate elements, the piers, the uplands, and the (shore).  Hudson River Park is the predecessor; Hudson River Park used the piers, it used the upland and created in addition a linear park going along that could be used for alternative transit, for bicycles and rollerblading.  I think the difference here is that the sense of relief that’s been created and the ability to get down to the water’s edge and, literally to the water’s edge, is different.  In Hudson River Park it’s all piers and bulkheads so you can’t really interact with the water.  Here you can interact with the water and I think what Michael Van Valkenburgh has done is to skillfully have the pieces work together.  You also have something unique here, you have some very big piers.  These piers are massive, they’re as big in some cases, you can compare them to the sheep meadow or the Great Lawn in Central Park so there will be great, active recreation possibilities.  You can go running on the waterfront, you’ll be able to sled on these hills – there’s no sledding in Downtown Brooklyn, you have to go to Prospect Park to find the nearest sledding hill… well actually there’s a little sledding hill over here but it’s a big recreational, strolling, passive recreation, active recreation, see the waterfront, watch the sun go down, watch the lights come up in Lower Manhattan.  It’s a massive statement of civic purpose and civic ideals that we in New York City, and this is something that Mayor Bloomberg has long espoused, that you can’t have a great city without great parks, and to do that you have to spend a great deal of money.  It’s not spending money and throwing it down the drain, it’s just the opposite.  We’ve found that time and again that if you build a beautiful park, if you maintain it well, if you keep it safe, and it becomes a draw for all the New Yorkers who don’t have backyards, the real estate values will go up.  It’s proven, studies have been done, that quality of life will improve and people will feel better about the city, they’ll just be nicer to each other because people are nicer when they’re in nature.  That there will be opportunities for fitness; we have a big crisis of obesity and diabetes in this city.  Any time when people can get out and walk, just walk for 20 minutes, they’re gonna do better and they’re gonna be healthier so all of those things come together in this park.

SK: And finally, when you design and build a park like this, it’s beautiful, is it supposed to be a masterpiece or is it built to kind of evolve?  Do you know what it’s gonna be like 100 years from now?

AB: Well this park, it’s great to see a park that starts from scratch because you don’t see many parks this size that start from scratch and it reminds me as I stand here today of Central Park and Prospect Park, the picture that I see from the 1860 when the trees are little and the sod is newly laid, the grass seed has just come up and it looks so neat and so perfect but it also looks too perfect.  The landscape has to grow up, the trees will grow up and get much bigger, the light poles won’t seem so big because at a certain point the trees will be bigger than the light poles, the landscapes have to fill in, and then the biggest thing that’s missing here right now is the people.  It’s sort of a given that the minute this opens it will be populated.  We had, just over here to my left, as the park was under construction, there was a big public art installation under the bridge, The Waterfalls, by an artist who set up temporary waterfalls on a number of waterfront sites and a pop-up park was created here by a landscape architect who’s from the area, Susannah Drake of DLand Studio, and it was just a temporary park and it had tens of thousands of visitors in just a few months over the summer.  People were just desperate to come down to the water, to be at this nexus of the land and the water, to hear the waves lapping against the shoreline and to interact with this river and this skyline.  So the appetite is there.  This park is almost guaranteed to be a huge hit, it’s gonna have one of the greatest playgrounds ever built, it has tremendous opportunities but it’s got the, it’s a design which is beautiful in its simplicity.  Michael Van Valkenburgh is a skilled designer who doesn’t hit you over the head with his design, he isn’t trying to make a huge statement, but says, let me build a park that people are gonna want to come to, not just once for the novelty, but again, and again, and again.

SK: This is gonna change Brooklyn a little big when this gets rolling?

AB: This will represent the most profound change in Brooklyn in many decades. It changes this entire area from being a strictly industrial area to being an area that’s for people.  That’s the big change in New York City in the late 20th and early 21st centuries this is that the waterfront, which has been walled off for commerce since the Dutch set up shop here in 1624, it was for piers and wharfs and warehouses, it was for transportation, for factories, for all the unpleasantness that you didn’t want in your neighborhood, that went on the waterfront so you could move goods in and out.  The waterfront is no longer needed for that purpose for the most part; we still have a working waterfront in Red Hook, we still have a working waterfront at Port Elizabeth but the working waterfront has vanished and been replaced by the recreational waterfront.

Photos courtesy of  FantasticBabblings, The Architect’s Newspaper, A Child Grows in Brooklyn, and Meissner Neumann Gallery.

Shopping malls haven’t shown any sign of slowing down in their rampant development since the first one opened near Kansas City, Mo., in 1922.  The economy, on the other hand, has shown woeful signs of slowing down to the extent that many retail centers are closing their doors due to the traumatic hit consumer confidence has taken in recent years.

Such was almost the case with the Galleria at Erieview in Cleveland, Ohio but it took the bright idea of Vicky Poole, their marketing and events director to do more than just drop the cost of rent.

I started, again, reevaluating the space and when this idea came for urban growing and I got, again, more involved in the local food movement, I realized that there was no reason why we couldn’t implement growing and still be a business center and an events center.  We could still remain a community and yet benefit from the plants and the local food.

Vicky says the businesses will take time to come back, just as the plants will take time to grow.  For now, the visibility and good feeling the greenhouse gives to the community is a solid foundation for a sustainable future.

For the full interview with Vicky Poole, click here.

Photo by T-FIZ.

Taking decorative greenery a step further, Vicky’s belief in fostering the local food movement galvanized her vision of reconditioning a dying mall into a vibrant eco village.  Interest from New York Sun Works to demo sustainable indoor modular farm systems much like those tested aboard their Science Barge are in talks.  The mall’s existing restaurants are buying the freshly grown produce and a new breed of vendor is moving in like vegan restaurants and dedicated salad bars.

GA: So Vicky, the way I understand it, you took a trip to New York and this is kind of how you got the idea for the greenhouse, am I correct?

VP: Well, no.  You’re not.  But that’s okay.  I read it in a magazine, I read it in Urban Land and it was about one of the places in your city, it was about the Science Barge.

GA: Such a cool project.

VP: Yeah, it sounds like a very cool project.  And I started reading about the Science Barge and once I looked up on the Science Barge, I started reading about New York Sun Works , what they were doing with their vertical growing.  And, so, contacted them and started discussions with them on how to bring their vertical integrated farm into the Gallaria because they had an article that was talking about what they were planning on doing with New York Sunworks.  I guess it was conceived by New York Sunworks.

So I looked at that window and I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s like duplicate of our food court window.”  Completely.  I mean it looks like our food court was in the magazine with plants, pretty much, so that’s what made me think of it, because I thought, “Oh my gosh, we could do that.”  So I think it started from that and then as I started investigating vertical growing, the local food movement, it started the whole process because our building is like a natural greenhouse located in the city.  We’re centrally located in downtown.

GA: Right in downtown Cleveland.  Describe the building a little bit if you would.  You’re right in front of the tower there but it’s kind of a domed structure covered in glass, is that right?

VP: It’s a glass atrium.  It was built in ‘87 and it was built as a two-story mall, two-floor mall, and I think it had about 48 I think stores at the time and was considered one of the elite properties in downtown in shopping.  And, I don’t know, New York hasn’t experienced what Cleveland experienced but our retail pretty much left the city in 2002, thereabouts.

GA: There are enough empty stores to know something happened here.  We’re not all immune to it, though we like to think we are here.  So, are you seeing retail actually start to return as a result of the greenhouse?

VP: Well, I think it’s going to bring the comeback, it hasn’t happened yet, but what it has brought is visibility to the building in a new light.  I think too often people live with a building such as this and instead of looking at what it can be, they look at what it was.  And as long as they’re looking at what it was, it’s a doom and gloom story.  So if you start looking at space, and you start thinking about what it could be, all of a sudden, new things start to happen and that’s what my job has been since I’ve been here.  I started an event business about 6 years ago, I installed a curtain in the food court and when you pull that it becomes a room-in-the-round and a beautiful event space and we started having weddings here and fundraisers and it’s become a very dynamic part of what we are.  After that, again, I started reevaluating the space and when this idea came for urban growing and I got, again, more involved in the local food movement, I said there wasn’t any reason we couldn’t implement growing in different ways so that we could grow local food in our building and still be a business center and an event center.  We can still remain a community and yet benefit from the plants and the local food.  We have enough restaurants that will buy the product and it’s a better message for them too.

The more you get involved in something like this, the more possibilities you see because you realize that recycling is important here, composting is important because if you can get the food scraps over to composting and then possibly bring it back for growing, you know, that’s a message.  As this has started to evolve, it has sparked the interest of other businesses wanting to become involved in it.  My big picture was an eco village where it would have renewable energy sources so that there are companies that have new products available and, in turn, bring new business.  Now, we’ve already attracted a salad bar and we have a vegan restaurant looking at the space now too.

GA: So it’s a slow build.

VP: It’s a slow build but it’s a build.  It’s better than being nothing.  Having this, “Well, we can’t bring retail,” and, “the businesses, where are we gonna find them,” it brings us a new beginning.

GA: Well it takes a long time to grow plants too so…

VP: The plants (aren’t) the only thing, it’s just like one small little part of it.  Again, education’s key.  And as the plants are growing and we’re looking at different ways in which you can present that, we’re looking at different hydroponics, we’re looking at recirculating systems, drip systems, ebb-and-flow systems, the fact that we can grow in compost so some of it would be dirt and hopefully we can get this vertical wall in here.  We are going to build a demonstration unit for vertical, certainly not as beautiful as New York Sun Works pieces.  I mean, theirs is built in double glass so that it’s actually moving and they have quite a set-up that they do.  I have talked with them and they are interested in bringing one of their demos here so we’re kind of hoping that that would happen, I can’t say that it will but we have been in discussions with them a little bit.

In looking at the education of how you can grow in the city, all the different methods that you could grow in the city, then you start to look at all the other parts of sustainability and what they mean in our life.  So then you get into water collection, you get into renewable energy mean, you get into recycling and all of that so it does become a bigger picture, a bigger message than just growing, than just being a farm.

Photos courtesy of New York Sun Works and the Gallaria at Erieview.

Really glad to see this company is privatizing sustainability in NYC. This is a far cry from the misguided attempts at the corrupt leaders in this city.

This is a non-profit philanthropic organization supported by the Annenberg Foundation. They shoot films and photos that showcase the natural world – its animals, cultures, places, environment, etc.  Their material is of exceptional quality, very well-researched, and focuses heavily on real people making real change the world over.

Have a look at their latest video and redesigned website here.

The hand brakes have been applied to the pedal-powered production phase of a soon-to-be-released documentary film called Within Reach, a 6000 mile bike tour of communities, cohabitations, and communes shot entirely using solar-powered electronics and leg-powered bicycles.

We caught up with riders, director, and producer Ryan Mlynarczyk and Mandy Creighton encamped and rejuvenating at the Joyful Path Healing and Meditation Center out in Blue Mounds Wisconsin.

For us that meant eco villages, co-housing communities which are more of an urban, townhouse style co-habitation, a co-op where everybody lives under the same roof but you each have your own bedroom.  And then we also visited a couple of the old communes that are still around.

The movie isn’t slated to be screened until Earth Day 2011 but you can catch teasers, clips and blog posts on their website, WithinReachMovie.com.

For more on sustainable communities and the full interview with Mandy and Ryan, click here.

Photos by Ryan Mlynarczyk.

GA: We’re speaking with director Ryan Mlyarnczyck and producer Mandy Crighton who are now in post production for their upcoming documentary film Within Reach which takes the viewer along on a cross country tour of the United States’ sustainable communities, many of which have been thriving for many many years and others which are the product of new ways of thinking about sustainability and community.  Mandy and Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.

Super glad that we had a chance to hook up and thanks to Solana out in Occidental who I bumped into when I was out there speaking with Michael Stusser who is the owner of that wonderful oasis, Osmosis.  I don’t know if you guys ever had the chance to get out there but if you didn’t, do it.  Take the enzyme bath.  I highly recommend it.

It’s one thing to make a documentary film on sustainable communities but it’s another to do it in the way that you did.  Can you tell us what was special about how you actually toured the country and shot this movie?

MC: Sure, well, first of all, when we had the intention of going around and visiting sustainable communities, we thought, well we can’t show up in a car.  So that first sparked the idea of what’s the most sustainable way of get ourselves around and we experimented with solar bikes and solar trailers and electric bikes and things and ended up feeling like this is about wants versus needs and what do we actually need?  We need to get from place to place and the side benefits are optimum health, you get to experience nature and humanity in a whole new way.  I expected the nature side because when you’re on your bike you’re subject to the elements and whatever comes your way.  What I didn’t expect was the high level of interaction with people.

GA: When you’re on the ground level like that it’s inevitable that you’re gonna bump into people on a bike.

RM: Yeah, it’s almost like you become a magnet.  When people see two bikers with all this gear and flags and they look worn and weathered, instantly within two seconds people are like, “Where are you from?  Where’d you come from? Where have you biked?”  It’s like, “Does it look like I’ve traveled around the country?

GA: So it’s just you two in the production and you had saddle bags on the bikes, using touring cycles.  I’m curious about the actual physicalities of the set-up.  Can you run through the gear a little bit for me?

RM: It is just Mandy and me riding.  There are other people involved in the actual production but we’ll get into that later, like Solana for example. But, yes, Mandy and I, as riders we have experimented in many different ways with our gear.  We started off on a tandem recumbent bike and had saddlebags and panniers along with a solar powered electric assist bike trailer that we invented and showed off at the Maker Faire.  It was really fun, however, we found that in sustainability one of the first questions you gotta ask yourself is, “Is this a want or a need?”  And we quickly realized that a lot of the things we were bringing with us were definitely not needs, they were wants.  We got rid of a lot of the unnecessary gear like books, because they’re heavy, and extra clothes we didn’t need.  Even during the summer we got rid of our winter clothes and sent them to somebody who would hold them and when we needed our winter clothes we’d have them send them to us where we were.  Lot’s of little tricks of the trade to figure out how to keep your bike as light as possible.

MC: Some other things we did, of course, we carried lightweight backpacking gear but we call it “bikepacking.” Essentially it’s tent, sleeping bag, pads.  We joked that on each of our bikes we had four panniers, a rear rack back and a front rack and we would jokingly say, “Well, go in the kitchen and grab the fork.”  One of the panniers being the kitchen, one being the closet, so we sort of kept ourselves organized that way.  But one of the most amazing things that happened about bike touring that made this all possible is the site called WarmShowers.org.  I don’t know if the listeners have heard of this but for touring cyclists, it’s an amazing community and it’s online and it’s cyclists who open up their doors and host other cyclists who are on tour.

GA: Get outta here.

MC: No, it’s awesome.

GA: I would love that!

RM: Have you ever heard of couch surfing?

GA: Yes.

RM: It’s the same kind of a setup but it’s more geared toward bicyclists hosting other bicyclists.

GA: I wanted to just get back to something that I think is sort of up in the air for a lot of people, is this definition of sustainability.  It seems to have different meanings for different people and I just wanted to get a clear idea from you what defines a sustainable community and how you were able to determine which of these communities that you were going to visit.

MC: We tried to focus more on intentional communities, so smaller groups of people who live in the same region often on the same co-owned piece of land and who are trying to live as sustainably as possible.  Not just ecologically sustainable meaning by lightly and having a lower carbon footprint but by trying to live more economic, spiritual and socially sustainable lifestyles.  So this kind of redefines sustainability in a new way, it’s not just about the physical things you can do to change how you impact the earth but it’s also how we impact one another in our way of communicating and just being together.  We tended to narrow down the list that way, by people who were intentionally trying to live sustainably together.  And for us that meant ecovillages, co-housing communities which are more of an urban, townhouse-style cohabitation.  Co-ops, where everybody lives under the same roof but you each have your own bedroom.  And then we also visited a couple of the old communes that are still around.  There are a few but there are actually a few incoming sharing communes that started up in the 60s and 70s that have adapted their lifestyles and are still thriving.  And then lastly, we visited a few transition towns which is the more accessible part of this movement to anybody and that’s where an entire town decides okay we’re gonna get together and transition our city or our township to become a sustainable community.

GA: So a town that may have been affected by some kind of natural disaster where they have to overhaul the community or is it something else?

RM: Are you talking about Greensburg, Kansas?

GA: That’s the one I guess.

RM: That’s one that’s actually on our list.

MC: That could actually be an ideal situation because they’re at kind of ground zero and they can start from scratch but we’re also talking about just existing towns that are saying, “Hey!  This isn’t working.  Peak oil is coming, global climate change is happening.”  Whatever’s the motivation but we want to live more sustainable lifestyles.  And they buy this book, The Transition Handbook, get a group together and just start relocalizing.

RM: The great thing about it is that it started in England and there’s already over 100 or 200 in the world that started through England and now there’s like 50 in the US with over 500 cities that are trying to become a transition town.  It’s a huge movement.

GA: Looking at the stats it looks like you guys covered something like 6,042 miles all told which is quite a haul.  Was there much danger along the way?

RM: That’s interesting because I remember being interviewed by another crew at the beginning of the journey about that same question and I think a lot of people by asking me that question wonder, first of all, how it could be possible to bike all across the country on all different types of roads and not be hit by a car.  I tell you, there is something special about being on the road with all that gear and as long as you’re visible, cars really watched out.  For most of the time on the trip we had no issues with cars.  There were about three or four incidents, we had narrow misses but it was mainly due to Mandy and I getting bored out there on a desert road and wandering in too close to a lane and the same thing happened with the big rig who wandered too close to us. It missed us by inches but for the most part, after 6,000 miles I was completely shocked by the miraculous safety that we had throughout the journey.

GA: Was there something that happened along the way that was a particularly magical moment, something unexplainably amazing, hopeful, shocking…

MC: I’d say one of the most magical moments that will definitely be in the film is an interview with a gentleman named Sam Katz.  Who chose to live in co-housing in Madision, WI, and he chose that because he has a disability – CP. This is one way he thought he could have a more balanced life and be able to give an receive equally.  I think people with disabilities often thing, well, “How can I live a sustainable life and how can I contribute to this movement?  I’m just a burden.” And he, in this community, is able to give an receive so equally.  I mean, I was brought to tears in the interview.

RM: I was brought to tears too because his gift in life to people is his presence.  I don’t think he even realized that until we started crying and he hadn’t even done anything, he was just talking.  The way he talks, by the way is really – it requires a lot of patience.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard people with severe stuttering problems but it’s like that times 10.  The way he talks makes you slow down but if you’re patient enough to listen to him he says things that are absolutely brilliant.  I mean, the guys a genius but he just can’t communicate like a genius.  This guy was just so brilliant because he taught us that you don’t have to give money, you don’t have to give labor, you don’t have to give skills.  You can actually just give your heart and be a gift to a community.

GA: When can we expect to see the film?

RM: You can expect to see it on Earth Day, 2011, that’s our goal.

MC: In the meantime, our website is updated weekly with teaser clips, two minute teasers which give practical information about things you can do right now in your life to live more sustainably and create community right where you’re at.  And we’re blogging and constantly sharing stories from the tour.

RM: I just wanted to give a plug to this amazing community we’re staying at right now through the winter.  It’s called the Joyful Path Healing and Meditation Center out in Blue Mounds, WI, which, in itself is a sacred portal place.  It’s an old Indian burial ground and it’s just outside Madison, about 25 miles west and they are struggling to keep the doors open because they’re kind of out in the boonies here.  But, if anybody is coming through this winter to the Madison area, please stop on by.  We’re giving monthly workshops about our journey and about sustainably community living and the most important feature of these presentations will be something that’s quickly coming up in mass consciousness which is that, we believe that sustainable communities are only within reach once you reach within.  So the thing that we’re learning the most about, of course, is meditation and natural healing and just greater well being through preventative healthcare and just living a healthier lifestyle in general.  If you wanna come learn more about that we’re out at this amazing place with some Buddhist monastics who are crazy cool young people about our age.

GA: Our guests have been Ryan Mlynarczyk and Mandy Creighton, director and produced of the pedal-powered forthcoming documentary film, Within Reach and visit WithinReachMovie.com for first look.

Photos by Ryan Mlynarczyk, Conscious Photography.

It’s unfortunately all too common for most homes, whether in a hot or cold climate, to be improperly insulated against whatever weather conditions it faces.  This could mean thousands of dollars a year in energy costs not to mention the toll energy transmission and generation takes only to be wasted on the end user.

One solution, at least for those bracing against cold, is  selecting one of the new lines of electric space heaters available.  Here are a couple things to keep in mind when buying:

1.) Only go for newer model heaters up to date with all the current safety features which bare the UL stamp of approval.

-and-

2.) Choose a thermostatically controlled heater, as they avoid the energy waste of overheating a room.

One such model that fits these specs and was tested here at Green Air HQ is the Dayton U33 Electric Space Heater available at Air-n-Water.com.  It’s compact, thermostatically adjustable, and even electrostatically adjustable saving us from bank account busting winter heating costs.

For more specs on space heaters and ways to stay sustainably comfy, check out the following links.

Portable Heaters (United States Department of Energy)

Space Heaters: Reviews (ConsumerSearch.com)

Eco Heater: Good for chilly rooms and heating bills (GreenUpgrader.com)

Photo by oatmeal2000.

Check out Revel In in it’s full glory here.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Kombucha is a fermented tea that is imbibed for medicinal purposes. Although there is limited specific scientific information supporting any purported benefits due to a lack of studies being conducted, there does exist much anecdotal information purporting its historical medicinal value.[1]. Kombucha is available commercially, but can be made at home by fermenting tea using a visible solid mass of microorganisms called a kombucha culture or mushroom.

Biology of kombucha

The culture contains a symbiosis of Acetobacter (acetic acid bacteria) and yeast, mostly Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Candida stellata, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Torulaspora delbrueckii and Zygosaccharomyces bailii.

The culture itself looks somewhat like a large pancake, and though often called a mushroom, a mother of vinegar or by the acronym SCOBY (for “Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast”), it is scientifically classified as a zoogleal mat.

History and names

The recorded history of kombucha began in Ukraine and Russia during the late 19th century. In Russian, the kombucha culture is called čajnyj grib чайный гриб (lit. “tea mushroom”), and the drink itself is called grib гриб (“mushroom”), “tea kvass” квас, or simply kvass, which differs from regular kvass traditionally made from water and stale rye bread.

In Chinese, kombucha is called hongchajun 红茶菌 (lit. “black tea fungus/mushroom”), hongchagu 红茶菇 (“black tea mushroom”), or chameijun 茶霉菌 (“tea mold”).

In Japanese, the kombucha drink is known as “kōcha kinoko” 紅茶キノコ (lit. “black tea mushroom”). Both the Chinese and Japanese names use hongcha or kōcha “black tea” rather than cha 茶 tea or lü cha 綠茶 “green tea”.

Japanese kombu 昆布 “a Laminaria kelp; sea tangle” is dried and powdered to produce a beverage called kombucha (lit. “kelp tea”). The English kombucha fermented tea name is pronounced like, and confused with, the Japanese kombucha seaweed tea name.[2]

Some promotional kombucha sources propagate falsehoods that the history of this tea-based beverage originated in ancient China or Japan, but in both cases centuries prior to knowledge of tea (see history of tea in China and history of tea in Japan). One author claims kombucha, famously known as the “Godly Tsche [i.e., tea]” during the Chinese Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), was “a beverage with magical powers enabling people to live forever”.[3] There are no recorded references to either tea or “godly tea” during the Qin dynasty. Another author claims an etymology from “a Korean doctor named Kombu treated the Japanese Emperor Ingyō in 415 A.D.”[4] The early Japanese history Kojiki does mention an envoy from the ancient Korean state Silla who was “deeply versed in the medical art” and cured the Emperor’s sickness – but his name was 金武, which is pronounced Korean Kim/Gim Mu or Japanese Kin/Kon Mu.[5]

Components

Kombucha contains many different cultures along with several organic acids, active enzymes, amino acids, and polyphenols. [6] For the home brewer, there is no way to know the amounts of the components unless a sample is sent to a laboratory. Kombucha, has been safety-checked by The US Food and Drug Administration . Final kombucha may contain some of the following components depending on the source of the culture: Acetic acid, which provides much anti-microbial activity; butyric acid, gluconic acid, glucuronic acid, lactic acid, malic acid, oxalic acid, usnic acid, as well as some B-vitamins.[7]

Due to the acidic fermentation process used in its brewing, Kombucha contains ethyl alcohol in amounts that vary from 0.5% to 1.5%[8], depending on anaerobic brewing time and proportions of microbe. Commercial preparations are typically 0.5% for distribution and safety reasons.

Additionally, some tea makers offer a dried version of kombucha, mixed with the tea leaves, that dissolves in hot water.[9]

Health Claims

Kombucha proponents[10] claim many advantages such as increased energy, sharper eyesight, better skin condition, and better experience with foods that ’stick’ going down such as rice or pasta.

A review of the published literature on the safety of kombucha suggests no specific oral toxicity in rats,[11] although it has also been shown to increase the size of both the liver and spleen in mice.[12] While no randomized case-controlled studies have been published in humans, several unsubstantiated reports have suspected liver damage, metabolic acidosis and life-threatening toxicity.[13][14] Other reports suggest that care should be taken when taking medical drugs or hormone replacement therapy while regularly drinking kombucha.[15] It may also cause allergic reactions. [16]

Other health claims may be due to the simple acidity of the drink, possibly influencing the production of stomach acids or modifying the communities of microorganisms in the GI tract.[citation needed]

Scientific Claims

Health claims for kombucha focus on a chemical called glucuronic acetate, a compound that is used by the liver for detoxification. The idea that glucuronic acid is present in kombucha is based on the observation that glucuronic acid conjugates (glucuronic acid + waste chemicals) are increased in the urine after consumption of kombucha.

Early chemical analysis of kombucha brew suggested that glucuronic acid was the key component, and researchers hypothesized that the extra glucuronic acid would assist the liver by supplying more of the substance during detoxification. These analyses were done using gas chromatography to identify the different chemical constituents, but this method relies on having proper chemical standards to match to the unknown chemicals.

A more recent and thorough analysis, outlined in the book in Analysis of Kombucha Ferments by Michael Roussin.[17] suggests a different explanation. Roussin reports on an extensive chemical analysis of a variety of commercial and homebrew versions of kombucha, and finds no evidence of glucuronic acid at all. These scientific measurements contradict the earlier studies and conflict with the original hypothesis.

Instead, Roussin discovered that the active component in kombucha is most likely glucaric acid. This compound, also known as D – glucaro -1,4 lactone, helps in the elimination of glucuronic acid conjugates that are produced by the liver. When glucuronic acid conjugates are disposed in the bowel during the elimination process, normal gut bacteria can break up these conjugates using an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. Glucaric acid is an inhibitor of this bacterial enzyme, so the end result is that the glucuronic acid + waste is properly eliminated the first time, rather than being reabsorbed and detoxified over and over. Thus, glucaric acid probably makes the liver more efficient.

Interestingly, glucaric acid is commonly found in fruits and vegetables, and is being explored independently as a cancer preventive agent.[18] It has also been discovered that the bacterial beta-glucuronidase enzyme can interfere with proper disposal of a chemotherapeutic agent, and that antibiotics against the gut microbiota can prevent toxicity of some chemotherapy drugs.[19]

Reports of adverse reactions may be related to unsanitary fermentation conditions, leaching of compounds from the fermentation vessels,[20] or “sickly” kombucha cultures that cannot acidify the brew. Cleanliness is important during preparation, and in most cases, the acidity of the fermented drink prevents growth of unwanted contaminants. If a culture becomes contaminated, it will most likely be seen as common mold which is often green, blue or black in color. Often novice brewers will mistake the brownish root filaments on the underside of the culture as a mold contamination when it is seen through the surface of a thinly formed culture.

Safety and contamination

As with all foods, care must be taken during preparation and storage to prevent contamination. Keeping the kombucha brew safe and contamination-free is a concern to many home brewers. Key components of food safety when brewing kombucha include clean environment, proper temperature, and low pH.

There is a low rate of homebrew contamination which might be explained by protective mechanisms, such as formation of organic acids and antibiotic substances. Thus, subjects with a healthy metabolism do not need to be advised against cultivating Kombucha. However, those suffering from immunosuppression should preferably consume controlled commercial Kombucha beverages.[21]

In every step of the preparation process, it is important that hands and utensils (anything that is going to come into contact with the culture) be dish soap clean so as not to contaminate the kombucha. Kombucha becomes very acidic (in the neighborhood of pH 3.0 when finished) and so can leach unwanted and potentially toxic material from the container in which it is fermenting. Food-grade glass is very safe. Gunther Frank says on his website [22] that besides glass, acceptable containers include china, glazed (without lead) earthenware, stainless steel and food-grade high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP). Keeping cultures covered and in a clean environment also reduces the risk of introducing contaminants and insects.
Mold contamination on the culture surface.

Maintaining a correct pH is an important factor in a home-brew. Acidic conditions are favorable for the growth of the kombucha culture, and inhibit the growth of molds and bacteria. The pH of the kombucha batch should be between 2.5 and 4.6. [23] A pH of less than 2.5 makes the drink too acidic for normal human consumption, while a pH greater than 4.6 increases the risk of contamination. Use of fresh “starter tea” and/or distilled vinegar can be used to control pH. Some brewers test the pH at the beginning and the end of the brewing cycle to ensure that the correct pH is achieved and that the brewing cycle is complete.

If mold does grow on the surface of the kombucha culture, or “mushroom,” it is best to throw out both culture and tea and start again with a fresh kombucha culture.

Kombucha mother and the symbiotes

The Kombucha Mother, shown in a square shape, is not unlike the thickness of a well risen pancake, and takes the shape of its container. It is a rapidly multiplying bacterial mass floating atop a yeast filled fluid. The bacteria are of the genus Mycoderma (Greek for fungus skin). The yeast below are involved in fermenting and receive oxygen for this process, passed by the bacteria. Acetic acid is created by the yeast, hence the second, title word Aceti (Latin for of the acid). Kombucha is “Mycoderma Aceti”. Kombucha is “mother of acid”. [24]

“Kombucha tea” is a homemade drink of the living medium of Kombucha. Kombucha contains both bacteria and yeasts. Normally these two microorganisms are at odds with one another, but in this case there is a symbiosis. It is able to repel other organisms such as molds and bacteria that would normally contaminate such a long-standing culture. It keeps its liquid’s pH low to accomplish this.

The lake of black tea has been highly sweetened with sugar.

Brew

Tea is the medium of the mother. Kombucha tea is a tea flavored to the tastes of the consumer and to the general gustatory sense of a flavor profile that is inevitably, to some degree, pungent and acidic. Black tea is a popular choice but green tea may also be used as well as any other flavor. The resultant flavor profile should take into account the tendency for a slightly acidic and pungent background. Sugars assist fermentation. The sweet brew is added to the container with the mother, and the container covered with a porous cloth to deter dust and organisms while allowing fresh oxygen into the container.

During a week or two of fermentation, frequent samples are taken to taste for some desired balance between sweet and sour. Eventually the liquid is tapped. Some liquid is retained to keep the pH low to deter contaminant microorganisms. The process repeats itself indefinitely. The mother will eventually produce a “daughter”, which can easily be directly handled, separated like two pancakes, and moved to another container. The yeast in the tapped liquid will then continue to live. A second wait time for about a week produces more carbonation.

Left entirely alone the Kombucha settles into months of production time (producing daughters perhaps), creating an ever more acidic and vinegar-dominated cider. At any point the Kombucha can be checked for daughter or tapped or have tea added. An amount of liquid from the previous batch will preserve some yeast.

References

1. ^ Kombucha / Manchurian Tea / Mo-Gu / Fungo Japon
2. ^ Crystal Wong, U.S. ‘kombucha’: smelly and no kelp, The Japan Times July 12, 2007
3. ^ Harald W. Tietze, 1995, Kombucha” The Miracle Fungus, Tietze Publications, p. 7.
4. ^ Siobhan Roth, Kombucha fermenting a revolution in health drinks, Pittsburg Post-Gazette June 07, 2007.
5. ^ Basil Hall Chamberlain, 1919, The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Mattters, The Asiatic Society of Japan, p. 367. Chamberlain transcribes the doctor’s full name as “Komu-ha-chimu-kamu-ki-mu” 金波鎮漢紀武, and notes “that 金 is the surname, 波鎮 an official title, 漢紀 an official designation of the kinsmen of the Korean King, and 武 the personal name.”
6. ^ >{{cite news | first=Brad | last=Stone | coauthors= | title=FDA CAUTIONS CONSUMERS ON “KOMBUCHA MUSHROOM TEA” | date=1995-03-23 | publisher=Food and Drug Administration |
7. ^ Aleksandra, Velicanski (2007). “Antimicrobial And Antioxidant Activity Of Lemon Balm Kombucha“. Acta periodica technologica: 165. doi:10.2298/APT0738165V.
8. ^ Acute effects of alcohol administration on regional cerebral blood flow: the role of acetate. Alcohol, Clinical Experimental Research. 1993. pp. 1119–23.. PMID 8116820. “These findings suggest that both acetate and alcohol contribute to the changes in CBF seen in the intoxication syndrome and that their relative influence is age-dependent.”.
9. ^ Subacute（90Days） Oral Toxicity Studies of Kombucha Tea 生物医学与环境科学：英文版－作者:R.VIJAYARAGHAVAN MANINDERSINGH 等
10. ^ Kombucha – Healthy Elixer Or Not?
11. ^ Kombucha: a systematic review of the clinical evidence
12. ^ Sunghee Kole, A; HD Jones, R Christensen, et al. (May-June 2009). “A case of Kombucha tea toxicity“. Journal of Intensive Care Medicine 24 (3): 205-207.
13. ^ Srinivasan MD, Radhika; Susan Smolinske, PharmD & David Greenbaum MD (October 1997). “Probable Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Kombucha Tea Is This Beverage Healthy or Harmful?“. Journal of General Internal Medicine 12 (10): 643–645. doi:10.1046/j.1525-1497.1997.07127.x.
14. ^ Kombucha “Mushroom” Hepatotoxicity
15. ^ Roussin, Michael R.. “About the Kombucha Consumer Research Group“. Kombucha-Research.com.
16. ^ Walaszek, Z. (1990-10-08). “Potential use of D-glucaric acid derivatives in cancer prevention“. Cancer Letters (Elsevier Science Ireland) 54 (1-2): 1–8. doi:10.1016/0304-3835(90)90083-A. PMID 2208084.
17. ^ Involvement of ß-Glucuronidase in Intestinal Microflora in the Intestinal Toxicity of the Antitumor Camptothecin Derivative Irinotecan Hydrochloride (CPT-11) in Rats
18. ^ Phan, Tri Giang; Jane Estell, Geoffrey Duggin, Ian Beer, Diane Smith and Mark J Ferson (1998). “Lead poisoning from drinking Kombucha tea brewed in a ceramic pot“. The Medical Journal of Australia (Australasian Medical Publishing Company) (169): 644–646.
19. ^ MAYSER P. (1) ; FROMME S. ; LEITZMANN C. ; GRÜNDER K. (1998). “The yeast spectrum of Kombucha“. Blackwell, Berlin, ALLEMAGNE.
20. ^ How to make your own Kombucha Tea
21. ^ Nirinjan Singh (2005). “Ph Levels For Kombucha Tea Beverage“.
22. ^ a convenience link to Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

* Tietze, Harald W.: Kombucha – The Miracle Fungus. Gateway Books. ISBN 1-85860-029-4.
* Dipti, et al. Lead induced oxidative stress: beneficial effects of Kombucha tea. Biomed Environ Sci. 2003 Sep;16(3):276-82.
* Ernst, et al. Kombucha: a systematic review of the clinical evidence. Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd / Research in Complementary and Classical Natural Medicine 2003;10:85-87.
* Pauline, et al. Studies on toxicity, anti-stress and hepato-protective properties of Kombucha tea. Biomed Environ Sci. 2001 Sep;14(3):207-13.
* Teoh, et al. Yeast ecology of Kombucha fermentation. Int J Food Microbiol. 2004 Sep 1;95(2):119-26.
* Frank, Günther W.: Kombucha – Healthy beverage and natural remedy from the Far East. Its correct preparation and use, Ennsthaler Gesellschaft GmbH & Co KG: 1995, ISBN 978-3850683371
* System of A Down: Sugar

Video by Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness.

Ghoulish as it may sound, the business of burials is something we’re all fated to deal with eventually but new environmentally responsible options to handle this morbidly necessary event have emerged here in the US adding a note of green to this eerie realm of commerce.

Elizabeth Fournier, Director of Cornerstone Funeral Services and Cremation in Boring, Oregon, is the self-proclaimed “Green Reaper.”

A lot of people have chosen cremation already and a lot of that is the idea of, ‘Hey, I don’t want to take up space, I don’t want my family to shell out a bunch of cash, and I want to do something good for the environment.’ But of course, what we’re learning is the idea of cremating somebody isn’t so environmentally conscious as we once thought.  Actually burying somebody  the Green way with no chemicals, no concretes, and no metals in the soil is actually a better choice.

It’s the goal of Ms. Fournier and others in her industry to offer ways families can continue the responsible legacy of their deceased…beyond the grave.

For more on this and the full interview with Elizabeth Fornier, scythe through some of the following links:

Composting the dead (Environmental Graffiti)

Burials and cemeteries go green (NPR)

Do cemeteries impact on the environment? (University of Technology, Sydney)

Japan’s high tech graveyard solution as burial space grows scarce (Treehugger)

Artwork by amanda.f.i.

Green Air Filter:

A small yet potent architectural firm whose principals happen to be close friends and occasional business partners of mine, recently completed construction of a very green, very LEED residential townhouse project just down the way in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn (full article and interview is forthcoming).  The project began in 2006, weathered the nightmare market, ran up against DOB blockades thrown up by officials whom had no idea what evacuated tube solar hot water systems meant, and only in the past weeks has the developer been able to show off his dream to potential buyers.

As expressed so eloquently and succinctly by the author of this article, Shari Shapiro, Attorney and LEED AP, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission only just recently by way of what appears to be logical deduction and something that actually resembles reason concluded that companies might actually be encouraged to invest in green technologies as climate risk has been equated to a risk to shareholders.  The correlation between what the SEC has done and what my friends at Cycle Architects are doing is that with perseverance, good work, determination, and knowing what’s just, eventually, dreams do come true.

Photo by webjunkie80.

Here’s what Boston-based NGO and founding organization World Eduation has to say about The Learning Farm’s purpose:

In Indonesia, poor, vulnerable youth have been deeply affected by the country’s economic crises and lack both education and economic opportunities. Many feel hopeless at a time when they should be optimistic about the future. Lacking education, skills, or support, they are at risk of being trapped in a cycle of poverty and never realizing their full potential.

The Learning Farm seeks to address the lack of skills, opportunities and hope amongst vulnerable Indonesian youth by providing entrepreneurial and life skills training in the context of an operational organic farm. Located in Puncak, West Java, the Learning Farm provides Indonesian youth with the tools and skills needed to live healthy and productive lives and become change agents within their own communities.

The Learning Farm is a community where vulnerable youth can find opportunity and support; an educational center where these youth can obtain practical skills and knowledge; a productive organic farm as the primary educational medium; a social enterprise where youth apply their new skills to benefit themselves and support the sustainability of the Learning Farm; and a networking center where experience and lessons learnt are shared with other organizations working with vulnerable youth as well as with the community at large.

The farm serves as both an educational center and an organic farm, where students take responsibility for tasks related to running the farm and participate in structured learning activities that utilize a “learning by doing” approach. The farm’s curriculum includes basic literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills, organic farming, enterprise development, health, life skills, computers, and English. Using environmentally-sound growing methods, the youth work in teams to produce organic vegetables for their own consumption and also for sale. Most importantly, the farm has become a community where young people feel welcome, work directly with supportive adults, and have a chance to focus their energy and intelligence on building meaningful skills and relationships that will help them over the course of their lives.

Speakers include:

• Ji Way Tung of the Learning Farm.  Click here for video.
• Ben Flanner from Greenpoint’s Rooftop Farms.
• Beekeeper Meg of Brooklyn Honey.
• A pickling demonstration by Shamus Jones of Brooklyn Brine.
• Michael Haggerty and Raj Kottamasu, 1st Place Award Winners of the Resilientcity.org design competition.
• Joann Kim, Chief Organizer of the fabulously new fresh, local, and poised on the brink of greatness, Greenpoint Food Market.
• Special musical performance by Darcy and Mark Dunn.

Please RSVP to corielizabeth@gmail.com.

If you cannot make the fundraiser but would like to contribute, please email corielizabeth@mail.com for a PayPal donation page.

Habana Outpost is located at 757 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11217.  Take the G to Fulton St. or the C to Lafayette Ave.

See you there!!!

Headline photo by Gill & Andy of Bogor Blog.  Midroll photo by David Hagerman of Eating Asia.

Marina of the Zabbaleen, a new documentary by Torch Films, enters the lives of this largely Coptic Christian tribe seen through the eyes of three children and their mother.  Barely eking out survival in this poor community, Marina’s tribe subsists by collecting nearly half of Cairo’s municipal solid waste, separating it into its recyclable components and feeding what’s left to their pigs.

When the H1N1 virus, or Swine Flu, was declared an international pandemic, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak ordered all the country’s 300,000 hogs slaughtered.  The result was an all out halt of Egypt’s decentralized, natural and sustainable waste disposal system – the hungry pigs.

Now, the garbage heaps in Cairo are too much for the Zabbaleen to control themselves, effectively burying the unfortunate tribe under the very material that kept them alive.

For a look at Marina of the Zabbaleen, click here.

Screenshots taken from Marina of the Zabbaleen courtesy of Torch Films.

On the fringe of experimental earth science exists a theoretical and nearly improbable study of climate called geoengineering or terraforming.  The basic idea is if we do certain things to alter our atmospheric composition or sunlight intake, we’ll be able to counteract the negative effects of the damage we’ve already done.

One theory suggests that if we shot more sulphur into the atmosphere, it wold enhance a cloud’s ability to reflect sunlight.  Only problem is that atmospheric sulphur particles are what make acid rain and is usually the byproduct of dirty factory pollution.  Other theories involve enriching the sea with iron to propagate plankton growth, one of nature’s most efficient carbon removers.

In the end, the unwitting tampering with fragile climate systems seems only to have presented more problems but an open discussion of geoengineering has new solutions emerging into the mainstream.

For more on geoengineering, take a look at some of the following links:

Geoengineering our way out of trouble (Columbia University)

The human element to geoengineering (Op Ed News)

Recruiting plankton to fight global warming (NY Times)

Diagram by Kathleen Smith/LLNL