Purekitchen on Sourcemap

As I perused Treehugger over the weekend, I stumbled across Sourcemap, self-described as "an open-sourced project about where things come from." It is definitely something I have been thinking about -- a great tool for developing transparency in sourcing and, ultimately, in creating a lower-impact product. There is definitely a margin of error at the moment, but I wanted to share the results nonetheless.

via Treehugger

IKEA's Sustainability Report

I am a little behind the times, but I just came across IKEA's 2008 Sustainability Report. While still open to a bit of criticism, it's still surprisingly comprehensive. Take a look here.

Lots and Lots of Water

Monte Sereno, CA resident Jerry Block has upped the ante on residential rainwater collection. The 20k gallon capacity of the tanks, a figure dervied from the area's annual rainfall, are projected to collect enough water to irrigate his acre of crops and, in turn, feed 2 people for the year. More photos and article here.

via The Los Angeles Times

The Story of Particleboard

Slate recently published a good beginner's-guide to buying wood products. From the standpoint of a sustainably-minded kitchen designer, durability is at the top of list. Unfortunately, with durability often comes a higher price, which for many people is out of reach. The compromise, we find, is to find lower-cost and less durable materials that are manufactured more efficiently, from recycled fibers, and without the formaldehyde. Read the full article here.

Fred Pearce at the Guardian

I recently came across Fred Pearce's recurring article for The Guardian. Fairly depressing, but enlightening nonetheless. Find Pearce's articles here.

For the Love of the Planet...And Scotch

Scottish utilities provider, ScottishPower, announced this week plans to construct an tidal energy system projected to supply the island of Islay, known for its historic Scotch distilleries, with 100% of their power. The project foreshadows the Scottish government's goal of 2GW of tidal-generated electricity throughout Scotland by 2020. While there's no consensus among the island's 3000 inhabitants (one objection being the danger to fishing nets), substantial government subsidies and far-sighted investment groups appear to have won out. Furthermore, the "out-of-sight" nature of project seems to have quelled the NIMBY populace. See the full article here.
via The Guardian