Sample requests and color choices can be found on the Shetka Stone website.

Alkemi is a recycled aluminum solid surfacing material made right here in Baltimore (Maryland). The product is composite of a polyester-based medium and post-industrial scrap waste soft-alloy aluminum flake fillers for texture. Recycled content is 35% by weight or 60% by volume as certified by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS). In addition, Alkemi’s manufacturer, Renewed Materials LLC, claims that the product has no hazardous environmental footprint and can be applied to a variety of LEED credits including Recycled Content (MR 4.1/4.2), Locally Extracted Materials (MR 5.1/5.2), and Low-VOC (EQ).

The material is available in Textured, Classic and Honed finishes as well as a select number of opaque finishes. Installation of the product is similar to most other solid surface materials meaning that it can be cut and shaped using ‘conventional woodworking machinery’ such as saws, routers and CNC machines. The manufacturer recommends that Classic and Honed finishes can be sanded and joined seamlessly, whereas Textured must be cut and glued which leaves a small joint visible.

Alkemi is the kind of material we as designers should search out in projects. It is strikingly beautiful. It is sustainable. And it is produced locally (for those in Maryland). I argue that a product like Alkemi has a beauty, a holistic beauty, that becomes more and more meaningful as the aesthetic, manufacture, delivery, installation and recycling aspects become exposed. Can a material be considered beautiful if it leaves a wreck of the environment and local economy? I say no. It means that designers have to set sustainability goals and help material manufacturers generate the next generation of holistically beautiful building products.

For more information please visit the Alkemi website.

A design philosophy that is built on balancing three criteria: beauty, performance, and sustainability. Sounds like any number of design firms’ mantra these days, but in this case it belongs to Nau, a new and quite possibly revolutionary outdoor clothing company. They’ve been getting a lot of press lately, and for good reason – the product lines have been designed from the ground up including the 28 of the 30 eco-friendly textiles in the line; the innovative retail concept, called a webfront, seeks to fuse web based retailing with the traditional boutique by encouraging consumers to use stores to get to know the material, fit and finish of the products but have the products shipped to their homes directly thereby reducing the size of the store and inventory. Nau offers free shipping to the home, and a 10% discount for using the self service kiosks. A smaller store means they store inventory in warehouses, which use 1/16th the amount of energy than a retail boutique, and a smaller inventory means simply a smaller physical and environmental footprint. And just to give you an added reason to consider the products, Nau donates a remarkable 5% of each sale to one of their environmental, social, or humanitarian partner groups – and the consumer gets to choose which one. Check it out!

You can learn more about this innovative start-up here and a link to their great website here. Be sure to check out the grey matters section for information on carbon offsets, clothes made from corn (who knew?!) and more…

A Swedish inventor has developed a way to remove most of the water content from food waste. That is significant because food waste, the organic material thrown out of kitchens everyday, is typically composed of up to 75% water when it is put into the garbage. The water present in the organic material causes the waste to smell, makes it tough to handle and increases its weight significantly (1 gallon = ~8 lbs.). These extremely negative attributes of food waste make city or district food waste recycling programs challenging to initiate.

The system, named Somnus, is currently running in a one year pilot program. 180 residents of Sister Estrids Street in Guldheden, Gothenberg, are being asked to put their organic waste in paper bags and bring it to the Somnus unit (pictured below). On the user end the process is not significantly different from the way they dispose of waste currently. You see, many communities in Sweden already sort organic waste from inorganic trash. The organic waste is usually turned into biogas, incinerated, or made into agricultural composte. The only difference for the residents is that they put their food waste into a Somnus paper bag and bring it to the Somnus unit for disposal. The unit then chops the waste and uses a secret process of vented drying and bacterial additives to remove moisture present in the waste.

The Somnus unit uses about .75 kWh per month and that would serve nearly 200 families. It is in fact a very small number when compared to the energy costs of transporting untreated waste by truck to a processing facility.

The results are impressive. The food waste becomes finely chopped dry odor free (relatively) material. The volume and weight of material needing to be transported is greatly reduced. Couple that with the fact that the waste can be retrieved twice per year instead of 52 times as is necessitated by the traditional organic collection system and the energy savings become remarkable. The dried food waste can be used directly in agricultural applications, burned or used in biogas. In addition, studies cited by the Smedlund Environmental Method Company claim that the dried material can actually produce 30% more biogas than wet waste.

It remains to be seen whether or not this innovation will make a difference in adoption rates for biogas technology and food waste recycling. I am encouraged however by the appearance of such an innovation to what is an age-old process for preserving material. I have always believed that the most effective way to make our world more sustainable is not to invent entire new sciences, but just to make the technologies we already have more efficient.

For more information please visit the Smedlund Miljosystem website.