Midwest Eco-Design - Your home for eco-friendly construction, remodeling & housing choices including prefrabricated homes, cabins and other sustainable material choices.

You need something that can get messy without messing up the planet.  Recycled glass is a gorgeous, durable, and stainproof option.

EnviroGLAS's EnviroSLAB countertop

Bio-Glass makes solid surfacing for countertops, walls, or anywhere else you want to slap it down.  Want something with a bit more pizzazz?  EnviroGLAS makes recycled terrazzo with glass from discarded bottles, and porcelain from recycled sinks.  IceStone and Vetrazzo area two more terrazzolike options made with at least 75% recycled glass (Vetrazzo used old traffic lights, windshields, and more!).  Eleek makes slick metallic counter tiles out of 100% recycled aluminum.

Sounds crazy but you can also get counters made with recycled paper that can actually stand up to kitchen use;  two sources are paperstoneproducts.com and shetkastone.com.  And keep your eyes out for butcher block surfaces made with reclaimed and local FSC wood, as well as bamboo.  Just note that wood doesn’t hold up as well over time and durability is a cornerstone of sustainable renovations.

Wheatboard Cabinets

Whether you’re trying to cover up your mismatched beer stein collection or you’re showing off your matching china, you’ll need cabinets to hold it all.  Stay away from anything made of pressed sawdust and wood shavings, like medium-density fiberboard (MDF) and particleboard.  They sound eco-friendly because they should be made with by-products from the wood-cutting process, but they actually use up to 80% virgin tree content, according to Green Seal.  Plus, all that sawdust is bound together with the probable human carcinogen urea formaldehyde, which offgasses air-polluting, headache-inducing fumes into your home.  So even if you’re buying regular cabinets from mainstream stores, avoid MDF and particleboard unless you know they’re formaldehyde-free or have only trace amounts, like IKEA’s cabinetry.

Looking for something in a deeper shade of green?  You’ve got a few options.  One is strawboard or wheatboard cabinets.  Made of compressed waste straw or wheat stems, they’re basically bio-based particleboard, or MDF, made without formaldehyde and often finished with a pretty veneer of sustainable wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).  Humabuilt and CitiLog both offer cabinets made with formaldehyde-free wheatboard with certified wood exteriors.  EcoCraft uses FSC veneers on urea formaldehyde-free fiberboard.

Eco-Craft Kitchen Cabinets

Wherever you end up buying, be sure to ask for water-based finishes, low-VOC stains or paints, or natural oils.  Otherwise, get them unfinished and stain them yourself.

Manufactured housing is projected to achieve above-average growth through 2011, and approach $6.4 million. This is the result of a positive shipments growth after a long period of depressed demand during which easier credit and rising home value made site-built homes relatively more attractive (the wonderful housing boom that has since crashed the US economy. Those houses aren’t looking so attractive now are they?). Driving demand for manufactured housing will be multisection units, particularly those with three or more sections. Demand for multisection manufactured housing will benefit from increased market penetration, as households increasingly choose the economy of manufactured housing over site-built homes.

Shipments of precut homes are forecast to perform the best of all other types of prefabricated housing. Shipments are expected to grow about two percent annually to 20,500 units in 2011. Demand will be particularly strong in the growing Midwest housing market, but will also benefit from increased market penetration in the contracting housing market of the South.

The Midwest region is expected to be the fastest growing source of demand for prefabricated housing through 2011. This region accounted for approximately 18 percent of total demand for prefabricated housing in 2006, second only to the South. Rebounding from the poorest performance of any region from 2001 to 2006, demand for new housing in the Midwest is forecast to grow through 2011, providing favorable conditions for prefabricated housing. Strength in the Midwest will be particularly beneficial to manufactured and precut housing.

Would you consider a prefabricated home over a site-built one? What are your specific pre-requisites if you were to consider a prefab?

We are always here and available to answer any questions you have about prefabs. Ask away in the comment section.

Green gadgets are becoming increasingly at our attention, but charging our new toys with conventional batteries isn’t keeping it eco-friendly.Fuji has introduced their new EnviroMAX, a new eco-conscious, high performance battery.

Not only do they equal (and often exceed) the performance of equivalent conventional versions, there is nothing inside the battery itself that depletes our earth.

You won’t see any mercury or cadmium in these mini-powerhouses, along with other ozone-depleting compounds. Their packaging it free of PVC plastics; instead they utilize recycled paper and recyclable PET plastic.

They arrived in stores in April, and have recently earned the 2009 Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center.

Fuji EnviroMAX batteries are available in Super Alkaline AA, AAA, C, and D (MSRP $3.99), and Digital Alkaline, AA and AAA (MSRP $5.99).

Consumers can find them at ACO and ACE Hardware stores; select Sears, Target, Do It Best and Tru Value Hardware stores; Dick’s Sporting Goods, and other chains. The batteries can also be ordered online at Amazon.com , and direct from the company at www.greenfuji.com.