... "green" living

How do you live at home and commute to work are the most important factors in the way you impact the environment.

We came across one of those quizzes, that helps you figure out whether or not you are living “green”. You know, Do You Recycle, and such. The shallowness of this type of questions really demonstrates the lack of understanding by the “green” community, what the real ecological problems are all about.

The Existing Alternatives type of quiz would have focused on the two major areas where an average person impacts the Earth: Commute and Dwelling.

How and how far do you commute?
If you ride alone in a car for more than 15 minutes each way – congratulations, you have contributed your fair share to destroying the Earth. And yes, at that point, it really does not matter whether or not you recycle you empties. Luckily, there are plenty of Existing Alternatives to that:

1. The easiest and the most widely accepted is carpooling – burning half as much fossil fuel is a huge improvement for both your consciousness and the air.
2. Another popular Alternative that is often overlooked is telecommuting – stay at home!
3. One of the least considered – public transit. Guess why it is there? For you to get to work!
   If you don’t leave close to transit – move closer, or better yet…
4. …move close enough to work, so you can … walk there. Yes, the easiest Existing Alternative that does not only keep the roads empty, and environment clean, but also you healthy and stress-free.

Your home.

1. Footprint. First, calculate your personal footprint – the actual one, not that “carbon” variety. All you need to do is to take the surface that your dwelling claimed from nature, and yes, count both back and front yard - that Wal-Mart grass does not pass for nature. Now divide that by the number of inhabitants. Easy, right? Congratulations to all the high-rise dwellers, and shame on all those suburbanites – you better start recycle double speed, you are destroying our Mother Nature!
2. Heating and Cooling the Space. Next thing you should do is to calculate how much space do you heat / cool on a regular basis. We hope, by now everyone is educated enough not to let the heat or cold escape through doors and windows. So, we are talking only about internal space. At the same time, your basement still gets a share of heat. So take the total square footage of your house and multiply by the ceiling height. You are not heating just the surface! And now divide it by the number of dwellers.

Of course, on their own these numbers do not mean anything. We are yet to come up with some kind of useful guidelines. But try comparing yourself with a family of three leaving in one-bedroom apartment of a high-rise within a 10 minute walk from their work and school. How much can you improve?

You have probably noticed the absence of questions about recycling and hybrid-driving from this “green living” article – it is for a reason. Recycling actually takes up a lot more energy and resources than producing brand new materials. Same goes for hybrids. And what good hybrids are, if they are causing just as much gridlock for all the semis on the highways?

The only way that we can move the needle on the environment, is by applying common sense not by hiding behind all kind of promotional posters.

Standing at Work

Do you spend long hours at the office slouched in the chair in front of computer? Do you do the same thing at home? What kind of impact does it have on your spine and overall health? Obviously, hugely detrimental. Luckily there are Existing Alternatives to this out there. Standing desks have been around for centuries – for example, all U.S. founding fathers preferred those (did they even have the sitting variety back then?). Somehow the popularity of standing desks has declined. And for obvious reasons: while it is so much easier to adjust the height of the seat, the standing desks are usually custom made.


There are still some die hard standing desks enthusiasts out there. “The stand-up guy” former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is the modern poster boy for the more ergonomic workspace. There are a couple of shops (like StandupDesks.com) that will craft a desk for you, but it will cost you well in excess of $1,000 and will more likely have an antique-type of finish.

An Existing Alternatives to that would be building your own or fashioning one out of the filing cabinets and a piece of plywood. It works in our office and is a big hit with visitors.

Murphy Beds

How much time do you spend in your bedroom? Most of the working adults spend just about 8 hours of sleeping in their beds, yet they usually have a whole room reserved for sleeping. The rest of the day the bedrooms stay empty, while the beds do nothing but accumulate dust.

In 1916 William Murphy came up with the idea of putting the whole bed away into a closet during the day and pulling it out at night for sleeping. Hence, the Murphy beds were born.

Lots of things changed since then. Now Murphy beds come in all shapes and forms utilizing all kinds of technology. But all of them have the same basic principles and benefits:

• they take up very little area when not used
• they do not require a special “bed-room”
• they allow utilize greater space and air flow of bigger rooms (such as living)
• usually beds are being stored vertically, thus preventing dust accumulation

We definitely consider Murphy beds one of the greatest Existing Alternative in today’s dwelling design. Our favorite variation of the bed is designed and manufactured by New York company Inova. They combined yet another seldom used room – dining with bedroom to come up with a table-bed.

We have examined the bed closely in the model suite of one of the upcoming condos and it worked very smoothly, quickly transforming the bedroom into the office / dining.