When you’re rehabbing, the Chicago Center of Green Technology, 445 N. Sacramento Blvd., operated by the city’s Department of Environment, has a wealth of ideas for building “green.” Not only can you attend workshops at Green Tech and browse its Resource Center, but you can take a self-guided tour of the building, a 52-year-old West Side factory/office structure that has been recycled into a public building jam-packed with “green” accessories, from bouncy floors made of recycled tires to elevators that run on canola oil.
To help tackle indoor air pollution, the Resource Center offers lists of alternatives to traditional paints and samples of non-toxic carpeting. It also has information about ways to make your house more energy efficient. For instance, a smart-lighting system includes sensors that detect the amount of natural sunlight in a room and automatically dim electric light when natural light is enough.
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Samples of recyled flooring range from cork made from scraps of wine bottle corks, tiles that reuse glass and squares made from car tires.
Outdoors the story is about rainwater. “Chicago has a sewer system that carries sewage and rainwater through the same pipes so when we have a heavy rainstorm those pipes get overwhelmed and sewers back up into people’s basements and viaducts are closed because of standing water,” explains Grace Troccolo, program director of the Department of Environment’s community landscaping and job training Greencorps program. “If we can cut down on the amount of water that goes into the sewer system we can prevent that from happening.”
You can catch rain by shortening your downspout and putting a rain barrel with a spigot under it. Then use the rainwater to water plants.
If you’re creating a patio or pathways, use permeable paving, such as the interlocking bricks in Green Tech’s demonstration garden, that allows rainwater to trickle down and be absorbed in the ground.
If you live in a building or have a garage with a flat roof, you can turn it into a garden like the one at Green Tech that uses lightweight rock and is planted with sedum, a succulent that absorbs water.
“Green roofs collect storm water and allow it to evaporate,” explains Suzanne Malec of the Chicago Department of Envionment, “but they also cut down on the amount of heat hitting your roof so your house stays cooler.”
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Chicago Center for Green Technology is open to the public. For more information, call the center at 312-746-9642 or visit www.cityofchicago.org/Environment.