Do buildings have souls? I teach in a school with nearly a thousand students. We recently moved into a brand new building. I talked with an architecture professor who served as an advisor for the planning of our new campus. He introduced me to the idea that buildings have souls. According to our consultant an architectural concept for any building whether it is a school, office or home should really be a metaphor or image for the dreams and values of the people who will use that building. Articulating and defining the soul of a building is a process that needs to include as many of the people who will inhabit the finished structure as possible.

At our school we went about defining it’s soul in a unique way. First we held a contest where anyone connected with our school could submit a drawing, a story, a sculpture, or a movie about what they thought constituted the ‘soul’ of our school. One student made a 3D model of children playing soccer. A parent submitted a series of pillars each featuring a ‘hero’ from one of eight areas of knowledge. Galileo, for example, represented science. A teacher wrote a story about how a young woman with autism had been accepted and loved at our school. A senior about to graduate wrote an article about why our sports team name “The Warriors” represented the ‘can do’ and ‘never say die’ spirit of our students. All of the submissions became part of a brochure to advertise a design imagery competition for architects. They were invited to create a concept design for the ‘look’ of our school based on the ‘soul’ visions provided by our school community.

The entries in this competition were diverse and exciting. One architect had designed what looked like a multi-level tree house. Another had created a kind of butterfly layout to show how our school desired to transform children’s lives. Another had come up with a plan that resembled an eagle’s nest since our school was to be a place where children could learn safely till they were ready to fly out on their own. One design was in the shape of a Noah’s Ark. The winning entry resembled God’s outstretched open hands. Since our school is a religious institution the architect had made the elementary and high school wings of our school each represent one of God’s hands with a huge courtyard in their open palms where members of the community could meet. If you walk into our school today that is exactly the design you will see.

I asked our consulting architect, how we could know for certain that a building accurately reflected the ‘soul’ of the community it housed. He told me the ‘soul’ of building could not be measured in any way. It was something that could be discerned only with the heart.

We all want to have the best house there is. And although we do not have the cash to spare, we always make it a point to look at other details to guarantee that our place is looking neat and glamorous at all times. Now, when it comes to cheap yet effective lighting, you may want to opt for Solar Landscape Lights.

With perseverance and a little luck, you can create a house that is way too beautiful than the rest while taking benefit over the free source of energy, which is the sun. Here are some of the things that you can install in your place:

1. Solar stepping stones- do you remember those times when you are still a kid and you start to jump from one stone to another within your garden? You can actually have the same feel but this time, the stone are glowing and they are more economical because they are one of those Solar Landscape Lights.

2. Solar gazing ball- there was once a time during the 50s and the 60s wherein gazing ball is so popular among folks while these items are positioned on the front yards. Nowadays, there is this kind of ball again but this time around, it is more fashionable while it uses the energy of the sun.

3. Solar butterfly lightning- once you imagine of a garden, what insect do you usually think of? Of course, you will be thinking about butterflies! Now, there is that Solar Landscape Lights that comes in a butterfly form which is a very creative manner to add light and color to your garden without spending a lot for the cost. The butterfly can be placed about 18″ high from the ground. This one is powered by solar energy and it makes use of a single LED bulb that creates points of light on the butterfly’s body.

4. Solar plant light- this one is suited best for potted plants given that they are small to the point that they will never overpower the beauty of your plant although it is powerful enough to offer amazing lighting. This one has clear LED landscape light which is powered by solar energy.

Now that you are aware of some of the options for Solar Landscape Lights, it is time to look for the best tool for your garden right now. With so many choices, you are bound to get the one that you need.

In choosing, the very first consideration is the look that you wish to achieve. Of course, you need to have a light that will complement your garden and not actually distract the eyes of the spectator. In view of this, think first about the theme that you like to achieve. Also, consider your budget because you will be making use of different kinds of systems for Solar Landscape Lights. Do not worry thought with the initial cost because as you go along, you will realize that it is cheaper than paying for the monthly bills for traditional sources of energy.

Most of the world agrees that finding green energy production is paramount to the long term survival of the human race, whether it’s because of costs or the environment. Right now, the greenest ways of generating energy are costly, but the other ways aren’t great for the environment. Here’s a quick snapshot of 6 ways energy can be produced and what the issues are.

1. Coal. Coal is probably the most abundant natural resource we have that we can burn for energy and heat. It’s also the dirtiest. Coal smoke and dust get everywhere and impact everything. Even clean burning coal plants are only 90% efficient at best.

2. Crude Oil – Oil is expensive and won’t last forever, but it’s the easiest thing to find and use. Oil is pretty dirty itself, and exhaust and other smells and smoke from its use only hurt the environment.

3. Solar – Solar energy is the most effortless way of capturing energy, but at this stage it’s also the costliest. To fully heat most houses would cost upwards of $35,000 per house. Solar batteries still can’t hold enough power to make it cost effective for everyone, and it doesn’t work as well everywhere, especially in cloudy climates.

4. Wind – Wind energy would be more efficient if wind could be counted on. Having to use energy to run wind turbines is inefficient. That, plus it’s also costly trying to store the energy. It’s also controversial; many communities don’t like seeing these tall windmills in their area.

5. Hydro – Hydro power is costly up front, but works well once dams are built. The problem is that not every waterway in the world is conducive to building a dam, and its energy is limited in how far it can go and how much it can generate.

6. Nuclear – Nuclear power is very efficient, but extremely tenuous and dangerous. There are drastic safeguards that have to be employed, and one wrong step could mean disaster for centuries. They also need to be near water to help keep them cool, and, though that water is filtered many times over before being reintroduced into its source, there are still fears that it might never totally be clean from radiation.

To stop rubbish pollution by recycling is much harder for society to achieve than the old methods of “use it once and throw it away”. We all realise this but before we get carried away with the idea of “zero waste” and the end of landfills, let’s think for a while about the four essentials of successful recycling.

Like it or not experience has shown that all four have to be in place, and working properly before a stable recycling system can work efficiently and allow investors confidence to lend their money to the entrepreneurs society needs so badly to pick up the challenge and make their green business work profitably for them and at lowest cost to the community.

Each element needs to work properly, if recycling is to happen. To re-state a well-worn truism, recycling is more than simply collecting and sorting waste – it needs to be processed and sold into a stable market for a profit to the operator, as well.

The rest of this article looks at each of these elements in turn.

1. Legislative Framework

A legislative framework of reasonable sophistication is needed to ensure that adequate drivers are present and sufficient stability exists within emerging markets in commodities hitherto thought of as rubbish within any economy. Without laws and regulations which are all about raising recycling rates and minimising landfill, it may not be possible to raise the credibility of many recycling markets being long-term and profitable sufficiently for them to become so. Such faith that government will back recyclers, is needed to kick-start recycling companies to form, and keep it going for long enough for the theory to become self fulfilling; and it seems that passing laws to make it happen is the only way.

2. Collection and Sorting

Until the mid-2000s, recycling was most often been associated with bottle bins and paper banks. These are the so-called ‘bring’ systems. These systems of banks or bins are certain to continue to play an important but proportionately diminishing role in recycling for the foreseeable future.

The number and diversity of recycling banks (from large Household Waste Recycling Centres to community skip bays) needs to and is increasing. This process has been repeating itself for at least the last 15 years. For example the glass manufacturers doubled the present number over the last approximately 5 years. The steel industry intends to have can banks for every person requiring a 5 times growth.

As well as the traditional materials of paper and glass, banks for textiles, plastic and metal cans new methods of working resulting from raised investment levels, are now common. The way forward for “bring’ systems seems to be evolving as these centres take so many different materials and become micro-recycling centres, which provide smaller containers for a range of materials nearer to people’s homes.

Since then, in the UK, kerbside collections (with separate containers supplied by the collection contractor) have been introduced in most areas along with alternating fortnightly collections of residual and green waste. The wastes collected in the recyclates bin cover a range of materials. These collections are described as source segregated clean materials.

As the number of recyclate streams has increased so has the complexity of rubbish pollution reduction by managing the business of getting the recycled materials streams to the market and transporting them to the user. Source segregated waste still arrives mixed with for example, paper and cans and plastic bottles, and must be further processed to separate those materials, before they can go to market.

Also, never forget that the residual waste will still contain much that can be recycled and in many districts public willingness to recycle will only be sufficient up to 2010 to meet the EU recycling and landfill diversion targets, which if not met will result in hefty fines for the UK government.

So, now the waste industry must start to introduce much more comprehensive processing of the residual (black bag) Municipal Solid Waste (MSW).

To meet that demand modern recycling requires large-scale centralised processing facilities dealing with unsorted waste. These will combine long standing favourites such as magnetic extraction of ferrous metals, separation of glass and other metals prior to composting (aerobic) and digestion (anaerobic – in the absence of air)or incineration for energy recovery.

The large investment required for centralised plants makes them difficult projects to undertake, but the benefit in terms of the volume of waste handled is correspondingly high.

An alternative choice to minimise centralised processing plant requirements is to instigate kerbside (on collection vehicle sorting) for kerbside door-to-door recycling collections. These so-called ‘kerbside’ recycling collection vehicles are also becoming more common, but require conscientious and well trained operators who must work outside in all weathers.

Kerbside collections for recycling materials has a lower cost than central processing, but may not be suitable for many low-density rural districts nor for high-density inner-city areas with concentrations of tower blocks.

In the end, no one model will be suitable throughout the country; and a combination of different collection and sorting methods will be used.

3. Processing

By definition, recycling involves not just collection, but processing of the material before it is re-used. So, for instance, a returnable milk bottle is re-used rather than recycled because there is no intermediate processing before the re-use.

It is therefore necessary to develop efficient, economic processing systems for recovered materials. The development of recycling processes is essentially a task for industry. But this cannot be divorced from the other parts of the chain.

At times, the solution to processing problems can lie in changing the collection or sorting procedures. As an example, the way forward for plastics recycling may be to develop processes which allow mixed plastics to be used for a wider range of applications.

On the other hand, the answer may well be to devise a means of separating the different polymers before they reach the factory where they are used.

Governments should really offer financial support to companies developing recycling technologies as this sort of general research will be high cost and rarely justifiable for one company to finance on a commercial basis.

Markets

Last, but by no means least, recycling needs markets. No markets, means no recycling.

The Government needs to help encourage new markets which will inherently be unstable when just getting started, due to (if nothing else) their low volume and initial large swings in supply and demand month by month.

Conclusion

Governments should not be seeking to reduce rubbish pollution by household rubbish recycling at all costs. But a target of recycling of up to 50% of domestic waste is achievable and environmentally justified to stop current high levels of rubbish pollution.

The level of recycling activity is increasing significantly throughout much of the world. Public willingness to participate in rubbish pollution reducing recycling schemes is undoubted. Indeed, separation by the householder for recycling is becoming a habit rather than a passing fad.

Mainstream manufacturing industry has been forced to accept that it has a greater responsibility for waste resulting from its products, than ever was the case before.

In the United Kingdom, and throughout Europe, plus in many other nations; the many government recycling incentives are beginning to have the desired effect.

With the four essentials listed here, in place and working, the public with help from local authorities, waste disposal contractors and industry can recycle most of their rubbish and stop rubbish pollution.

In today’s world, where the impact of global warming and energy crisis is being discussed greatly, it is important for every individual to play a part in providing a solution to these imminent dangers. A simple step in this direction would be to design and build houses that are environment friendly. Some people are under the impression that it is a herculean task to design and build houses to accommodate nature. Well, those people cannot be farther from the truth.

The truth is that it is easier to design and build such houses are compared to the other traditional types of houses. With a few out-of-the-box ideas and innovative thinking it is possible to construct beautiful houses that are in harmony with nature and also energy efficient. A good eco friendly house is one that does not burden the earth and makes use of natural resources like the Sun and wind to generate heat and electrical energy that are needed to run household appliances. Let us see a few points that can guide us in that direction.

Keep it light

If you notice all the eco friendly houses that have been designed and built till date, all of them use materials that are light in weight. Wood is the most preferred material when it comes to building such houses. This is a material that offers flexibility and versatility that is needed when constructing houses that are environment friendly. There eco friendly houses that are build using enameled steel and corrugated metal too since these are light weight options.

Look out for barriers

If it is your aim to design and build your house in order to harness the potential of nature to generate energy for your house, then, ensure that there are no barriers to it. Trying to construct an eco friendly house when there are a lot of high rise buildings around the place, may be a wrong idea because you would not be able to tap into the complete potential of wind and Sunlight to produce energy. Also, ensure there are no barriers like transformers and power lines which may hamper the construction process. Consider the direction of the wind and the maximum exposure to the Sun when you design and build eco friendly houses.

Make provision for every generation and storage

The main purpose to design and build a house that is eco friendly is to harness the power of nature. Hence, you design should incorporate the ideas for good ventilation and penetration of Sun rays. The sunlight will illuminate the darkest part of the house too and curb energy consumption. By ensuring good ventilation you can minimize the use of fans and ACs. Also, opt for getting your house fitted with solar panels and photovoltaic cells which have the potential to convert the energy from the Sun into electrical energy which can be utilized to run the household equipments. The excess energy can be stored in the cells and utilized when needed.

These simple things, when kept in mind, will help you design and build an eco friendly house that you will cherish through your lifetime.