My Live Austin Real Estate Web Channel has been Updated!
You will always find it at: http://liveaustinrealestate.com/live
I’m always searching for great content and with my new MacBook, I’m looking into giving information about my listings on there as well. This is a brand new media and concept, is there anything you’d like to see? Do you have any great videos (YouTube counts) that you’d like to see added?
The feed should load below:
I happened by one of my Chris Brogan’s blog and noticed a pretty little “ECO-SAFE” badge in his side bar. I had the options to “Send the page to email,” “email a PDF,” or “save as a PDF.” What a brilliant idea! So of course, you will not find this option on my side bar!
I keep my own documents stored on my hard drive in PDF format as much as possible. One of my most proud undertakings this year was to set up my office with an electronic document server to cut down on both the waste my office produces and the stacks, boxes, and cabinets filled to the brim with paper. The more minimalistic way of life that seems to be increasing in popularity leads to environmental benefits in more ways than we have yet realized. Don’t want to have that big, ugly file cabinet in the corner of your office? Scan everything to PDF and use a document management system! I’m using the uber-powerful Microsoft Sharepoint at my office but recommend Paperport to home users.
Cutting down on the paper you consume is the next step to recycling. First, we’ve learned how to recycle, now we learn now to produce fewer materials that need recycling.
And if you have a website, try out one of ECO-Safe’s Merit Badges. They come in three graphically pleasing designs. The one in my sidebar is likely to be their most popular option. There is also a horizontal-type…
And this beautiful fully-graphical one.
Why is this such a big deal? You can read all about it on Eco-Safe’s website. Here are some quick figures from Eco-Safe, but be sure to visit them to read all of their great reasons to go electronic PDF!
“American’s throw away 85% of office paper, which means out of everything you print, more than 4 out of 5 pages, will go right into the trash. By not printing things that you will eventually throw away, you simply save trees. Each year the average American uses 2 trees worth of paper products (one tree makes roughly 8,400 sheets of copy paper). So if you were to only use copy paper and no other paper products, out of the 16,800 sheets of paper that you print on, you will throw away 13,440 of them. When you multiply that by the number of internet users worldwide the numbers are absolutely staggering. ”
Wishing you the best of luck, Eco-Safe!
And please…
April 1, 2008
Just announced this morning, Walmart has their sights set on yet another central Austin location. In addition to the Northcross location at Anderson Lane and Burnet Road, a new store at 42nd and Guadeloupe is set to open in the summer of 2009. Plans are currently underway to purchase 32 homes in the vicinity which will be demolished in order to make way for Hyde Park superstore. In order to keep neighbors happy, this Walmart will include a roof-top park and swimming pool as well as an in-store Starbucks.
Neighbors have mixed emotions about welcoming the mega-retailer into their quaint Hyde Park neighborhood. Chelsie Howard, a resident of the neighborhood, welcomes the store saying “Traffic is so horrible in Austin, having a Walmart in Hyde Park will enable residents to get out of their cars and walk, run, or bike to a store stocked with all of their needs.” The store is expected to boost Austin’s economy by 3.4% by 2012.
Walmart chose this location after other retailers, like the Walgreens at 45th and Guadelupe, reported booming business and even nation-wide sales records. This store will be the 5,784th in the nation and will stout the title of “Greenest Walmart in the U.S.” with energy saving features such as roof-topsolar panels powering fluorescent lighting. The store’s plans include selling excess solar power back to the city at 7.8 cents per kw hour as a way of “giving back” to Austin’s community.
(image from PRNewser)
To read the complete press release, click here.
——————
April 10th, 2008 - Update
This post is receiving so much traffic, I thought I’d make sure everyone notices the date of April 1st on the post. There’s no need to email me in a panic, this is an APRIL FOOLS post! It’s been fun, but don’t worry because there are no plans to put a Walmart in Hyde Park. There are, however, plans for a Walmart at Burnet Road and Anderson land in the Northcross Mall shopping area.
For information on the Northcross Wallmart, check out the developer’s site and (of course) an Austinist post on the outrage caused by the plans.
So you finally purchased a glorious flat-panel, big-screen TV so you can watch HD Television in mammoth proportions. But at this point, where to get your HD hook-up should be the least of your concerns. What do you do with that old standard definition TV?
If craigslist fails you, you still have options. Don’t leave the old TV to rot in a landfill when you have so many recycling options available to you. Check out Earth 911’s website at http://earth911.org. There, you can type in what you want to recycle and where you are to find a recycling center near you to recycle the old TV.
To have your TV completely recycled from the plastic to the lead to the gold components, take it to your nearest Goodwill, Salvation Army, or specialty recycling center like ERT, Inc. or M&K Recovery Group.
Use Earth 911 to find out where to recycle other materials and electronics such as cell phones and fluorescent bulbs as well!
If you missed them, here are links to previous posts about Austin’s new recycling program, recycling phone books, recycling cell phones, fluorescent bulb recycling, and recycling in Austin.
This morning’s paper has an article announcing that wireless phone carriers are making an effort to use renewable energy to power their towers. Wireless is still a growing industry, and it certainly a large one. Will the trend catch on? Consumers are looking for greener options right now, but we do not yet have all of the answers about renewable energy. We don’t know which form is most efficient, practical, or affordable. When companies take on the challenge of renewable energy, they are able to use their resources to answer these questions by experimenting with different technologies currently available.
According to this article, wireless companies are experimenting with wind power, solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells, and geothermal cooling to power and maintain the various pieces of equipment required to deliver wireless communication to the consumer. Because they are big business, they are very focused on efficiency and the bottom dollar. Compared to government efforts that are typically relatively inefficient with tons of red tape, I have high hopes for the knowledge we can gain from responsible companies using their resources to learn more about how to implement and develop renewable resource technologies.
If you know of any other companies working toward a better tomorrow, let me know. I would love to know what Austin-based companies are doing in this realm.
You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to appreciate the benefits of making green changes in your life. Instead of a large post, today I will give you some resources that should help you cut through the mess and find some practical tips that are easy to implement in your own life.
Energy Star - http://www.energystar.gov/
A joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. This website has many tips on making energy-efficient choices.
The Nature Conservancy - http://www.nature.org/
See their Carbon Footprint Calculator at http://nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator to get a picture of how your household effects the world.
In the United States, buildings account for: Source: U.S. Green Building Council Yet, only 7% of American voters believe buildings contribute to greenhouse gases. We used to drive an average of 12,000 miles per year PER HOUSEHOLD. That number has rises to 22,000. Hybrid or not, that’s a lot of emissions. What’s to blame? Cities have grown without effective transit systems. Fluorescent Lambs have superior light quality, a wide range of color correctness, put out very little heat, and last longer than incandescent & halogen lamps. Plus, about 70% of the energy put it is in the form of light rather than heat (compared to 10% light to 90% heat in Halogen lamps). There is no significant cost increase in building “green”.
Figure 2. CO2 Emissions by Sector
$2,850,000
Hill Country Views
Panoramic View
3 1.71+/- ac. private Lake Austin waterfront lots (PENDING TAKING BACKUPS)
1.0+/- acre lot; gated Barton Creek community (SOLD)
ariakristen@gmail.com
talk/txt 512.771.1776
gtalk ariakristen
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