Sea levels continue to rise faster than predicted just a few years ago making environmental stewardship important to coastal communities.
DeepStream Designs has created a full range of sustainably designed garden planters, green wall grids, hanging planters, and site amenities like recycling receptacles and benches made with recycled plastic lumber to make environmental stewardship easy.
Planters help reduce global warming by providing more environments for plants to absorb carbon and release oxygen while reducing both water usage and the solar gain that heats building walls, roofs, and surrounding pavement.
Plants significantly reduce the energy needed to cool buildings. This is a virtuous cycle of environmental stewardship that reduces the fossil fuels used in electricity generation used to provide artificial cooling to the same buildings.
According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), buildings are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. According to estimates in the AIA’s Architects and Climate Change report, buildings represent 48 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, with transportation and industry representing 27 percent and 25 percent respectively.
Estimates in the AIA’s Architects and Climate Change report, are that buildings represent 48 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, with transportation and industry representing 27 percent and 25 percent respectively.
While science deniers argue global change is normal state and that there is no proof of human impact on climate change, that it is just a normal process humans have no impact on, an overwhelming number of scientists and even industrial leaders and nations disagree.
Climate change may have normal cycles, but there is nothing historically normal about the human population explosion and the impact that their energy consumption and pollution has on the earth’s bio systems. Many people believe that the individual CAN make a difference. However, working in conjunction with Architects we could do a lot more.
Not only do high concentrations of people in mega-buildings concentrate greenhouse gas, but building these high-density buildings also increases the surface area on, if not of, the earth that can absorb heat.
It is not just office towers; residential condo towers are creating increasingly dense urban and coastal areas that contribute to the formation of “heat islands” and global warming by adding heat-retaining surface area. Any city resident knows that it is often 10 degrees warmer in the city than the suburbs or rural areas around them.
The Green Roof movement is great, but the ratio of wall to roof area is much greater on high-rise buildings. If Architects designed balconies with drainage and water spigots built into their clients’ high-rise buildings, it would allow residents and offices to help offset their impact to a far greater degree both in terms of cooling and exchanging oxygen for carbon and absorbing other pollutants.
Successful landscaping and gardening on balconies and rooftops, especially of condo towers, has many challenges that residents with terrestrial gardens in homes don’t share, especially if the building Architect is not on the same page.
DeepStream Designs has created a planter system specifically to address all these issues today and make them easy to incorporate even with out architectural help:
- Planters built from recycled plastic, not rainforest stripping “Green-Washed” tropical hardwoods
- Planters that last for decades requiring no maintenance
- Planters on casters that can be easily moved
- Planters with waterproof inner liners and drip trays
- Planters that generate contribution to Trees for the Future to grow more trees and build food independence around the world at a grass roots level
Balcony and rooftop gardening, on any scale, is not only fun and beautiful but it really does help offset the greenhouse gas emissions and helps in cooling these heat island and saves on your electric bills. Environmental stewardship is a worthy endeavor within the grasp of individuals using low tech, renewable resources.
When planters, fixtures and site amenities are constructed with recycled plastic lumber it helps the environment in 2 major ways:
- They create a sustainable market for recycled plastic.
- The replace the use of rot resistant tropical hardwood helping to eliminate the destruction of the World’s Tropical Rainforests, preserving many reliant species, and the ability to act as the lungs of the earth, cooling the world and providing clean oxygenated air.
For more information about the urban farming program shown here in Boston at Fenway park just follow this link: Container Garden Fenway Park’s Home Run
If you have any questions, or there is anything DeepStream’s dedicated American craftspeople can design and build for you using Recycled Plastic Lumber, check out the DeepStream Website or contact us to discuss your project.
There is never a fee for design or quotes. Sheila Boyce has designed thousands of installations, so she is a great free and friendly resource at your disposal. Call her at: 305 857-0466 or email dsdmiami@gmail.com.
