Adventure Traveler Garry Sowerby in his own words:

Thursday, September 16, 2004
Toronto, Ontario

Environmental Initiative #33
A Living Wall, University of Guelph-Humber

A living wall? Sounds a bit creepy. Does it talk, does it grow before your eyes? Ick!

Well, the thing was a monster -- 4 storeys tall, 30-feet wide. It was also a live work of art, such a multitude of plants clinging to a wall that rose high overhead to a glass canopy where sunlight streamed onto the lush and vivid flowers in bloom at the top.

David Trick, CEO of the University of Guelph-Humber, is here in the student building to greet us. He’s so interested in what we’re doing with Mission Green that it takes a while to get him around to this fantastic Wall.Gabrielle Bernardi-Dengo, Manager of Administrative Services, is also here and she’s very eager to tell us about the greenery adorning this expansive yet homey Atrium and how it came to be.

Indoor air quality is a growing health concern in North America , where buildings are sealed to maintain proper indoor climate in extreme weather conditions. This can lead to the accumulation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) indoors that has been related to several health problems.

Indoor air biofiltration, a novel method of maintaining indoor air quality, consists of passing an air stream over a biofilm containing beneficial microbes, which degrade the pollutants. The plants and benign microbes that Nature routinely uses to cleanse herself are chosen specific to the most common pollutants in a particular location.

The living wall we were looking at today was installed by Air Quality Solutions Ltd., a Guelph-based company that came from the seed of an idea dating back to 1994.

A couple of research projects were being conducted in tandem. One was to install and study an early version of a biofiltration system in a meeting room in a downtown Toronto office facility. The other was an investigation going on at the Unviersity of Guelph on the use of plants in closed environments such as space vehicles (e.g., the International Space Station).

The principal research on the biofilter technology was conducted by Dr. Alan Darlington and a team of researchers from the University of Guelph . Dr. Darlington is now the CEO of Air Quality Solutions Ltd.

Plans for the Living Wall in the new student facility at the University of Guelph-Humber were incorporated into the structural design of the building. Since 90% of the students don’t live on campus, the Atrium was conceived as a healthy, comfortable place where students could congregate and feel relaxed and at home. And it really works!

Studies have shown that productivity and morale are increased when in the presence of plant life, the colour green and clean air. Why wouldn’t it? It’s just such a pleasant place to be as the picture of the many mellow yet diligent students scattered throughout the four open floors of the Atrium could attest.

The hydroponic plants themselves do some of the air filtration but the ‘dirty work’ is done mostly by the roots with the help of intake fans that pull the impure air in. The system cleanses the air through biological means and does not rely on chemicals to remove the contaminants from the air. The whole life cycle of the system is taken into account. Because the pollutants in the air are broken down to their benign constituents, there is nothing to accumulate in the system.

Although the ‘living wall’ systems are typically designed for up to over 20 years of operation, the biological aspects have the ability to continue with their functions forever. The biology component is a self-repairing, self-rejuvenating air cleanser.

But never mind all of the technical and scientific definitions or the environmental and psychological benefits of this wondrous green machine in front of us.

The beauty of the various plants was enough to take our breath away! There were ferns, potato vines, English ivy, and the tropical tradescantia vine. Other exotics included umbrella and spider plants, the leathery-leafed silver vase, shiny crotons, awesome hibiscus and benjamin fig.

Maginificent orchids and other flowers can bloom at any time of year giving off a feel-good effect of texture, scent and vibrant colour even as the wind howls and the snow swirls outside.

Students maintain the wall on a weekly basis. It needs to be pruned and trimmed or it tends to get heavy. Students also study the plants and the filters. It is, after all, a living research project.

Gabrielle and David tell us that, despite all its apparent and common-sense advantages, incorporating the Living Wall into the design of the student building was still a weighty decision. What if the plants died? What if they made people sick? What if it didn’t work?

It was difficult to tell whether the perpetual grin on David’s face was more about the pride in the success of the project or because of the positive effects of living, on a day-to-day basis, with a living wall. A bit of both I suspect.

We said goodbye to David and Gabrielle and the ‘green monster’ which now seemed more like a lovable pet. Mission Green was off again, with our heads full of new and intriguing information about what is going on in the world of research – the innumberable people working towards the improved partnership and interconnectedness of humans and the planet.

We stepped out into the sunshine and saw that students had in the meantime swarmed Mission Green’s hybrid truck. They were amazed to see this truck here since, as they told us, hybrid technology had been the topic of discussion of a recent Business class. Interconnectedness indeed!

http://www.naturaire.com/library5.html
http://www.guelphhumber.ca/
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Environmental Initiative #34
Beach Solar Laundromat, Toronto

One of the little details on this trip that quickly turned into a big detail was laundry. Since we left home with clean laundry on August 16, it became increasingly clear to the Mission Green team that getting clean socks and underwear on a constantly moving schedule would be a challenge. It became, in fact, an impossiblity.

Obviously, our daily evening schedule has something to do with it. We pull into a town and have to find a place to sleep, a place to eat, do all of our uploading and reporting to the internet, sleep and then curse our lack of clean socks. It all takes time and where, I’d like to know, does laundry fit in??

Well, we finally managed to get some laundry done during our 2-day stay in the Toronto area. Then Lisa tells us, one of the initiatives we’ll visit is a laundromat!

Ugh!

And it’s not just any laundromat we’re headed to this afternoon with no laundry to do… it’s an award-winnng laundromat that has become an environmental boon to the Beaches area where some customers walk an extra four blocks past an existing laundry place to wash their clothes at Alex Winch’s Beach Solar Laundromat.

With clean socks on our feet, the Mission Green team could at least use their spare change to feed the parking meters outside the Beach Solar Laundromat and avoid adding a parking ticket to our already-existing collection of 2 tickets in as many days.

It’s obvious as we pull up that Alex’s place is different. Solar thermal radiant heating panels installed on the slanted roof give us our first clue that something interesting is going on inside this building.

Alex is enthusiastic and deeply engaged in his subject of solar thermal radiant heat. His ecologically-upgraded laundromat recently won the small business award for Pollution Prevention from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. He has a degree in engineering physics and owns a small energy company, Mondial Energy. And he never runs out of hot water!

The panels on the roof use the sun’s energy to heat the water that’s used in the washing machines. He never has to artificially heat it. These panels not only heat the water for the laundromat but they also provide the heating for the apartment upstairs. The old fluorescent T-12 bulbs in the laundromat have been swapped out for new, T-8 bulbs that provide the same amount of light, but require only 28% of the energy.

Alex Winch is Inspector Gadget without the bumbling and screw-ups.

He has built and installed a wind detector outside that measures wind speed and temperature which is connected to an awning that moves back and forth automatically to adjust the sun’s slant on the building as required by the conditions. The security latch on the entry door has an electronic control which prevents the door from opening after the 10: 30 PM closing time. It also releases the lock at 6:30 AM for the early-bird laundry devotees.

He has invented an air conditioning system, a Wallace-and-Gromit-type contraption that uses fans and city water to efficiently cool the laundromat.

A savvy busines man, Alex has it all worked out. His total daily electrical consumption for the laundromat is only $5.00!!

Alex’s energy is infectious (in more ways than one) and we’re ready to bound out the door and continue the Mission – with dirty socks but, hey!… no parking tickets!

http://www.mondial-energy.com/beachsolarlaundromat.htm
http://www.ccme.ca/initiatives/pollution.html?category_id=19#136
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