Sustainable Design Update

Bamboo – Abundant and Renewable

In my past life I studied lots of different mixes for concrete and reinforcement.  Good concrete is easy to make but without some sort of reinforcement it lacks tensile strength.  Concrete by itself can’t make a beam or span a distance.  Beams want to deflect under load which causes the bottom of a beam to stretch (slightly).  Concrete doesn’t stretch – instead it  cracks.  In Haiti a lot of structures failed due to a lack of proper reinforcing.

Bamboo grows naturally in Haiti (I checked).  Its cheaper than steel and when used in concrete it stores carbon.  Bamboo can be used as reinforcement for concrete in a manner similar to how re-bar is used now, or in some cases it can be chopped and added to a concrete mix to give seismic strength.

A great paper on Bamboo Reinforced Concrete:  Bamboo Reinforced Concrete

Photo: Darwin Bell via Flickr

Stratos, Our First Office Cat

Who knew?  Cats have been into the best insect repellent since the beginning of civilization.  The Catnip plant, loco weed for felines, has compounds  that work as well as DEET.

From Yet2.com (sorry for the Geek-Speak):

This technology provides a process for manufacturing a safe, stable, bio-based insect repellent that can be delivered in a variety of topical product formats including liquid (alcohol-based) pump sprays, lotions and impregnated wipes. It has been extensively and successfully tested for (1) Mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti, Anopheles albimanus, Ochlerotatus intrudens and mixed wild populations in Florida, U.S.A.), (2) Biting flies — Stable flies (Stomoxys calcitrans) and Black flies (Simulium decorum), (3) Deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), and (4) Stored product pests—Rice weevils (Sitophilus oryzae) and Flour beetles (Tribolium spp.). This new active ingredient demonstrates efficacy comparable with existing synthetic active ingredients towards a broad range of biting insects – demonstrated in consumer acceptable product formulations. Protection times in field tests are equal or superior to traditional DEET based insect repellent products – often at reduced active ingredient loading. For the first time an insect repellent active ingredient is available from a sustainable source —the catmint plant— that combines true efficacy with natural product cachet.

This technology is supported by 3 US patents. The most recent year of issue is 2007.

More: Yet2.com