Green & Eco

**This blog is posted in conjunction of Blog Action Day

Even though stagers may not has a dramatic impact as an architect & a real estate developer who can influence the making of a house directly, there are still a few ways that we can contribute to make it a greener & better world by advising the clients to do some of these things in a selling process:

1. Paint the home with eco-friendly paint:
   I am a big fan of Benjamin Moore’s Aura line. Great colors, long-lasting, coats dry within the hour (saves time & labor costs), and eco-friendly. Not to mention very minimal odor which is great for both the people who apply the paint, and people who live in the environment. Price is also great, even beats the always cheap Kelly Moore (which I don’t personal like since the paint feels watered down).
2. 
   Decrease the volume of trash in landfill:
   one man’s (or woman’s) trash is another’s treasure. Freecycle is solely based on this idea and to decrease the size of our landfills. You can post what you need or what you no longer need on FreeCycle message boards and within a hour (or a day at most) you will get your wish fulfilled!
3. continue
   

Good news came in the form of postcard today! Now single-family residents in San Mateo County can all enjoy the program of recycling old batteries and cell phones! I still have cell phones that I used in college and that’s a long long time ago! I pulled the following info from the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (www.rethinkwaste.org) and it’s shocking how a town of roughly 30,000 people along during the pilot program, can recycled over 1,600 pounds of batteries & cell phones!!! Craziness. It makes me ponder how much difference we can all make by doing something so simple like recycling.

“In the first three months of the curbside battery and cell phone pilot program, San Carlos residents recycled over 1,600 pounds of batteries and cell phones. According to a recent survey, 39% said they used to dispose of their household batteries in the trash. Now that the state universal waste law has gone into effect, they know this is no longer legal. The survey also showed that of the residents who have used this convenient new service, 85% were “extremely satisfied.” They are especially thankful they don’t have to drive to a store, city hall or recycling center anymore!

Some residents asked what happens to the batteries and cell phones. Allied Waste drivers take the plastic zip-type bags off the top of the mixed paper bin and place them in a special container in their truck. The heavy metals or toxic components of batteries such as cadmium, nickel, zinc, mercury, manganese, lead and lithium are separated and recycled. Cell phones are reused or recycled.”

Useful websites: www.rethinkwaste.org & www.alliedwastesanmateocounty.com

Enter Hova.

FabricPots^TM are collapsible and lightweight (reducing energy and space needed per unit for shipping), and incorporate eco-friendly material options (the sleeves are available in 100% recycled polyester and the bases are recyclable plastic).

It’s also a lot less to carry, easier on the backs.

How awesome is that?!

These types of pots not only can work at homes, they can also be used for staging obviously, since it’s lightweight, easy to carry and collapsible.

In lieu of last night’s excitement, let’s talk about oscar for a second! This year has definitely been a great year for diversity and progressive political agendas. I am thrilled to see many more faces from around the globe, as well as more social awareness in the atomsphere. Because of the movie Blood Diamond, you can see a reduced quantity of diamonds being worn at the award shows. Also, big triumph for the green movement where An Inconvenient Truth won bost best song & best documentary.

As part of Staged4more’s philosophy, we opt for to be more green as much as we can. It’s difficult to do so in the real estate industry since we kill a lot of trees constantly with

continue