EPA's advice on choosing eco-friendly building materials..

The Environmental Protection Agency provides some valuable insight on how we can best choose green building materials or products.   According to the EPA, the opportunities to reduce the environmental and health impacts of our homes span from big decisions, such as location, to smaller decisions, like paint and light bulbs.  The EPA says the products we use to clean, light, furnish, renovate, and build our homes should be a part of the greening process. Reducing our environmental impacts requires thinking and learning about not just how we use products, but where they came from and where they're going. The EPA would like people to consider factors like:

• Energy used to manufacture, ship, and consume a product
• The product's components and the sources of its raw materials
• Emissions during manufacturing the product and the level and type of toxins in the final product
• The product's durability (lifespan) and recyclability

These are just some of the impacts a product has on the environment from beginning to end during its "lifecycle." According to the EPA, the five main stages in the lifecycle of a material or product are: raw material acquisition, manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life management.   For more information from the EPA please visit www.epa.gov/greenhomes.