Rather Potty
Congratulations to Bellingham, Washington for having one of its resurface projects be the first to achieve Greenroads certification. If you’re wondering, Greenroads is a University of Washington's sustainable roadway design and construction rating system. Just what made the project so special? It’s rather potty really. When a stretch of pedestrian walkway needed to be extended one of the men in charge of the job suggested that it could be done in a more eco-friendly way. Knowing that a local charity had replaced some four hundred toilets that were destined for the the local landfill he quickly called a concrete supplier to find out if the toilets could be crushed and mixed with recycled concrete to be used as filler for the city’s new sidewalk. The answer was yes; with the finished product containing twenty percent crushed toilets by volume, representing five tons of diverted landfill material. Given their success with the use of recycled toilets, city officials are now on the lookout for other projects which would lend themselves to using the same eco-considerate paving material. Proving in this case, it’s okay to be a little potty.