Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is building green, green or is it light gray

[Duncan Cavens (duncan]

Hi everyone,

This is a very relevant question to my partner and I right now: our home 
in Roberts Creek Cohousing (near Vancouver, B.C.) will be finished at 
the end of the month. 

We've been trying to figure out the environmental benefits/costs about 
buying new energy efficient appliances vs. buying slightly used 
appliances.  I've done a lot of searching, but have not been able to 
find any information other than factsheetsfrom Federal Energy 
authorities that seem to only promote the appliance manufacturers (i.e. 
"current appliances are twice as efficient as appliances from 10 years 
ago".)

While this information is useful, I'd like to know what the impacts are 
of manufacturing a new stove, shipping it halfway across the country, 
and what the impacts are of disposing/recycling of the old appliance 
that we wouldn't be buying on the second-hand market (we don't currently 
own any appliances.)    My gut feeling is that the net impact of making 
a new appliance (fridge/stove/etc.) far outweigh the environmental 
benefits of a new appliance, but I have no way of figuring this out.  
Money isn't really the issue (although slightly used models run for 
about 1/4 to  1/8 the cost of new.)

Does anyone have any insight / resources/ etc. on this topic? 

Duncan.
http://www.cohousing.ca/robertscreek