Our rooftop and The Search for Sustainability Documentary Series produced by Nathan Crane

Hello and Happy February!

Join us to view the entire Search for Sustainability Series produced by Filmmaker Nathan Crane for the rest of the monthly Sustainable Monroeville meetings in 2016. The movies will be followed by discussion. The next Sustainable Monroeville meeting is on Monday, March 7, 2016 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM. Episode # 2 of the series to be shared at the March meeting is titled Sustainable Food, Water, and Soil. 
Sustainable Monroeville meetings are free and open to the public and take place in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library on the first Monday evening of each month. Please note: * July date will be posted soon....  See you at the movies!

Check out the link below to see the first in the series for free:

http://theselfreliancesummit.com/the-search-for-sustainability-home/

My personal Sustainability Lesson for 2015:

My big lesson in sustainability for 2015 was when we needed to put a new roof on our suburban Monroeville home. I wanted to put the greenest, most sustainable rooftop on the face of the planet on our home, but things did not end up that way.
What am I talking about? Well, a metal roof with solar panels, the more sustainable choice in my view would have cost about three times as much as the asphalt rooftop I eventually settled for. The best we could do was put an Energy Star rated rooftop, light in color on our roof. The shingles were made in a relatively local factory somewhere in Ohio....Why is it that the metal roof would be so much more expensive? My understanding is that the oil industry is so heavily subsidized that asphalt shingles which are oil based cost way less than other alternatives including composite materials and natural materials such as slate or ceramic roof tops....

The other rooftop revelation was that at this moment in time,  there is not one place in Western PA or Eastern Ohio that will recycle asphalt shingle. A prominent roofing company in Western PA misled me initially saying that they would take the old shingle and have it recycled with an UPCHARGE. When I checked into this through the PA Resources Council and by following through myself, I found out that indeed this was NOT true. This roofing company was appalled when I told them the truth and they made sure they will not spread untruths any more. They also made sure the company that said they were recycling asphalt shingles, but were not, took that fictitious service off of their web site!

Elisa Beck :)
sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com
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