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| The official “Green Certified,” window decal alerts tourists, community members, and other visitors that the Aquarium has qualified for special recognition as a green business. The certification is good for two years. |
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September 2008 was “sustainability month” in Santa Monica, and the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium celebrated by becoming a certified green business.
The Green Business Certification Program, sponsored by a collaborative of City of Santa Monica agencies and business organizations, encourages companies to incorporate environmentally sound business practices into their everyday business.
The Aquarium went through an extensive greening checklist to qualify for the program. While the majority of items required were already in practice, the Aquarium did replace the overhead lighting fixtures and bulbs throughout the facility with smaller, more energy efficient, low-mercury fluorescent bulbs. Timed light switches in the restrooms, a more energy efficient plumbing and filtration system, and laminated, reusable work sheets used during education programs - rather than paper handouts – all received kudos for being eco-friendly, innovative measures.
With the help of consultants Eco Consulting LA, a LEED consulting firm in Los Angeles, September remodeling projects upgraded the Aquarium in general and enhanced its profile as a green business as well.
The new sandy-colored material on the base of each tank is made from 100% recycled post consumer polyethylene, a plastic resin used in products and packaging like milk jugs, detergent bottles and margarine tubs. According to the product’s manufacturer, Loll Designs of Duluth, Minnesota, for every pound of weight in materials, an estimated eight recycled milk jugs are used, saving natural resources and reducing landfill waste.
New shades in the Kids’ Corner made from slats of tortoise bamboo brighten the area, and bamboo is a rapidly renewable material, which means it will replenish itself within a 10-year cycle. Recycled flooring material for the offices came from a local manufacturer, lessening the carbon footprint of delivering the product.
Another green component is the new flooring in the Aquarium’s classroom giving the facility a LEED credit for being 50 percent post industrial and for meeting the limits for VOC (volatile organic compounds).
Remodeling with materials that pose minimum impact on the environment provide yet another way to educate the public on the importance of “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
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