I like it when you guys ask the questions [0]; it helps my procrastination immensely. (Speaking of, anybody catch Oprah’s “Green 101” show [1] the other day?) The more I read up on green apartments, the less time spent obsessing over my to-do list [1]. We’ll get back to my projects shortly, but first let’s take a look at a couple of yours. Service, service, service!

In addition to Jeddadiah's inquiry [1] last week, I had another apartment-dwelling friend ask me about kitchen remodels. Kitchens are a big energy sink – you’ve got five or six appliances sucking electricity, plus hot water and heavy lighting demands – so remodeling one can chop your energy needs considerably if you do it well. A brief checklist:

• Easy targets are those appliances: Buy Energy Star [2] qualified models. An Energy Star fridge made this year uses 40 percent less electricity [3] than a standard model sold just five years ago. (Don’t forget to recycle your old one.) Energy Star dishwashers, as Lime lifers will remember, are similarly superb [3].

• If you’re reconfiguring the layout, consider putting the sink and food-prep area near a window – natural daylighting for eyeball-intensive tasks like potato-scrubbing and garlic peeling will reduce electrical demands. (Just make sure any south-facing windows have overhangs or awnings so you won’t overheat in summer.) And keep the fridge, which is trying to keep things cool, away from the oven and stove, which are trying to heat things up. Thermal transfer [4]’s a pain like that.

• Skip the granite countertop – stone is a finite resource, and mining ain’t exactly green – and instead consider recycled glass [5], recycled marble [6], recycled tiles, or even waterproof, machinable recycled paper panels [7]. (This stuff is rad – makes your kitchen look like a high school chem lab.)

• Floors. Despite the hype, you should forget the bamboo floors. Now, here’s where I expect to get a little grief, but I’m going to say it anyway. Bamboo flooring is machined and treated in giant factories by pregnant, bamboo-dust-inhaling teenagers in China, then shipped halfway across the planet to your kitchen floor. Alright, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but the thing is, there’s no certification process for bamboo products [8]. I was talking to a green materials sales guy [9] a while back; he told me he refused to carry bamboo because there was no way to be sure of its history. Was it created under safe working conditions? Was it sustainably farmed? While bamboo in itself is “green” – it grows incredibly quickly; it can be multiply harvested without replanting –the way it’s grown ain’t necessarily so. It can monoculture and reduce biodiversity, and unprofitable forests are often razed to make way for bamboo plantations. (Check this PDF report [10] from Dovetail Partners [11] if you don’t believe me.) Personally, I like recycled cork floors. I think they’re better looking, they dampen sound, they’re softer to stand on – like say when you’re preparing dinner for 12 – and, unlike their bamboo brethren, they don’t dent like a golf ball under high heels. And you know I like my high heels.

Of course, you don’t have to pick up a new fridge to make your kitchen greener – the quickest fix is to buy locally grown organic food [12]. No (toxic) pesticides, no (petro-based) fertilizers, less fuel burned from farm to table – and certainly less stressful than picking out a new paint scheme.