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Green News

Your new green Main Library is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified by the United States Green Building Council.

Here are some of the green initiatives:

  • The Children's Room and Teen Room contain bamboo floors, which was chosen specifically for it's sustainability. Bamboo is a grass and not a tree, which means it grows fast and plentiful. Often, growth occurs as quickly as three to five years.
  • The old open parking lot was replaced with an underground garage. By putting the parking underground, we had room for a large landscaped and wonderful new children’s play area. In fact we could say we created a  ‘green roof’ for our garage!
  • Many of the windows that you see in the new building do open. The entire front of the new addition is a double skin curtain-wall which is like a giant insulated window helping to warm us in the winter and cool us in the summer.
  • A day-lighting system has sensors to turn off lights when there is enough light from the sun. There are occupancy sensors in all small rooms that turn off lights when they are unoccupied.
  • Products used contain no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) commonly found in floor and carpet glues.
  • The library uses low water flush toilets and sinks with automatic sensors.
  • The building contractor recycled 96% of our construction waste. Materials such as wood crates, paper, building materials and old stone were set aside for re-use.
  • There is a 350,000 gallon underground water tank by the front entrance that is used to catch storm water runoff from a portion of the city. The tank is part of a large MWRA project to control run–off and reduce localized flooding.