Lessen Impact Challenge: Water Week

It's Water Week here at FourFront Design and the final days of the Lessen Impact Challenge.

This morning, Steve set up a water sampling taste test with four water sources to compare: A) filtered water from the office, B) bottled water (Smart Water brand), C) water from Steve's well at home, and D) regular City water from the tap.

Here are the results:

Steve's well water received the most votes for the best tasting water, while the City water and filtered water received the most votes for the worst tasting water. There seemed to be a wide range of opinions, with some of the sources receiving similar amounts of votes for both the best and worst tasting water. Although this test wasn't necessarily scientific, results show that when buying bottled water, you don't necessarily get what you pay for.

We also had a great discussion about water usage in our community, and were given information about the City's rebate program for low water use toilets and high-efficiency washing machines.

Jeremy and Curt discussing the balance and finish of their last sampling of water.

FourFront employees, this is the last week of the challenge, so make it count!

Lessen Impact Challenge: Food and Energy Weeks

Next week, FourFront will begin the sixth and final week of the Lessen Impact Challenge! The challenge has been tremendously eye opening, and has really helped all of us evaluate our individual carbon footprint.

Over the past two weeks, we've covered Food and Energy. For Food Week, we watched Food, Inc. which is a great film that will really make you look at the food industry differently. 

This week for our activity focusing on Energy, Black Hills Power paid us a visit to discuss what we can do to reduce our electrical bills. The Home Energy Calculator is a great way to discover what you can do to make your home more energy efficient. 

Next week we will focus on water, with Steve organizing a water taste-test on Monday. We'll update you with the results!

Lessen Impact Challenge: Trash Week

FourFront Design is now into the third week of our Lessen Impact Challenge! 

This week we're focusing on trash. On Free Monday, we showed some of the documentary Garbage Warrior, which focuses on architect Michael Reynolds and his quest to build a fully sustainable house using eco-friendly ideas and garbage.

Exterior hut house, Taos, NM

This week's challenge coincides with the annual office Fall Clean Up. Have questions on what can or can't be recycled? See this post for a quick rundown, or download the city's guide on recycling. 

And again, here's a bonus option: Write an informative or entertaining blog post about trash, email it to me (Jessica) and get 3 extra points for the week! Or, comment below about how you're doing with the challenge to get 1 extra point.

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