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It's hard for an office building to be greener than the new Bank of America Tower. The 54-story, 2.1 million-square-foot LEED Platinum-certified Goliath features everything from a state-of-the-art air-filtration system and its own co-generation plant that supplies 65% of the tower's energy, to something a bit more basic that most people don't talk about.
The spire, also known as 1 Bryant Park, boasts a complex system that collects rainwater and distributes it to the building's roughly 300 toilets, then filters, disinfects and reuses it in those same commodes. To further cut down on water use, all bathrooms are equipped with low-flow, dual-flush toilets, waterless urinals and low-flow faucets.
The annual water savings total about 13 million gallons. That not only translates to lower water and sewage bills, but also to less strain placed on the city's overtaxed sewage system. More important, for growing numbers of landlords across the city, such savings help them tout their buildings as green - an increasingly attractive claim in the eyes of many tenants.
"If you want to be a sustainable
building, you have to do something about water savings in bathrooms," said Jordan Barowitz, director of external affairs at...