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With mandatory composting, recycled rainwater, and abundant fresh air, it sounds like a hippie commune, not a sleek New York high-rise. But when it's completed in 2008, the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, on the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, should be the most environmentally friendly skyscraper in the world. By combining new technologies--vertical-axis wind turbine, waterless urinals, LED lighting--with old tricks such as composting, ice-based air conditioning, and rainwater collection, the building's designers expect it to be the largest structure to earn a top-level "platinum" rating for efficiency from the U.S. Green Building Council, the nation's foremost coalition to promote environmentally sustainable architecture and construction.
To make One Bryant Park a model of extreme energy-efficiency, the $1-billion structure is being built with as many recycled materials as possible. Some 45 percent of its concrete, for instance, will consist of blast-furnace slag--leftover waste generated from iron processing--which means cement manufacturers won't have to make new aggregate, avoiding the release of more than 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And an estimated 75 percent of the tower's construction debris will be recycled.
Although the eco-features will boost construction costs by about 6.5 percent, the building will save its occupants about $3 million a year in energy costs, and increase productivity by $7 million...