Showdown at Namaste Solar

Well, pardner, Ol Dusty here again. Ive been staying on the trail of Melissa McGinnis- and she shure does track down some pretty savory characters. This time she rode into Boulder, Colorado - used to be a disreputable little cow town, just the way I like em. But now Boulders gettin all upscale, andgreen, and latted up. They even got themselves an al-ter-na-tive energy company called Namaste Solar. Thats an Indian name- not the Lakota I used to camp with and learn from back in the good ol days, but from India, where all them smart computer folks and web developers come from.

Well, them folks at Namaste are purty smart themselves. Instead of puttin up a brand spankin new office buildin fer themselves, made out of shiny new lumber and metal and plastics and God knows what-all; they reclaimed an old one! They found a nice spot near the bus line, and close to where their folks could bike, walk, or ride Ol Paint to work! So they set to recyclin that old shack of a buildin into a genyooine state of the art facility! They stripped that ol buildin out, and saved all the wood for later. They covered up the cement blocks and metal with some sort of fancy stuck-o or something. Looks like adobe to me. They put up solar panels to grab that Colorado sunshine and turn it into e-lec-tri-cal juice to run the place. Put them panels right over the windahs to make them offices nice and shady and cool, too.

The inside of that place looks even purtier than the outside. They took all that old wood and reused it to build their offices. Turned out to be easier on the ol gold pouch and better for the planet- and leaves some trees for trail bums like me to nap under. These fellas at Namaste are real zero waste geeks- shootin for zero waste operations from buildins to lunch. They got a thing they call a zero waste center where they recycle all them diffrnt numbers of plastics that give me a headache; paper, bottles, plastic bags, batteries, even them thar CFLs them swirly top lightbulbs with more curves than the gals down at Lils Refreshment Salon.

Bein in the energy bizness, and puttin in them solar panels on folks ranches, bunkhouses, and dry goods stores, they wind up using lots of steel and aloo-min-ee-um and copper wire- ( no gold- I checked the dumpster). Then they ketch all o that copper and aluminum and other semi-precious metals and reuse it. They bring back all the bits and pieces from their job sites! All I bring back from my job site is saddle sores and cow pies.

I was in awe of these folks. Their work stations in the office are made out of recycled wood, plastics, even newspapers! My work station is the back side of a recycled ol hoss, and all I recycle my Daily Tattler newspaper into is privy paper.

But I learned a lot from these folks, and wish em well. They even got me thinkin about puttin solar panels on the brim of my Stetson!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solar
• solar energy
• Namaste energy
• computer waste
• Boulder
• Colorado
• Green
• Green building
• namaste

[ArizonaDelRio]

Good deal.