Waterloo Regional Museum

The Waterloo Regional Museum had its Grand Opening today. It's a great museum with lots of stories about the region, no doubt about it. It also is a LEED certified building and to let people know about a touch screen in the main hall of the museum tells you all about it: The Region of Waterloo Council aims to have all their new buildings LEED Silver certified. They do already have LEED Gold certified buildings. The Blue Bin program for recycling was first established in Waterloo Region, too, FYI.

So the museum was built with over 30% locally sourced materials, uses 25% less energy than ordinary buildings, has low-flow toilets, faucets & urinals which are also fed by storm water for 8 months of the year. The storm water is collected from the building itself and the parking lot and kept in a pond. The roof was painted white to reflect the sun and prevent the building from heating up too much which would then require air conditioning. Interestingly, a decision against installing solar panels or a living green roof has been made due to cost. Both options were more expensive than the white roof that still has its environmental benefits. After all the museum was built from taxpayers money. Ah! The museum planners consider adding on solar panels when they become more affordable. These are not all the building plus points but all in all I must say they made a great effort. I am glad to live now in a place where the environment matters, and seemingly matters more than profits from environmentally-invasive industries.