KBIS Report: It’s Getting Green in Here
As I walked around last year’s Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas, I asked where I could find the green products. I was encouraged to put on my walking shoes and make the trek to a minor hall where I found about twenty square feet devoted to five or six products that left little impression on me. Much has changed, it seems, in only one year. Green is the buzzword at this year’s show, helped in no small part by the host city, Chicago, showing off its green-ness through LEED building projects going up within sight of the convention center. Just about every booth displayed information on how green their products were. “Green building has become the spark that has added some life to this industry,” a representative from MasterBrand Cabinets told me.
Water saving innovators Kohler and TOTO made green the focus of their booths, proudly displaying the Watersense stickers on their high efficiency toilets. TOTO, who recycles 100% of their china, has developed a universal toilet bowl whose tank can be interchanged from a 1.6 gallon per flush to a 1.28 gpf e-tank.
