I keep hearing from Reps. that the next version of LEED will prohibit the use of PVCs (carpet, roofing). Does anyone know?
The next version is out so you can check up on it for yourself; however, as a practical matter, banning PVC from all products or a substantial number of product types is probably impractical.
LEED is not in the business of regulating the use of products, and remember that Credits are optional. Credits are typically written in a positive manner to encourage the use of sustainable materials and strategies that are benchmarked against credible standards. The PVC issue has been the subject of MUCH discussion within the USGBC and there is a PVC Task Group focused on trying to reach some consensus as to how to approach the issue in a fair and reasonable manner: LEED certification for neighborhood development | U.S. Green Building Council
LEED for Healthcare, currently in draft form, which is based on the Green Guide for Healthcare, does have a Credit that directly addresses the PVC issue, “Credit MR 4.1, PBT Source Reduction: Dioxins and Halogenated Compounds.” http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=3468
Some of us Greenies feel strongly, based on our research on the topic, that avoiding PVC is a good thing. Of course you can’t avoid it entirely. But, by bringing this issue to the forefront and pushing the marketplace to develop non-PVC alternatives, there are many more options today that there were even a few years ago.
The USGBC, in its final TSAC report on this issue, concludes that PVC is no better or worse than alternative materials from a LCA perspective. Even so, there is a small group of anti-PVC zealots that continue to spread misinformation about this, one of the most studied of ALL building materials, in an attempt to get the material on some sort of DO NOT USE list.
The USGBC PVC report conculdes that material avoidance credits are NOT recommended. Rewarding teams for material avoidance actually ends up steering decision makers toward materials that are MORE environmentally DAMAGING in many cases (specifically with regard to PVC, which is [to some folks] a surprisingly BETTER environmental alternative to many other building materials).
When I encounter anti-PVC proselytizers, I find that none has actually even bothered to READ the USGBC report, but instead happy continue spreading the type of misinformation being handed down by the HBN and their ilk.
The Green Guide for Healthcare anti-PVC credit was roundly criticized by the USGBC MR TAG and further by hundreds of public comments. It is a credit that was ill conceived from the get go. It is a pathetic attempt by the anti-PVC camp to get a PVC-avoidance credit into a USGBC rating system in compelte contradiction to the recommendations made about PVC in the USGBC TSAC report.
Dear Mr. Anonymous,
You sound just like the carpet & roofing vendors that tell us PVC is fine. However, when I go home at night and my wife or son tells me get the PVC shower curtain out of the house because they saw on the news that PVC is bad…well all I can say is it would seem the pro-PVC’ers have already lost that battle of perception.
Russell,
Then you should go educate yourself on the issue, which as Anon has done so very well, and then educate your family.
I will vouch for Mr. Anon that what he has stated is totally correct.
William
I was wondering when the PVC apologists would speak up. What took you so long? You’re usually quicker on trigger. And you’re so shy too, Mr. Anon - what company do you represent?
Sadly, massive letter writing campaigns and mis-information spread by that well oiled machine (;o), otherwise known as the Vinyl Institute and all their pals, does not change the facts or the science.
Yes, read the reports, study up on the science, and think about what kind of buildings you want to build. Me, I like the idea of building healthy buildings.
Peggy, you need to read more facts, and less hysteria.
Most of the concerns relates to the way they make vinyl or process it in manufacturing items made with vinyl - only, they don’t make it that way anymore.
It does not mean that you can’t make it that way in some 3rd world country that does not regulate their industries, but then you can make almost anything so that it is harmful in some fashion. I can go out in the country not far from most major metropolitan cities and find someone making moonshine illegally, and likely dangerously (to their workers as well as their consumers). But for that should we ban the legitimate distilleries, breweries and wineries?
Maybe we should all come out against cotton, abandon all your cotton products, afterall, someone somewhere could be destroying their worker’s lungs with cotton filaments.
At least Mr. Anon lists specific reports by legitimate organizations (such as USGBC), or is their literature suspect as well.
Your own criticism is woefully short of credible evidence (actually none) to uphold your point of view.
William
William - perhaps you didn’t notice the link to the plethora of information put forth by the USGBC PVC TSAC that I included in my first note, and which your friend Mr. Anon quotes from. As I said, this issue has been discussed quite a bit in the sustainable community, and everyone has had a chance to put their two cents into the pot (even the greenwashing crowd). All I said was that some of us greenies have come to the conclusion that doing what we can to avoid the use of PVC is a good thing, and we’re happy that alternative products are being developed. No need to panic.
Hysteria? Please, that’s so 60’s. Woman speaks up, gets called hysterical.
I’m not going to jump into this fray except to note that, regarding the shower curtain story, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said “our staff scientist found many problems with the testing methodology, which called into question the credibility of the science.” They also said there was a far greater risk of harm from slipping and falling in the shower than from anything in the curtain. Based on the huge risk of harm faced daily by our populace, I’m calling for an immediate ban on showering.
John,
Here here. I’ve been looking for a post I can really get behind. But I also want to support Peggy. So I’m calling for no showering for men!
Back to being green, but not following LEED… I have several clients who prefer to limit the use of PVC products when possible and where appropriate alternatives are available. I find that to be a fair and reasonable response. Now I wish I’d taken that chemistry class in college.
John’s ban on showering reminds me of oneof my favorite quotes. To a woman who complained that the shower scene in “Psycho” so frightened her daughter that the girl would no longer shower, Alfred Hitchcock replied:
“Then Madam I suggest you have her dry cleaned.”
I can see PVC being an issue if you were shut up in a closet that was entirely lined in vinyl, and of course the closet had no ventilation. But of course, LEED also mandates a certain number of air changes per hour and no one is going to line their room with it.
Now, someone please tell me why linoleum is considered so preferable? its illegal to make in the US, has to be shipped 5000 miles to get anywhere, and needs 40% more cleaning and maintenance than a vinyl floor…
I was unaware that the manufacturing of linoleum was illegal in the US. My understanding is that Armstrong (one of the last US manufacturers) got out of the business when the demand for it dropped to almost nil. If they had waited another couple of years and done some product development, they might have been able to retain market share now cockroached by the European manufacturers.
As for it’s being green; it’s the whole rapidly renewable resource thing (like wheat board). Since it is manufactured using linseed oil (made from the flax plant) you get a new crop at least every year. Of course you are competing for this resource with linen and flax seed oil as well as linseed oil (which I am assuming has fallen out of favor because of the VOC issue) so the price of that linen jacket you have been coveting will be higher because of more demand for linoleum. Now if we can get around shipping flax from somewhere in Africa to the Europe where it can be made into linoleum to be sold to green project in the US.
Armstrong has a new “biobased” product in which the plasticizer is manufactured from a plant-based oil (which I believe is corn oil). So they ship the corn oil to Pennsylvania from Corn Products Road in Corpus Christi, Texas so it can be combined with some recycled limestone and then shipped to El Paso, Texas to be installed in a LEED certified building. When you consider how much these composition tiles weigh (70 to 80 percent limestone so you don’t fit a lot of product on an 18-wheeler), the transportation costs (dollars, pollution, etc.) are significant. Mmmmm…
Between locally sourced/manufactured products, products with recycled content, and products with rapidly renewable resource material; what would you choose? If you add the dimensions of cost, service life, and maintenance, the answer doesn’t come any easier. Really fodder for another thread, but an interesting question.
Peggy and for those of you that ban PVC from your health care projects… just remember that IV and blood bags are made from PVC as well as tubing and other medical devices.
I thought that PVC was no so much the problem but more the plasticizer (DEHP) leaching out.
William - It is my understanding that cotton is the number one crop in pesticide and herbicide use. It accounts for something like 1/4 of all the world’s pesticide use! So if I can’t wear polyester or nylon or animal skins…what the heck am I going to wear?! I know! Hemp!
Anne/Peter - I too have heard that the manufacturer of linoleum is banned by the EPA. I’m not sure that I believe it but I am surprised that the huge increase in demand for linoleum products has not monetarily influenced Armstrong or Forbo to open domestic manufacturing facilities. After all with the current state of oil prices, shipping across the Atlantic and trucking across the US is not going to get any cheaper.
Here are the facts from the USGBC Assessment for the Technical Basis for a PVC-Related Materials Credit for LEED February 2007 for people that have not read (or choose not to read) the report:
Summary of Findings:
“No single material shows up as the best across all the human health and environmental impact categories, nor as the worst.”
“Relative to the environmental impact categories, PVC performs better than several material alternatives studied, regardless of the life cycle scope”
“Human Health Risk. If buyers switched from PVC to aluminum window frames, to aluminum siding, or to cast iron pipe, it could be worse than using PVC.”
“Environmental Impact. The evidence indicates that a credit that rewards avoidance of PVC could steer decision makers toward using materials that are worse on most environmental impacts.”
“TSAC’s position is that, even if one assumes that there are better alternatives, simply crediting the avoidance of PVC does not provide an incentive for using those better alternatives as proposed to other alternatives that might not be better.” “It follows that if PVC is not consistently among the worst option for its common applications, such a credit could readily become an incentive to use something worse, which would not represent positive market transformation.”
Instead of a “plethora of information” showing PVC as a material to be avoided, I find the exact OPPOSITE to be the conslusion in the USGBC report. So, in avoiding the use of PVC building materials in every possible way, you are not being green at all, but actually causing MORE environmental damage.
Well Mr. (or Ms.?) Anon - still hiding in the vinyl closet are you?
I didn’t say that the report came to a definitive conclusion against PVC. I just said that it contained a lot of information and that many points of view were considered in producing the report. I know this may provoke another apoplectic reaction, but Pharos has an interesting download on the conclusions of the report, somewhat different from yours: http://www.pharosproject.net/wiki/index.php?title=USGBC_TSAC_PVC
We’re all capable of evaluating information and coming to our own conclusions. My conclusions are different from yours.
David - re IV lines and bags, yes, I know, and it gives me the creeps! Thankfully, alternatives are being developed.
Uhh, yeah, thanksalot, but I do not need HBN to do my thinking for me.
I provided verbatim excerpts from the USGBC report. I do not feel the need to spin my own interpretation on the conclusions made, the statements are crystal clear. The report concludes, most definitely, that a PVC-avoidance credit is a BAD thing and that using PVC building materials is a GOOD thing for the large majority of materials included in the study (roughly 75%).
This is in stark opposition to your posting that “some of us greenies have come to the conclusion that doing what we can to avoid the use of PVC is a good thing.” This position is not supported by the facts presented in the USGBC report and the adoption of such a position in light of the facts presented in the report will result in far greater environmental damage.
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts.
When we add end of life with accidental landfill fires and backyard burning, the additional risk of dioxin emissions puts PVC consistently among the worst materials for human health impacts
Everyone has their favorite quotes from the USGBC’s TSAC report.
What else did the TSAC report find?
The TSAC committee report looked at PVC and two to three alternative materials in four product types: windows (PVC, aluminum and wood), pipe (PVC, cast iron and ABS), siding (PVC, aluminum and fiber cement) and resilient floor (VCT, sheet vinyl, linoleum and cork). The report summarizes impact findings in three categories: Cancer, Total Human Health (includes cancer plus more effects including global climate change, particulates, mercury) and Environment. For the Environment category, TSAC looked at acidification, eutrophication, smog, ozone depletion, global climate change, fossil fuel depletion, ecotoxicity then normalized the scores to one ranking.
Accounting for the wide range of data available on each of these issues, TSAC provided a low, average and high impact estimate for each category. Predictably, the results vary depending upon which estimates are used. Even using the low end estimates, PVC is rarely superior in any product type. Low end estimates are not, of course, protective of human health. Taking a Precautionary Principle approach to examine the TSAC data using the average to high estimates of impact for all materials leads to the following conclusions:
On TSACs Cancer ranking, PVC is consistently the absolute worst for each of the four product types studied.
On TSACs Total Human Health ranking, PVC consistently comes out either tied for worst or absolute worst.
On TSACs Environmental ranking, PVCs performance is mixed still absolute worst in the case of flooring - both VCT and sheet vinyl - but better than one alternative and roughly equal to the other alternatives in the other three cases. Specifically it ranked better on environment than cast iron pipes, aluminum siding and non thermally broken aluminum windows and not significantly different from ABS pipes, wood windows, wood siding and fiber cement siding.
Within the specific Environment subcategories performance is scattered with different materials excelling or being worse in different categories. Only cork flooring consistently outperformed every other alternative in its category in all environment indicators.
Overall Conclusion: Screening out PVC across the board will lead to consistently better total cancer and overall health results. This is why reduction of the use of PVC and other halogenated compounds that share the dioxin forming proclivities of PVC is rewarded in the GGHC and draft LEED-HC.
In the other environmental impact categories, there are no materials (among the limited set studied) that perform consistently better or worst across all categories, other than cork flooring. Impacts will vary depending upon the alternate material chosen and which environmental impacts are valued highest. A simple screen for PVC will give you variable results on these issues. Other screening tools are needed to insure that other environmental impacts are well accounted for and receive market push to improve.
This analysis was first published in the Environmental Building News in May 2007. More detail on the discussions around the TSAC report is available at http://www.pharosproject.net/wiki/index.php?title=USGBC_TSAC_PVC
Additional information about dioxin, phthalates and other toxicity issues related to PVC are also available at the PharosWiki.
I would like to request that a public debate like this one - particualrly where aspersions are being cast on participants be done with full disclosure, not anonymously.
In all fairness, readers are encouraged to read the Vinyl Institute’s position on this in addition to HBNs stand:
http://www.vinylinstitute.org/Environment/VIResponsetoLEEDHC.aspx
Anon