Perhaps, but I’m not sure you’re properly interpreting or understanding the HBN article’s analysis.
I’m not the expert but I think the issue being raised is that when coal is burned the EPA regulates the amount of mercury that can be emitted from the power plant’s flue. So coal plants scrub this, and other regulated substances like sulfur dioxide, from the flue gasses. The main product used for synthetic gypsum, sulfur dioxide (containing some mercury), ends up being sold to the synthetic gypsum board factory where the mercury can end up being volatilized and released through the gypsum board factory’s flue without the same EPA regulations requiring it to be removed from the flue gasses.
The fact that there is a market for the FGD products for making gypsum means that the coal plants are able to pass the mercury on to another industry that isn’t being regulated as stringently. So yes, the mercury is introduced when the coal is mined and burned, but it is ultimately being released to the environment through the gypsum factory’s flue.
I also might agree with you that it poses little danger to the building occupants or even the worker installing the synthetic gypsum board. The mercury released from the gypsum factory’s flue however, is posing a greater potential danger to the environment surrounding the gypsum factory, as well as the surrounding community, and eventually areas downstream and in the food chain due to mercury’s persistent bioaccumulation and toxicity.
So it might be less concerning that there is mercury in the gypsum board the construction worker is installing, and more concerning that there is the increased amount of mercury in that same worker’s tuna fish sandwich they bring for lunch each day. The source for both could have been the synthetic gypsum board factory which can be traced back to the coal. But the coal plant passed the externality on to the gypsum factory who didn’t have to control for it and it gets passed on to the rest of us from there.
As long as there is a market for it, the industrial chain releasing the toxin will remain. Coal plants being shut down can break that chain. So can increased pressure from consumers to avoid using FGD gypsum. Of course, so could pressure from the EPA to regulate mercury from synthetic gypsum factories.
All of this is a wicked problem and I don’t know that there is a clear solution. The article even acknowledges that natural gypsum has its issues too. They are advocating for change based on their focus of hazard (in this case mercury) avoidance. Someone else might come to a different conclusion based on other things and it might still be perfectly logical. I simply wanted to point it out because it was a case of where virgin materials are being pushed as a potentially better option and tie it back to the original topic of synthetic gypsum which was being looked at as a “environmentally friendly product” most likely due to the high recycled content, but it can be trickier than that.
To be honest, my office is less concerned about whether we are getting natural or synthetic gypsum (most of the time it will be natural based on our project locations), and more concerned with ways that we can reduce it’s use in our projects with enhanced products or thinner products where fire resistance or acoustical performance aren’t needed. Project teams are thinking more about how they can avoid using 5/8-inch Type X board everywhere and instead be strategic and use thinner products or products with reduced carbon footprints to reduce the project’s overall embodied carbon. They’ve taken the interpretation that reducing carbon overall is more important than worrying about the mercury or pre-/post-consumer recycled content percentages.