Many individuals have acquired allergies and severe health problems due to lifetime exposure to toxic domestic chemicals, food additives, and out-gassing of traditional building materials made from carcinogenic ingredients. Such clients, and healthy clients who want to stay healthy, hire Green architects. All these clients have one thing in common when they first meet with their Green architect. They want to know: Are any of the building materials, and the raw materials and manufacturing processes that go into making the building materials, going to be as safe as possible and not toxic to life or the environment?
Building materials are sometimes hard to identify as being “Green.” That’s because a lot of different raw materials (some of which are toxic) can be involved in the manufacturing processes of a building material. Also, various manufacturing processes, some of which are very poisonous to the environment, are used in the creation of many building materials.
Frequently, Green architects hire various environmental consultants to help with the selection of Green building materials. Green architects and their environmental consultants, working on behalf of clients, seek out critical information regarding each building material to be used in a project:
1) Do any of the raw materials that make up the building material come from rare or endangered resources?
2) Are there any environmental ramifications from the process of mining or harvesting the raw materials used in making the building material?
3) Are toxic or hazardous by-products created during the manufacturing process, and if so, does this waste pose any exposure-risks to workers or the environment?
4) How much energy is consumed in the manufacturing process of the building material?
5) How much solid waste is generated during the manufacturing process?
6) Will the building material need to travel far to the building site, thereby creating more pollution due to transportation?
7) Will the building material minimize energy use within the building?
8) Will the building material affect the health of the building occupants?
9) Is the building material likely to need frequent replacement, special treatments, or repairs?
10) Will handling of the building materials be hazardous to the construction workers?
11) Can the building material be reused or recycled?
Green architects have discovered, in their effort to provide health-concerned clients with non-toxic materials and architectural designs, that there are “shades” of green. Green is not a black and white issue. With this in mind, an important question to ask is ‘What is the best way to determine if a building material is Green, sort of Green, or not Green at all? In response to this very question, Green architects and environmental consultants use a rule of thumb to determine how Green a material is, a criteria that judges a material according to its five general phases:
1) Raw Material Phase
2) Manufacturing Phase
3) Transportation Phase
4) Usage Phase
5) Disposal or Recycle Phase
Understanding how each of these phases affects the environment is the key to determining whether a building material is Green or not Green. It helps to see that projects tend to fall into two camps: All Green for indoor and outdoor quality, versus Green relative to indoor air quality alone (#4 Usage Phase). People with bad health and limited construction funds are increasingly pursuing the second approach.
Raw Material Phase
When choosing building materials, the Green architect is concerned by the impacts of mining, harvesting, or extraction practices in obtaining any raw materials used in making building materials. Green architects know that building materials created with recycled content reduce the amount of raw material taken from the land, the amount of waste that reaches landfills, and the amount of energy to manufacture the building materials. That’s a big reason why Green architects suggest building materials made with recycled content, such as plastic lumber, cellulose insulation, aluminum, and particleboard.
Manufacturing Phase
A building material that doesn’t harm the environment during its raw-material phase may in fact cause ecological damage during its manufacturing process. An example would be the petrochemicals used to make plastics, adhesives, and coatings. Petrochemicals can be quite toxic at various stages during the manufacturing process. An exotic hardwood tree grows safely on the planet, both in the rainforests or on a plantation. But harvesting trees grown in the rainforests destroys the earth’s rainforests.
Wheat-straw particleboard, which is nontoxic when the product is finished, is actually hazardous to workers at the factory. Nearly all paints, adhesives, and resins used to create building materials are highly toxic during manufacturing. Plastics are usually safe once installed in an architectural project, but when heated, they release dangerous petrochemicals. Green architects and environmental consultants can suggest building materials that cause as little environmental damage as possible during that materials’ manufacturing phase.
Transportation Phase
Regarding environmental pollution, the transportation of building materials from the manufacturer to the job site is a factor to consider when discussing Green Architecture projects. Selecting local materials reduces the amount of fuel used to transport such materials, keeps funds within the local community, and helps market local companies that specialize in Green construction materials. Green architects and environmental consultants are aware of which building materials can be easily and quickly transported from local manufacturers to the project site, thereby creating the least amount of pollution during the transportation phase.
Usage Phase
The longer a building material lasts, the lower its environmental impact. In other words, durable Green materials are much better in the ecological scheme of things. Green materials, when they’re “in use,” contribute to the quality of a building’s indoor environment, such as air, lighting, water and energy consumption, and overall comfort. Specifying Green materials is just one part of the design process for the Green architect, who strives to minimize the clients’ exposure to any form of toxicity. For example, paints and adhesive finishes often contain volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), and the Green architect looks for finish products with the least amount of VOC’s. Carpets too are associated with toxicity, primarily from sytrene butadiene latex backing and adhesives, but Green architects and environmental consultants can recommend the least-toxic carpet products to use in a Green project.
Disposal or Recycle Phase
Green architects and environmental consultants look for building materials that are easily recycled (or biodegradable) when the building material reaches the end of its life cycle, such as when a project is demolished in the future. Materials that can be reprocessed in the future stand a much better chance for recycling considerations. Wood treated with preservatives works great in a building today, but proposes problems when it comes time to dispose of that wood many years from now. (It is extremely difficult to recycle and is not safe in landfills.) A Green Architect might recommend the use of recycled plastic lumber instead.
Since so much is at stake when it comes to personal health, it is extremely important that the Green architect, the environmental consultants and the clients know as much as possible about the building materials intended for the project. Not only can toxic building materials adversely affect the living conditions inside and outside a home, but there are also innumerable environmental repercussions in using toxic building materials. For instance, the manufacturing processes for many materials used in the construction of conventional, non-Green buildings consumes and contaminates vast amounts of water and are responsible for much of the pollution causing global warming, which most environmental experts consider the greatest problem threatening our planet.
Yet, when the architects, consultants, and clients responsible for creating today’s buildings choose true Green Architecture and authentic Green building materials over outdated and dysfunctional architectural designs and toxic building materials, the environment and the condition of all living beings stand a much greater chance of becoming cleaner and healthier.
Green Architecture and Green building materials are helping to create a solid foundation for generations to come. Healthier land, means healthier people.