DIALOGUE
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sustainability
PVC
Adelta
Alessi
Artifort
Brayton
Edra
Herman Miller for the Home™
Kartell
Knoll
Louis Poulsen
Magis
Moroso
Vitra
Is it necessary that the wall-covering
last more than 100 years for a client
who has only a five-year lease?
The Vinyl Debate
From Allen Blakey, Senior Director, Public Affairs,
the Vinyl Institute:
Your article “The Vinyl Question,” by Michael
Silverberg (October 2007, p. 112), failed to report
the fundamental conclusion of the U.S. Green
Building Council’s report that PVC building products can have less overall impact than products
made of alternative materials. Nor did you include
any of the government-sourced data that I shared
on the vinyl industry’s track record protecting workers, communities, and the environment.
Vinyl was vilified repeatedly without regard to the
equal or greater impacts from competing materials
and activities. How is it then that since the 1980s
dioxin emissions have declined about 90 percent,
while vinyl production and use have soared?
Metropolis does not serve its readers well with
unquestioning acceptance of the misleading rhetoric of pressure groups. As for companies claiming
to be “PVC-free,” they should be asked for the
published peer-reviewed life-cycle data comparing
their products with similar products made of PVC.
If they can’t or won’t provide it, they are simply
greenwashing—and potentially running afoul of
Federal Trade Commission rules against false and
misleading environmental marketing claims.
Why, the article asked, is so much PVC still being sold and used? Perhaps well-informed design
professionals, specifiers, and consumers have eschewed the misinformation and learned that vinyl—
derived mostly from common salt using less energy
and releasing less CO2 than many competing materials—can be the lowest-impact choice.
Most likely they also know of vinyl products’
durability, reliability, aesthetics, low initial cost,
ease of installation and maintenance, resource
efficiency, flame resistance, slip resistance, chemical resistance, ability to reduce the spread of
pathogens, and other benefits.
Dioxins include some of the most potent carcinogens known to mankind. Their cancer-causing
potential is more than 10,000 times as potent as
the next highest chemical (diethanol amine), half
a million times more than arsenic and a million or
more times greater than the rest.
Dioxin is one of only 12 toxicants targeted for
elimination or reduction by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
There is emerging scientific evidence that the
phthalates in PVC interior surface materials are
linked to such serious respiratory problems as rhinitis and asthma.
The science goes on. This is just a sampling of
the indicators of harm to human health that have
led major U.S. health-care systems, architectural
firms, and product manufacturers to seek healthier
alternatives to PVC. For more information go to www.
healthybuilding.net.
Our compliments to Metropolis for a fine article
exploring the challenges involved in finding good
alternative products.
From Suzanne Drake, Interior Designer, Anshen + Allen:
These days it is no longer sufficient to ask if a
material is safe or legal. To be truly green, we
need to ask, Is it necessary? Is it necessary that
wall-covering be used at all? If the answer is yes,
then ask, Is it necessary that the wall-covering
last more than 100 years for a client who has only a
five-year lease?
As I learn more about our commonly used materials, I am always struck by how little we know
about how these chemicals react with one another
in the environment, in our bodies, and over time.
The best we can do is get educated, ask ourselves
whether it is necessary, and continue to ask our
manufacturers to provide us with alternatives—
democracy in action through capitalism.
Authenticity.
Period.™
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Publications longer than a typical issue of Metropolis
have been devoted to reviewing the science that
supports the concerns about PVC. While the magazine may not normally be an expected venue for
a detailed discussion of scientific research, in this
case a review of the science appears to be in order.
Here are some highlights:
PVC has been identified as a leading source of
dioxins to the environment—created due to its
chlorine content—both when it is manufactured
and when it burns in structural fires or at the end
of its useful life in incinerators or landfill fires.
Ethylene dichloride/vinyl chloride production for
PVC is in the EPA’s top ten sources of dioxin and
is the largest source in the EPA inventory that is
specific to the manufacture of a building material.
LEEDing the Way
From Ann Beha, FAIA:
Many thanks for James Russell’s coherent and well-wrought examination of the issues, “Can LEED
Survive the Carbon-Neutral Era?” (November 2007,
p. 108). When clients are looking for clear (and
too often simplistic) answers on these matters,
architects need to clarify their own philosophical
stance—avoiding the temptation for glib reassurances and challenging themselves and their
clients to think more deeply. Your article is a helpful framework.
Metropolis welcomes letters to the editor.
They can be sent to Dialogue, Metropolis,
61 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010,
or e-mailed to edit@metropolismag.com.
Letters are subject to editing.
