At this point, there is an urgency because people are now experiencing the effects of a warming planet:storms, fires, rising tides, health impacts from warmer temperatures, and more.

To date, climate plans have focused on strategies related to renewable and clean energy, greater efficiency, emissions reduction, etc., especially as it relates to building operations and transportation. However, that is only one side of the (enormous) coin, and it misses key opportunities on the opposite side. It is akin to making the decision to improve your health by incorporating an exercise plan, but continuing a diet of nutritionally deficient and unhealthy foods. You will only get so far, and your dedication to exercise will be undercut by your fast food burgers and supersized fries. 

The other side of the coin? If building and transportation energy and emissions reduction is “heads,” what could be so immense that it fills the flipside? The “tails” of that coin is the vast quantities of products being produced, its emissions and pollution, and the need for toxic chemical mitigation. The missing piece in effective climate mitigation and improved global health is a toxic-free, recyclable product cycle (low-waste and closed-loop).

As energy efficiency and renewable energy gains reduce the carbon footprint of the transportation and building operations sectors, addressing product production assumes an even greater importance. Successfully addressing climate change requires a revolutionary change in how we design and manufacture materials, towards a circular, closed-loop economy. But materials cannot flow effectively in a closed-loop if they are contaminated with toxic chemicals. Safe first, and then circular is possible. 

The urgency to mitigate toxics must be on par with the urgency for clean and renewable energy – they are two sides of the same coin. Failing to recognize this, and create holistic, compatible solutions, will undermine our goals to manage climate change and improve global health. 

Transparency in the supply chain can reveal inconvenient truths about favored products. A fascinating new article about the plywood supply chain brings into view new incentives to stop using fly ash in building products.

In What You Don’t See, Brent Sturlaugson, a practicing architect and associate professor at the University of Kentucky attempts a full accounting of the environmental, social, financial, and political impacts he attributes to the supply chain for Georgia Pacific (GP) plywood. He opens his ledger at the world’s largest open pit coal mine, Peabody Energy’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine, located in the heart of Wyoming’s Thunder Basin National Grasslands. From there the environmental and health costs add up, many of them allocated to the utility that powers GP’s Madison, Georgia plant. The Robert W. Scherer Plant in Monroe County, Georgia, has been calculated to be the largest, dirtiest coal fired power plant in the United States.[2]

This caught the attention of the Healthy Building Network (HBN) Research Team, who previously identified this power plant as a huge mercury polluter. It is also the leading supplier of fly ash to U.S. carpet companies that use the ash as filler—replacing limestone in carpet tiles—in order to qualify for recycled content credits in LEED, the Living Building Challenge, and various government procurement standards. What we had not realized was that the Scherer plant relied upon a single source of coal, the North Antelope Rochelle Mine. HBN and others[3] have long recommended against the use of fly ash in various building products because of the heavy metal content of the ash and the cost incentives fly ash “recycling” provide to continue burning coal – absent reuse, the fly ash must be expensively managed as a hazardous waste. What You Don’t See compels us to consider the ash as processed coal, the original raw material ingredient. In this case, coal mined from the seam of a single, particularly gnarly open pit mine.

Located near Gillette, WY, the mine occupies territory whose history is steeped in the genocide of Indigenous Peoples who negotiated treaty rights to the region in the mid-1800’s. By the end of the century they lost their livelihood to the extermination of the American Bison, and then their land to well-documented, systemic treaty violations. Environmentalists and ranchers alike view the mine as a disaster for the local and global environment. It is a financial disaster for the American taxpayer, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office which cites the mine as an example of corrupt Bureau of Land Management practices that include no bid contracts, financial terms that deprive the U.S. of fair market value, and a brazen lack of transparency. All in violation of federal laws and regulations.

Squandered water and subsidized carbon emissions are only the beginning of the staggering sustainability losses from this coal, according to Sturlaugson’s detailed accounting, which also includes: “dark money” political contributions from the Koch brothers, the use of bankruptcy laws to renege on union pension obligations, and significant releases of toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, respiratory disease, and reproductive and neurological impacts.

Like the rich umber of Mummy Brown pigment, recycled coal ash in building products has a superficial appeal, until you learn the truth. What You Don’t See opens our eyes even wider to the reasons why the use of coal ash—processed coal—is unacceptable in green buildings and building products. Burying these products in our gardens or landfills won’t do. But we can and must root them out of our green rating system and recycling incentives.

To create a truly sustainable circular economy, we must know what’s in the materials and products we choose, and those choices should focus on optimized chemistry for human and environmental health. Only then will we have the building blocks for a circular economy.

A circular economy is fueled by the creation and retention of value. By keeping material streams as pure as possible from the beginning and through the entire use cycle, the full value of a material is retained. Value retention is key to activating the systems that make the circular economy function, including the incentive for manufacturers to take back products because they have value and the motivation for entrepreneurs to create robust secondary markets.

Not all materials are fit for a circular economy, however. When they contain chemicals that are hazardous for humans or the environment, they provide little to no value in supporting  circularity. Fortunately there are ways to choose materials that are safe AND circular so you can build a better offering for your users and introduce valuable inputs for a sustainable economy.

To help designers, entrepreneurs, and innovators make positive materials choices and integrate better chemistry into the design process from the very start, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (C2C PII) have released a new series of advanced learning modules as part of the foundation’s Circular Design Guide, which was co-created with IDEO.

You’ll find them in the Methods section of the guide (scroll to the “Advanced” section), which aims to fuel design thinking for the circular economy by challenging traditional design methods, delivering new approaches, and introducing users to circular economy concepts as well as techniques updated for this new economic framework.

Our study found, among other things, that the Gulf Coast region (which includes Mossville) is home to nine facilities that use outmoded asbestos technology, and home also to some of the industry’s worst polluters: Five of the six largest emitters of dioxins––a long lasting, extremely toxic family of hazardous waste that causes cancer and many other health impacts, are located there. The Bennets reminded the EPA that according to studies by a division of the Centers for Disease Control, Mossville residents have three times higher levels of dioxin in their blood than average Americans, and the dioxin levels found in their yards and attic dust exceed regulatory standards typically used for toxic waste remediations of industrial sites. Even the vegetables in their gardens tested positive for dioxin.

When I think about why we fight so hard to exclude PVC from any palette of green, healthy, or sustainable building materials, I think first of people like Delma and Christine. I then think about the many non-profits, government agencies, and private enterprises dedicated to recycling. Way back in the 1990’s, the industry Association of Plastic Recyclers declared PVC a contaminant to the recycling stream. A generation later, a 2016 study by the Circular Economy evangelist Ellen MacArthur Foundation called out PVC packaging for global phase-out, citing low recycling rates and chemical hazard concerns. Much of the concern about PVC packaging is driven by worries about ocean pollution.  HBN’s study found that at least one U.S. PVC manufacturer is routinely dumping tons of PVC pellets into local waterways and refusing to stop even after being ordered to do so by the state of Texas.

The list goes on. Our report documents the types of industrial pollution in addition to dioxin that could be reduced or avoided by a switch to more recyclable plastics that are not made with the chlorine that is an essential ingredient of PVC, including ozone depleting and potent global warming gasses. HBN’s earlier studies have documented the hazards posed by legacy pollutants that are returning to our consumer products in recycled PVC content––heavy metals such as lead, and endocrine-disrupting plasticizers known as phthalates.

As the report reminds us, it’s important to consider not only the use-phase impacts of building products, but the entire life cycle, including primary chemical production that’s several steps back from final product manufacture. 

Blowing agents are used in plastic foam insulation to create the foam structure and also contribute to the insulative properties. Over the years, manufacturers have cycled through a range of fluorocarbons as each prior class is phased out due to environmental concerns – from ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to less ozone depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) to the non-ozone depleting but high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) currently common in many types of foam insulation. Manufacturers have now begun the latest shift to next generation, low global warming potential hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs). For extruded polystyrene (XPS), this translates to a shift from commonly used HFC-134a with a global warming potential (GWP) of 1,430 to HFO-1234ze with a GWP of six.2

The summary of these chemical transitions only tells part of the story. While HFOs do not directly deplete the ozone layer or significantly contribute to global warming, many HFOs use carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) as a chemical feedstock. This includes HFO-1234ze, the replacement for HFC-134a (which does not use CCl4) in many applications.3

How is it that this ozone depleting substance is still in use? Many uses of carbon tetrachloride were phased out in 1995, under the terms of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. But the Montreal Protocol phase-outs exempted the use of CCl4 as a chemical feedstock, under the assumption that emissions would be minor.4 However, carbon tetrachloride “is not decreasing in the atmosphere as rapidly as expected” based on its known lifetime and emissions, according to a 2016 report on the Mystery of Carbon Tetrachloride. The authors of this report concluded that emissions of carbon tetrachloride during its production, and fugitive emissions from its use as a chemical feedstock, have been significantly unreported and underestimated.5

Production of carbon tetrachloride is likely to increase as industry replaces HFC blowing agents (and refrigerants), most of which aren’t produced with carbon tetrachloride, with HFOs that do use CCl4 as a feedstock.[6] With increased production and use of carbon tetrachloride, increased emissions are expected – and that’s bad news for the earth’s recovering ozone layer.

We recommend against the use of plastic foam insulation whenever possible, but if you do use it, some products are available that use other, less impactful, blowing agents, including hydrocarbons and water. For more recommendations about preferable insulation from a health hazard perspective, review our product guidance at informed.habitablefuture.org.

By applying its chemical strategy to all products in target categories, Home Depot makes important strides toward equity in the green building movement. It tracks many of the recommendations HBN provides to the affordable housing community in our HomeFree initiative. Because it impacts products at all price points, not just premium products and not just those that qualify for the retailer’s Eco-Options program, the policy ensures that all contractors and do-it-yourself customers get healthier products regardless of the brand purchased, and regardless of whether or not the product has been certified “green.” One of the qualifying products, a flat sheen paint, is the first “zero VOC” paint priced under $20 per gallon.[1] “We’re not just sourcing new healthier products, we are striving to improve our current assortment of the products we already sell,” Ron Jarvis, Home Depot Vice President of Merchandising and Sustainability, told HBN.