This text was written by Burgess Brown. Wholesome Supplies Lab is a design analysis lab at Parsons Faculty of Design with a mission to position well being on the heart of each design choice. HML is altering the way forward for the constructed surroundings by creating sources for designers, architects, lecturers, and college students to make more healthy locations for all folks to stay. Take a look at their podcast, Hint Materials.
That is Half I of a three-part sequence on the hazards of vinyl flooring. In Half II we’ll discover the lengthy historical past of employee endangerment by the vinyl trade and the ways in which legacy continues in China as we speak.
When you’ve stayed in a not too long ago renovated AirBnB, stumbled upon quickly-flipped properties on Zillow, or tuned into the DIY nook of YouTube within the final couple of years, you’ll acknowledge a standard inside design development: imitation wooden or stone flooring branded as “Luxurious Vinyl Tile.” These flooring are all over the place and for good motive. LVT is reasonably priced, sturdy, straightforward to keep up and fast to put in — a DIYer’s dream! Nevertheless it’s not simply DIYers which have hopped on the LVT practice —huge numbers of high-end accommodations, faculties, reasonably priced housing models and workplace buildings have plasticized their flooring.
Behind the slick rebrand and influencers’ stamp of approval, LVT producers are hiding a “soiled local weather secret,” based on a latest report from the Middle for Environmental Well being, Materials Analysis L3C, and Autocase Financial Advisory.
What’s in a Title?
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Vinyl flooring has been round in some kind for the reason that plastics revolution of the early twentieth century. It grew to become a residential inside staple in the course of the postwar housing increase. Sheet vinyl was a fast and reasonably priced possibility for builders racing to deal with a rising inhabitants. Right this moment’s vinyl can look fairly completely different, however at its core, it’s nonetheless a petrochemical product made with chemical substances of significant well being and local weather concern. The addition of the posh classification in vinyl branding is a latest advertising time period, and it’s hoodwinking hordes of purchasers. It usually designates vinyl tiles or panels (LVT or LVP) which can be made to mimic the look of wooden, stone or ceramic.
The recognition of those tiles and panels, significantly of the unfastened lay selection, have exploded thanks to a different increase interval: pandemic renovations. In 2021, LVT gross sales grew by a whopping 37.4%. By 2022, vinyl flooring made in China alone grew to become the commonest flooring offered in america, accounting for over one- quarter of all flooring offered within the U.S. In line with the report from Middle for Environmental Well being, there are severe points with lack of transparency and accuracy across the human and environmental toll of the LVT increase.
A Soiled Local weather Secret
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CEH’s report, titled “Flooring’s Soiled Local weather Secret”, uncovers points with the accuracy of reported carbon emissions by producers of LVT and a scarcity of transparency round poisonous chemical substances utilized in manufacturing of vinyl flooring. Listed here are the 4 key findings from the report:
1. Carbon Emissions from producing PVC are underestimated by between 8% and 180% in Producer Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
In line with the report, producer EPDs use outdated information and depend on carbon emission estimates from a single U.S. based mostly manufacturing plant that doesn’t precisely replicate world emissions.
2. Staff all alongside the provision chain, together with frontline and fenceline communities within the U.S. and overseas are endangered by publicity to hazardous chemical substances used to make LVT; Vinyl flooring producers use vital portions of extremely poisonous chemical substances like PFAS and mercury to provide PVC.
PFAS, Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances often known as “ceaselessly chemical substances,” are poisonous to people at extraordinarily low ranges of publicity. The manufacturing of PFAS chemical substances releases greenhouse gasses that degrade the ozone layer whereas mercury, additionally utilized in PVC manufacturing, produces local weather warming greenhouse fuel emissions. You might have seen latest protection of a report from the U.S. Geological Survey that discovered PFAS in almost half of the faucet water within the U.S.
3. Asbestos is used to provide chlorine to make PVC flooring in america – importing asbestos for PVC manufacturing represents the final remaining authorized use of this poisonous mineral fiber.
Sure, you learn that proper: asbestos. The U.S. imports roughly 373 metric tons of asbestos from mines in Russia and Brazil every year particularly to gasoline the manufacturing of PVC. There’s threat of publicity and launch into the surroundings in any respect phases of this world provide chain. The EPA, which has partially restricted asbestos use within the U.S., proposed a ban on asbestos in 2022 that has been met with fierce opposition from the chemical trade.
4. Elevated use of coal has resulted in larger carbon dioxide emissions as a result of US producers have shifted the vast majority of vinyl flooring manufacturing to China.
U.S. vinyl flooring producers have shifted the majority of manufacturing to China the place coal is used to provide PVC as a substitute of pure fuel, which is used within the U.S. The usage of coal as a feedstock releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the environment.
So, based on the CEH report, the LVT increase is inflicting an infinite improve in carbon emissions and is exposing employees, fenceline communities and residents to extraordinarily poisonous chemical substances. All of that is beneath or mis-reported by vinyl producers. The place does this depart architects, designers, and DIYers selecting flooring? We now have to ask what’s the true price of this “cheap” product and why would we ever wish to use this product? Luckily, there are many lovely, wholesome, and reasonably priced options to LVT.
More healthy, Inexpensive Options
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When selecting flooring supplies, search for supplies containing benign, regenerative substances and use non-toxic finishes. Listed here are some choices to specify as a substitute of vinyl:
- Linoleum (tiles, planks, and poured) is made primarily from vegetation—linseed oil from the flax plant and wooden flour from bushes. Different substances are added to make sure sturdiness.
- Cork comes from the bark of the Cork Oak tree, which is harvested and regenerates with out injuring the tree.
- Hempwood is a plant-based possibility that helps carbon sequestration via rising hemp. Its sturdiness is equal to hardwood.
- Strong hardwood could be completed utilizing merchandise freed from poisonous solvents, permitting it to breathe and assist regulate the inside local weather and enhance indoor air high quality.
- Engineered hardwood made with soy-based binders is usually extra reasonably priced than a stable wooden possibility.
- Porcelain tile is benign and absolutely vitrified, making it extremely sturdy and chemical-resistant.
- Reclaimed flooring, when constructed from wholesome supplies and located domestically, saves supplies that will find yourself in landfills and reduces carbon emissions and well being impacts.
For extra in-depth steerage on more healthy flooring, try the Wholesome Supplies Lab flooring supplies assortment. You’ll discover detailed spec steerage and an inventory of rigorously vetted flooring merchandise which were holistically evaluated by our workforce for his or her content material and efficiency.
That is Half I of a three-part sequence on the hazards of vinyl flooring. In Half II we’ll discover the lengthy historical past of employee endangerment by the vinyl trade and the ways in which legacy continues in China as we speak.
