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The Pharos Project is a project of the Healthy Building Network. HBN is:

In Vermont:
Bill Walsh, Paul Bogart

In California:
Julie Silas, Tom Lent

In Washington, DC:
Larry Kilroy, Sarah Gilberg, Sarah Pickell, Susan Sabella

In Maine:
Jim Vallette

  

ALTERNATIVES TO PVC FLOORING STILL NEED IMPROVEMENT ON THEIR PATH TO SUSTAINABILITY

TOM L.
 
22 JANUARY
We’ve completed analysis on and released another five products for display in the Pharos Project today.  Four of them are batt insulation products. Three are variations of Thermafiber's "slag wool" batt insulation, and the fourth insulation is a Roxul product.  We have not previously contacted these manufacturers for their participation, so these data are preliminary, based upon publicly-available data.  Products such as these, with no prior engagement with manufacturers, are listed with  gray-colored scores.  We look forward to working with Thermafiber and Roxul to augment and complete their Pharos evaluations.

The fifth is Stratica, a polyolefin resilient flooring product that has been one of the more popular alternatives for specifiers seeking to avoid PVC vinyl flooring.  Amtico, Stratica's manufacturer, has declined to participate in Pharos to date.  Their scores are therefore listed with black-colored evaluations. This flooring is likely no stranger to many Pharos subscribers and Heathy Building Network (HBN) followers. HBN’s Resilient Flooring & Chemical Hazards report released last year reviewed vinyl and the major alternatives: synthetic rubber, Stratica and linoleum.  The report made clear that PVC continues to earn its worst-in-class reputation due to serious toxic chemical problems throughout its life cycle.  Likewise in Pharos, PVC flooring products earn the lowest Manufacturing & Community Toxics scores of the product group.  

HBN research revealed, however, that there is still much need for improvement among the major commercial alternatives.  For example, while avoiding the phthalate plasticizers that burden vinyl products, Stratica still contains a Prop 65 carcinogen – carbon black – that keeps its User Exposure scores from climbing higher than the best of the vinyls. It also still has many components with red-flagged chemicals in their manufacturing chemistry.

While no ideal “green” material currently exists for flooring options, the HBN report points the way to a range of alternative materials with lesser toxicity hazards than sheet and tile products made with PVC and more potential for improvement. Over the next few months, we will continue to add flooring alternatives to the Pharos database to help you map how they compare and where they are on the path to sustainability

Tom Lent is a researcher with the Pharos Project and the policy director of the Healthy Building Network.

Comments

There are 2 comments.

Tom Lent
  
Feb 8th

Thanks for your comment. Granite, marble and slate certainly can be be better from an indoor health perspective and avoid many environmental sensitivities - if you can find a truly safe grout and adhesive. Each of these options do, however, often have significant other environmental and health issues elsewhere in their life cycle - particularly associated with their extraction from the earth and the fossil fuel cost of transportation for dense materials like these any significant distance. If you are considering tile, be sure also to look for releasable adhesives to ease recycling at the end of life. Additionally, the focus of the research was commercial applications (specifically in health care. Hard stone surfaces do not always work well for the kind of use that some resilient flooring is put to commercially where comfort underfoot for staff standing for long periods or safety for dropping items calls for a softer resilient surface. An FSC certified sustainably harvested hardwood board - or better yet a reclaimed hardwood board - sealed with low toxicity sealers probably comes as close as we can get currently to the ideal for a resilient floor where the potential moisture issues are not too serious. We do need more development of good alternatives in the resilient flooring area to get to the ideal for teh whole range of applications.

Leslirae Rotor
  
Feb 8th

When you say that there are "no" ideal green materials for flooring options, are you including granite, marble and slate tiles (used with safe grouts and safe tile adhesives? Are you also including hardwood flooring sealed with safe sealers? I built the first environmentally safe home for high indoor air quality, using solar heating in Canada to deal with environmental sensitivities. Although I researched and tested each material used, flooring was one of the easiest elements of the house to deal with -- so I am surprised to read your conclusion that are no green flooring materials.

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