An article about " Plastics as Building Material "

Plastics as Building Material

plastics function quite well in in-ground applications, or where materials are likely to be exposed to persistent damp, bacteria or poor ventilation. They are also used for mouldings, insulation and durable facings on board products.

Plastics are made from non-renewable petroleum byproducts, are energy-intensive to produce, involve the use of toxic chemicals and create toxic waste during their manufacture. Most plastics are not biodegradable, making for an ever-growing dilemma of how to safely and ethically dispose of them.

Too much plastic is abandoned in landfills after only one use - as take away food containers, plastic bags, packaging material, etc. Countless land and marine animals die every day after being choked, strangled or poisoned by plastic rubbish. Plastic refuse is also a horrific visual pollutant in the urban and rural areas and marine environments of the world.

Plastics don't breathe like natural materials (wood, stone earth, cotton, hemp, etc.) and infact often emit noxious fumes or hormone-disrupting, biologically active chemicals (phthalates dioxins) - such as from PVC products or when they are burnt (highly dangerous).

Product which contain the organochlorine PVC include: pipes, guttering, windows, vinyl flooring, wall-coverings, shower curtains, blinds, non-carbonated drink bottles, cooking oil bottles, cling film, margarine tubs and boxes, interior trim, sealants and underseal in cars, tubing, probes, catheters, blood bags and gloves in hospitals.

Greenpeace, which argues that 99% of current PVC products have a safer alternative, has been fighting long and hard to prevent the use of PVC plastic building materials in the construction of the Sydney Olympic village. Unfortunately, Australians rank second to Americans  in  their  consumption of PVC products. Recent (and hopefully short-lived) comebacks for PVC have been featuring in designer clothing and inflatable designer furniture.  Chemicals used to manufacture PVC include the persistent and toxic organochlorine group of chemicals.  Production also creates highly dangerous dioxins and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) as waste products.

Older plastic water pipes release pseudo-oestrogens into the water supply. These are implicated in the ever-decreasing sperm counts and increasing feminisation of male animals and human worldwide.

The U.S. Consumer product Safety commission warns that 'miniblinds', which are made in China, Taiwan, Mexico and Indonesia contain PVC, which degrades to lead dust after being exposed to sunlight and heat.  Lead is added during production in order to stabilize the plastic materials in the blinds.

Young children have been found with high lead levels in their blood due to ingesting dust from the miniblinds. Horrendous health problems have ensued, including mental and physical retardation and kidney failure. Sweden, Germany and Austria have banned the use of PVC in construction and other applications.

Plasti-based (petrochemical) paints don't allow vapour-exchange in timber, which can lead to its premature breakdown - exact opposite of what is desired.

Recycling of Plastic is very energy-intensive, polluting, and is only third best in terms of a program to "reduce, reuse, recycle". Yet many more recycled plastic products are coming on the market. Those plastics which best lend themselves to recycling are polypropylene, polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene (PET, HDPE). Also Perspex, polycarbonate and ABS plastics can be recycled. (Processors of all these can be found in the NSW EPA's Recycling Directory).

Polymer Corporation of Queensland has developed a process which fuses and laminates mixed, recycled plastics making them suitable for use as a wallboard. Their innovation is that they have managed to devise a technique which can utilize different kinds of plastics. This has been a challenge for the recycling industry because it has been extremely difficult to reprocess plastics with different characteristics, and it has been very hard to get clean, single-type used-plastics from the waste-stream.

In Holland, countless thousands of recycled plastic coffee cups, bottles and yoghurt containers were melted down and remoulded to make 50 metre-high, earth-filled noise barriers which were placed alongside a railway line.

The Japanese car maker, Honda, has opted to establish a new company to manufacture new items, including tables, chairs and simulated wood flooring - all with plastic left over from car product. Also in Japan, a lingerie maker has  developed a new line of women's underwear - made from soft cloth and lace produced from chemically processed fibres of crush plastic bottles. American and European outdoor clothing manufactures have been using recycled plastic fibre for some time to make thermal clothing.

The U.S. organization, 'Rain forest Relief', is promoting the use of post-consumer recycled plastic lumber for waterfront construction. They believe it to be an excellent way of reducing consumption of rainforest timber. It is longer lasting and therefore more economical than wood and other materials, which is important for government budgets.  It can be recycled again after use, and does not leach chemicals.

Non-PVC and non-petroleum-based bio-plastics and vegetable plastics are being developed by scientists and these are slowly finding their way onto the market as their cost of production decreases, although nature has already developed such things.