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What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part III: The Poison Plastic and Why “Recycling Will Not Save Us”
CategoriesArchitecture

What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part III: The Poison Plastic and Why “Recycling Will Not Save Us”

By Zarkon Group,

This article was written by Burgess Brown. Healthy Materials Lab is a design research lab at Parsons School of Design with a mission to place health at the center of every design decision. HML is changing the future of the built environment by creating resources for designers, architects, teachers, and students to make healthier places for all people to live. Check out their podcast, Trace Material.

Between 1950 and 2019, more than 7,000 million metric tons of plastic waste were generated. We add roughly 400 million metric tons to that figure every year. If your eyes glazed over while reading these frankly incomprehensible numbers, just know that our plastic waste problem is out of control. Recycling, the solution long promoted by the plastics industry as a panacea, is deeply flawed at best and entirely unfeasible at worst.

So, if recycling as we know it won’t save us, what do we do with the mounds of plastic clogging our waterways and landfills? Even if we could recycle plastics effectively at scale, does it make sense to recycle a toxic plastic like Luxury Vinyl Tile?

This article is Part III of a three-part series on the hazards of vinyl flooring.

  • Part I explores the “dirty climate secret” behind the popular material and shares some healthier, affordable alternatives.
  • Part II considers the long history of worker endangerment by the vinyl industry and how this legacy continues in China today.
  • Part III, this article, explores the dark side of recycling.

The Guilt Eraser

Municipal Solid Waste – Worker in recycling facility, The U.S. National Archives, Library of Environmental Images, (ORD), image via GetArchive

As early as the 1970s, plastics industry officials warned that effective recycling of plastic wasn’t feasible. One said in a 1974 speech that “there is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.” And yet, the plastics industry forged ahead with its recycling messaging. Plastic’s enemy number one was the guilt people felt about the wastefulness of single use products. So even if the industry wasn’t actually recycling or protecting the environment, they needed consumers to think that they were.

One industry lobbyist called recycling the great “guilt-eraser”. “Recycling assures people that plastic isn’t just an infernal hanger-on; it has a useful afterlife. As soon as they recycle your product,” he explained, “they feel better about it.”

Throughout the ‘90s, as environmental pushback mounted, the plastics industry fought back. Recycling was their most important message, so they spread it far and wide. The industry spent over $250 million on public campaigns about the usefulness of plastic and its ability to be reused. They wanted people to feel safe and comfortable with their products. They also invested millions in recycling efforts, but those efforts have come up dramatically short. In 2021, the U.S. (by far the world’s biggest plastics polluter) only recycled around 5% of plastics.

We spoke to Kara Napolitano who is the Education and Outreach Coordinator for the Sims Municipal Recycling Center in Brooklyn, New York for an episode of our podcast, Trace Material. We cover the sordid history of plastics recycling and its uncertain future. Kara, who lives and breathes recycling, had this to say about how we should set our plastics priorities:

“My job is to teach people about recycling. But I have to bring attention to the fact that recycling is only halfway up that waste hierarchy of preferred methods for managing our waste. Recycling is not number one. Recycling will not save us. At the very top of that waste hierarchy — the most preferred thing to do to manage your waste — is to not create any waste in the first place.”

Kara reminded us that the well known waste management hierarchy goes: “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” If we are to reverse the course of our plastics crisis, we must focus our efforts on drastically reducing production and consumption of plastic all together.

The Poison Plastic

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

There are lots of questions that need answering about the future of recycling. While there is consensus that we should focus on reducing plastics production, there are debates raging about what to do with the mounds of plastic we’ve already created. There is, however, no question about PVC’s place in that future. From a health standpoint, PVC has no place in a circular plastics economy.

That’s because PVC is toxic at every stage of its life cycle. The building block of PVC, vinyl chloride, is a known human carcinogen. Then there are performance additives: plasticizers to make PVC flexible can disrupt the body’s endocrine system and heavy metals used to make it rigid are toxic too. These toxic chemicals are in the millions of homes across the country that utilize the number one flooring choice in the US: Luxury Vinyl Tile. And, these dangerous chemicals don’t magically disappear if PVC is recycled. When companies advertise recycled LVT or tout its ability to enter the circular economy, ask yourself: Would I paint my house with recycled lead paint?

Problematic and Unnecessary

The U.S. Plastics Pact is a group of “stakeholders across the plastics value chain” that are trying to create a circular economy for plastics in the United States. To be clear, this group is certainly not anti-plastics nor anti-recycling. Yet, they have labeled PVC plastic to be a “problematic and unnecessary” material and are working to eliminate it from all packaging by 2025. This is because PVC is “not currently reusable, recyclable or compostable with existing U.S. infrastructure at scale” and “contains hazardous chemicals or creates hazardous conditions that pose a significant risk to human health or the environment (applying the precautionary principle) during its manufacturing, recycling (whether mechanical or chemical), or composting process.”

PVC is incredibly difficult to recycle and it interferes with the recyclability of other plastics too. Even if recycling PVC at scale could be figured out, its carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting chemicals remain. These chemicals pose a threat to residents in the use phase and again to humans and the planet at disposal. The vast majority of PVC ends up in landfills and incinerators. When PVC is burned, a host of toxic chemicals, including dioxins, are released into the air, soil and water. While there may be hope for a future where some plastics are able to be effectively recycled at scale, PVC should not and will not be a part of that future.

Rethink, Redesign, Reform

We should continue to support innovations in plastics recycling. Exciting progress is being made in the field of biological recycling, which uses enzymes from bacteria, fungi and insects to break plastics down into their component parts. This allows for theoretically infinite recycling of plastics that could have a smaller carbon footprint than making virgin plastics.

What we should not do is continue to use recycling as a guilt eraser. No innovations in recycling can justify the continued production of materials as toxic as PVC, and therefore LVT. The most effective thing that we as designers and architects can do to protect humans and our planet, is stop specifying plastics (especially PVC) wherever possible. In part one of this series we shared a list of healthy, affordable alternatives to vinyl flooring. You can find other thoroughly vetted flooring options in our materials collection on the Healthy Materials Lab website.

We’ll leave you with a re-imagining of the waste management hierarchy (“reduce, reuse, recycle”) mentioned earlier from Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences and friend of Healthy Materials Lab, Pete Myers:

Re-Think

Many applications of plastics are non-essential. Serious efforts should be made to identify the essential uses of plastics vs. non-essential.

Redesign

Chemists should be given the challenge of creating safer materials to use when the services of plastic are required.

Reform

The regulatory system needs to be reformed by incorporating 21st century biomedical science in its assessments of safety.

As architects and designers our charge as pivotal members of the design and construction industry is to re-think the design decision making process that has been “business as usual” for the last several decades. If we put the health of our bodies, the planet, and all those living there at the center of our design decisions, the way we build will radically change. That thinking has to extend to the entire lifecycle of the materials we use.

If we consider their impact from the time they leave the earth to the time they are returned to the earth, we will have no choice but to re-design our systems of production. These shifts in thinking will leave no place for toxic plastics or any other toxics in our work. Centering human and ecosystem health in design and construction will positively change the future for everyone.

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 11th Annual A+Awards! Interested in participating next season? Sign up for key information about the 12th Annual A+Awards, set to launch this fall.

Reference

What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part II: How LVT Supply Chains Are “Built on Repression”
CategoriesArchitecture

What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part II: How LVT Supply Chains Are “Built on Repression”

By Zarkon Group,

This article was written by Burgess Brown. Healthy Materials Lab is a design research lab at Parsons School of Design with a mission to place health at the center of every design decision. HML is changing the future of the built environment by creating resources for designers, architects, teachers, and students to make healthier places for all people to live. Check out their podcast, Trace Material.

This article is Part II of a three-part series on the hazards of vinyl flooring.

  • Part I explores “dirty climate secret” behind the popular material and shares some healthier, affordable alternatives.
  • Part II, this article, the long history of worker endangerment by the vinyl industry and how this legacy continues in China today.

Part One: Import Limbo

Warehouses and docks at the Port of New York and New Jersey are filled to the brim with shipping containers full of products like solar panels, textiles and flooring. These containers are stuck in import limbo. The bottleneck has had a particularly dramatic impact on the booming vinyl flooring industry as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of “luxury” vinyl tile collects dust or is returned to sender. They are being meticulously inspected by Customs and Border Protection–part of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act recently passed by the federal government. Customs is looking for products whose life cycles begin in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

This region has become the center of human rights abuses against Uyghurs [pronounced WEE-gur], an ethnic minority group indigenous to Xinjiang. The XUAR is an industrial hub for electronics, pharmaceuticals, apparel and technology fueled by state-sponsored forced labor of Uyghurs. A recent report called “Built on Repression” from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University and Materials Research L3C highlights a new and concerning industry in the region: PVC production. According to the report, The Uyghur Region has become a world leader in the production of PVC plastics in recent years. The seven PVC manufacturers in the XUAR produce 10% of the world’s PVC. China, as a whole supplies 63% of U.S. vinyl flooring.

There are many products coming out of the XUAR that are manufactured using forced labor, but none compare to PVC flooring when it comes to human and environmental health effects. According to “Built on Repression” author Jim Vallette, “There’s nothing like it on Earth in the combination of climate and toxic pollution. And workers are living there 24/7.”

Part 2: A History of Abuse

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

The toxicity of vinyl production has been a well documented fact for decades and labor abuses have been part and parcel of the industry from the start. As the chemical industry began ramping up PVC production in the ‘60s and 70’s, laying the groundwork for its eventual widespread use, they discovered that vinyl chloride monomer (the building block of PVC) was a carcinogen. They chose to hide these findings from the public and their workers. The story of this global coverup is revealed in the groundbreaking book, “Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution” by historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. By the 1970s, PVC workers across the U.S. contracted a rare form of liver cancer and the pattern forced industry leaders to go public about the dangers they had kept hidden. For more on this story, take a listen to the episode of HML’s podcast, Trace Material, entitled “The House of Documents” that features interviews with Gerald Markowitz and other key players that pulled back the curtain on the early PVC industry.

While working conditions have improved in the U.S.,there is unfortunately no safe way to produce, use or dispose of PVC. Workers, residents and fenceline communities continue to be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals. In China, the situation is even more dire. Chinese makers of PVC use an outdated and extremely toxic production method that is far more dangerous to people and the planet. The Uyghur Region has become a locus of PVC production in part because of the plentiful coal resources in the region. Factories are set up adjacent to coal mines and use coal fired power plants as an energy source. They incorporate an incredibly toxic mercury-based catalyst in the production process. This is one of the last remaining places on the planet where this method of production is utilized. The plants in the XUAR will release an “estimated 49 million tons of global warming gasses, each producing more than any other similar plant” and the estimated air emissions are equal to more than half of the air releases of mercury (14.8 tons) reported in all manufacturing in all of the United States in 2020, according to the “Built on Repression” report. At grave cost to our planet and bodies, XUAR-manufactured PVC and the products made from it have become absurdly inexpensive. U.S. manufactures are unable to compete and Chinese PVC has become the most common material in all new floors sold in the U.S.

Global demand for luxury vinyl tile has meant massive growth for a toxic industry in China. To keep up with demand, the government of the People’s Republic of China has instigated a sweeping program of forced labor in the XUAR. One of the primary methods used by the government are “labor transfer” programs. According to the “Built on Repression” report, “Through state agency labor recruiters, the PRC government compels people to be transferred to farms and factories across the Uyghur Region. Others have been ‘transferred’ thousands of miles into the interior of China to work in factories. The XUAR government estimates that it has deployed these programs 2.6 million times.”

The report states that refusal to participate in these programs can be considered “a sign of religious extremism and punishable with internment or prison in the Uyghur region.” Uyghurs are effectively unable to refuse a “transfer” or leave a job assigned to them. Millions have been separated from their families in what is tantamount to human trafficking and enslavement.

Part 3: New Cancer Alleys

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

The U.S. government has responded to these atrocities by passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The act effectively bans all imports whose origin can be traced to the Uyghur region. Tracing the origins of LVT has become increasingly difficult as China has made their supply chains even more complicated and opaque. PVC resins created in the XUAR are shipped to Thailand or Vietnam to be turned into flooring before export. The U.S. flooring industry has responded by returning as much production to the U.S. as possible. But, without forced labor and cheap coal, manufacturers can’t match price and capacity demands. While the steps to divest from an industry propped up by forced labor are certainly positive, ramping up domestic production of PVC brings risks to the health of U.S. workers and communities living near the factories. The heart of plastics production in the U.S. sits along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The area has become known as Cancer Alley because residents are about 50 times more at risk of developing cancer than the average American. As the plastics industry vacates China and returns to the U.S., it’s building new cancer alleys in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Our demand for inexpensive flooring outsourced cancer, now that demand is bringing cancer home.

So what should be done? According to Gerald Markowitz, we need to stop using PVC altogether. Here are his suggestions:

“The United States should begin eliminating PVC by categories of use. Legislation has been floated in California to prohibit PVC in food packaging — a ban that could be expanded to other nonessential needs. Though PVC is inexpensive, it is replaceable in most cases. Alternatives include glass, ceramics, linoleum, polyesters and more.

Also, discarded PVC should be labeled a hazardous waste. The designation would put the burden on users for its safe storage, transportation and disposal, creating an incentive to accelerate its elimination.”

We at Healthy Materials Lab agree. LVT is durable, easy to install and maintain, inexpensive and toxic. Its low purchase  price is outweighed by a massive cost to human and planetary health. By refusing to specify LVT, architects and designers act as advocates on behalf of the health of all communities. Attractive, affordable, healthier flooring products exist. Take a look at part one of this series (or the healthy flooring materials collection on our website) for a list of some alternatives that include healthy materials like cork, hempwood and linoleum. And, stay tuned for the final installment of the series where we will take a closer look at what happens to LVT at the end of its life and the limits of its circularity.

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 11th Annual A+Awards! Interested in participating next season? Sign up for key information about the 12th Annual A+Awards, set to launch this fall.

Reference

What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part I: The Dirty Secret Behind a DIYer’s Dream Material
CategoriesArchitecture

What’s So Luxurious About Luxury Vinyl Tile, Part I: The Dirty Secret Behind a DIYer’s Dream Material

By Zarkon Group,

This article was written by Burgess Brown. Healthy Materials Lab is a design research lab at Parsons School of Design with a mission to place health at the center of every design decision. HML is changing the future of the built environment by creating resources for designers, architects, teachers, and students to make healthier places for all people to live. Check out their podcast, Trace Material.

This is Part I of a three-part series on the hazards of vinyl flooring. In Part II we’ll explore the long history of worker endangerment by the vinyl industry and the ways that legacy continues in China today.

If you’ve stayed in a recently renovated AirBnB, stumbled upon quickly-flipped properties on Zillow, or tuned into the DIY corner of YouTube in the last couple of years, you’ll recognize a common interior design trend: imitation wood or stone floors branded as “Luxury Vinyl Tile.” These floors are everywhere and for good reason. LVT is affordable, durable, easy to maintain and quick to install — a DIYer’s dream! But it’s not just DIYers that have hopped on the LVT train —vast numbers of high-end hotels, schools, affordable housing units and office buildings have plasticized their floors.

Behind the slick rebrand and influencers’ stamp of approval, LVT manufacturers are hiding a “dirty climate secret,” according to a recent report from the Center for Environmental Health, Material Research L3C, and Autocase Economic Advisory.

What’s in a Name?

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

Vinyl flooring has been around in some form since the plastics revolution of the early 20th century. It became a residential interior staple during the postwar housing boom. Sheet vinyl was a quick and affordable option for developers racing to house a growing population. Today’s vinyl can look quite different, but at its core, it’s still a petrochemical product made with chemicals of serious health and climate concern. The addition of the luxury classification in vinyl branding is a recent marketing term, and it is hoodwinking hordes of purchasers. It typically designates vinyl tiles or panels (LVT or LVP) that are made to imitate the look of wood, stone or ceramic.

The popularity of these tiles and panels, particularly of the loose lay variety, have exploded thanks to another boom period: pandemic renovations. In 2021, LVT sales grew by a whopping 37.4%. By 2022, vinyl flooring made in China alone became the most common flooring sold in the United States, accounting for over one- quarter of all flooring sold in the U.S. According to the report from Center for Environmental Health, there are serious issues with lack of transparency and accuracy around the human and environmental toll of the LVT boom.

A Dirty Climate Secret

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

CEH’s report, titled “Flooring’s Dirty Climate Secret”, uncovers issues with the accuracy of reported carbon emissions by manufacturers of LVT and a lack of transparency around toxic chemicals used in production of vinyl flooring. Here are the four key findings from the report:

1. Carbon Emissions from producing PVC are underestimated by between 8% and 180% in Manufacturer Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

According to the report, manufacturer EPDs use outdated data and rely on carbon emission estimates from a single U.S. based production plant that doesn’t accurately reflect global emissions.

2. Workers all along the supply chain, along with frontline and fenceline communities in the U.S. and abroad are endangered by exposure to hazardous chemicals used to make LVT; Vinyl flooring manufacturers use significant quantities of highly toxic chemicals like PFAS and mercury to produce PVC.

PFAS, Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances also known as “forever chemicals,” are toxic to humans at extremely low levels of exposure. The production of PFAS chemicals releases greenhouse gasses that degrade the ozone layer while mercury, also used in PVC production, produces climate warming greenhouse gas emissions. You may have seen recent coverage of a report from the U.S. Geological Survey that found PFAS in nearly half of the tap water in the U.S.

3. Asbestos is used to produce chlorine to make PVC flooring in the United States – importing asbestos for PVC production represents the last remaining legal use of this toxic mineral fiber.

Yes, you read that right: asbestos. The U.S. imports approximately 373 metric tons of asbestos from mines in Russia and Brazil each year specifically to fuel the production of PVC. There is risk of exposure and release into the environment at all stages of this global supply chain. The EPA, which has partially restricted asbestos use in the U.S., proposed a ban on asbestos in 2022 that has been met with fierce opposition from the chemical industry.

4. Increased use of coal has resulted in higher carbon dioxide emissions because US manufacturers have shifted the majority of vinyl flooring production to China.

U.S. vinyl flooring manufacturers have shifted the bulk of production to China where coal is used to produce PVC instead of natural gas, which is used in the U.S. The use of coal as a feedstock releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

So, according to the CEH report, the LVT boom is causing an enormous increase in carbon emissions and is exposing workers, fenceline communities and residents to extremely toxic chemicals. All of this is under or mis-reported by vinyl manufacturers. Where does this leave architects, designers, and DIYers choosing flooring? We have to ask what is the true cost of this “inexpensive” product and why would we ever want to use this product? Fortunately, there are plenty of beautiful, healthy, and affordable alternatives to LVT.

Healthier, Affordable Alternatives

Image generated by Architizer using Midjourney

When choosing flooring materials, look for materials containing benign, regenerative ingredients and use non-toxic finishes. Here are some options to specify instead of vinyl:

  1. Linoleum (tiles, planks, and poured) is made primarily from plants—linseed oil from the flax plant and wood flour from trees. Other ingredients are added to ensure durability.
  2. Cork comes from the bark of the Cork Oak tree, which is harvested and regenerates without injuring the tree.
  3. Hempwood is a plant-based option that supports carbon sequestration through growing hemp. Its durability is equivalent to hardwood.
  4. Solid hardwood can be finished using products free of toxic solvents, allowing it to breathe and help regulate the interior climate and improve indoor air quality.
  5. Engineered hardwood made with soy-based binders is often more affordable than a solid wood option.
  6. Porcelain tile is benign and fully vitrified, making it highly durable and chemical-resistant.
  7. Reclaimed flooring, when made from healthy materials and found locally, saves materials that would end up in landfills and reduces carbon emissions and health impacts.

For more in-depth guidance on healthier flooring, check out the Healthy Materials Lab flooring materials collection. You’ll find detailed spec guidance and a list of rigorously vetted flooring products that have been holistically evaluated by our team for their content and performance.

This is Part I of a three-part series on the hazards of vinyl flooring. In Part II we’ll explore the long history of worker endangerment by the vinyl industry and the ways that legacy continues in China today.

Reference

Dezeen Debate features “robust and luxurious” arched townhouses
CategoriesArchitecture

Dezeen Debate features “robust and luxurious” arched townhouses

By Zarkon Group,
The Arches DHaus

The latest edition of our Dezeen Debate newsletter features a row of townhouses by The DHaus Company featuring brick-clad arches. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

Architecture studio The DHaus Company has finished a row of brick-clad townhouses within the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area in north London called The Arches.

The homes, which replace a derelict petrol station, are named after the arches that form the facade of each house.

Most commenters adored the project. One loved “the colonnade-like feel”, while another labelled it “breathtaking and inspiring”. Yet another said that while the home was “robust and luxurious” they questioned “the scale decision”.

Exterior of Cabin Anna in the Netherlands by Caspar Schols
Caspar Schols creates reconfigurable Cabin Anna in Dutch park

Other stories in this week’s newsletter that fired up the comments section include a modular cabin in the Netherlands by Caspar Schols and an opinion piece by Aaron Betsky questioning the decision to award David Chipperfield this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize. We also looked at the Tamedia Office Building by Shigeru Ban as part of our Timber Revolution series.

Dezeen Debate

Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Debate or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Agenda is sent every Tuesday containing a selection of the most important news highlights from the week, Dezeen Daily is our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours and Dezeen In Depth is sent on the last Friday of every month and delves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design.

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