Materials for Sustainable Sites Defined Ch. 2

Materials for Sustainable Sites Defined Chapter 2

Background: Inputs, Outputs, and Impacts of Construction Materials

-Inputs: resources, energy, and water

-Outputs: emissions, effluents, and solid waste

-These impact the health of the ecosystem, the planet, and ourselves

Major Environmental and Human Health Concerns Resulting from Constriction Materials and Products

Global Climate Change

-“Global climate change is defined as long-term fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, wind, and all other aspects of the earth’s climate.”

-“Global warming, one type of global climate change, is the increase in average temperature of the earth’s near-surface air and oceans.”

 

Fossil Fuel Depletion

-“Fossil fuels are used throughout a product’s life cycle to power vehicles (used in extraction, transportation, construction, and maintenance); to produce steam or heat for industrial processes; for electricity; to power machinery; and as raw material for production of plastics, other synthetic polymers (e.g., fibers), and solvents.”

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

-“The naturally occurring ozone layer of the stratosphere is a critical barrier that prevents harmful shortwave ultraviolet radiation from reaching the earth.  Human caused emissions of ozone-depleting substances, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs; used as a propellant in manufacturing and a refrigerant) and halons (used in fire suppression systems), can cause a thinning of the ozone layer, resulting in more shortwave radiation on Earth.”

Air Pollution

-“Air pollutants are airborne solid and liquid particles and gases that can pose risks to the environment and human health.”

-“Airborne Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) can deposit onto soils or surface water, where they are taken up by plants and ingested by animals, and are magnified as they move up the food chain.”

Smog

-“Smog is a type of air pollution, resulting when industrial and fuel emissions become trapped at ground level and are transformed after reacting with sunlight.”

Acidification

-“Acidification occurs in surface waters and soils as acidifying gases, primarily sulfur and nitrogen compounds, either dissolve in water or adhere to solid particles.”

-“Acid rain causes acidification of rivers, streams, and oceans, lowering the pH and causing damage to fish and other aquatic animals.”

-“Acid rain also accelerates weathering of building materials such as granite, limestone, concrete, and metals.  It may even cause some stainless steels to stain.  This can cause premature removal and replacement of some building materials.”

Eutrophication

-“Eutrophication is the addition of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, to soil or water resulting in overstimulation of plant growth.”

-“In water, it promotes algal blooms that can cloud the water, blocking sunlight and causing their death.”

Deforestation, Desertification, and Soil Erosion

-“Deforestation, the large-scale removal of forests, contributes to negative environmental impacts such as loss of biodiversity, global warming, soil erosion, and desertification.”

Habitat Alteration

-“Habitats are altered or destroyed when human activity results in a change in the species composition of plant and animal communities.”

Loss of Biodiversity

-Biodiversity is“ ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic organisms, and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.’”

Water Resource Depletion

-“Product manufacturing activates use water, and effluent wastes that are released to water bodies reduce water resources through pollution.  In addition, the use of impervious surfaces (such as concrete and asphalt) seriously reduces groundwater recharge, as do storm water management strategies that convey runoff away from the site.”

Ecological Toxicity

-“Toxic materials can be released into ecosystems as byproducts of manufacturing processes and fossil fuel combustion, and from direct environmental application of toxic pesticides.”

Human Health Damage

-“Toxic chemicals and substances can be encountered in all phases of the life cycle of construction materials.”

-“The effects of these substances vary from momentary irritation (acute) to prolonged illness and disease (chronic) to death.”

-“Humans are exposed through numerous pathways to toxic substances, and because the effects are not always noticable, they are often overlooked.”

Life-cycle Phases of a Construction Material or Product

Inputs and Waste Outputs Associated with Building Materials/Products

Input: Resources

-“Most resources used today are nonrenewable, with only 5% of our material flow from renewable resources.”

-“An environmental footprint of worldwide resource consumption conducted in 1996 concluded that humans now consume more resources than the earth can replace.”

Resource Use for Construction Materials

-“Each year more than three billion metric tons of raw materials are used to manufacture construction materials and products worldwide.  This is about 40-50% of the global economy’s total flow.”

-“Reusing, reprocessing, or recycling materials reduces extraction of resources and associated resources for energy generation- sometimes substantially.”

Input: Energy

-“Generally materials and the products with high energy intensity will have greater environmental impacts from fuel consumption and related air emissions.  There are some exceptions to this.  For example, production of wood products is somewhat energy intensive, yet the primary fuel source is renewable biomass fuels that are by-products from wood processing; therefore environmental impacts and economic costs may be less.”

Fuel Type

Embodied Energy of Materials and Products

-“The total energy used during all stages of a material’s life is known as embodied energy.”

Outputs: Waste

-“Sixty-eight percent of waste is in the form of emissions released to air, 22% is released to land, less than 1% is released to water, and 10% is unaccounted for due to incomplete data.  When oxygen is included, 87% of waste is released to air and 9% is released to land.”

-“The ecological rucksack of a product can substantially reduced with substitution of recycled content for virgin materials in a product.  For instance, each ton of iron that is recycled saves 12.5 tons of overburden, 2.8 tons of iron ore, 0.8 tons of coal, and many other inputs.”

Outputs to Air

-“Wastes released to air include greenhouse gases, particulates, criteria air pollutants (CAPs), and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs).”

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions from Industrial Processes

-“The extraction and use of fossil fuel resources dominate materials output flows with release of carbon dioxide (CO2) accounting for 80% by weight of all industrial waste.”

-“GHG emissions from fossil fuel combustion”

-“GHG emissions from nonenergy-related industrial processes”

Criteria and Hazardous Air Pollutant Releases from Industrial Processes

-“Criteria air pollutants (CAPs) are particulate matter (both PM10 and PM2.5), ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur oxides (S2O), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and lead, VOCs and ammonia are also monitored along with CAPs, as they contribute to human and environmental health risks.”

Outputs and Releases to Water

-“While releases to water are less than 1% of all toxic releases, toxic releases to air can drift, sometimes for substantial distances, to settle on water bodies.  And releases to land can find their way into ground and surface water.”

Outputs and Releases to Land

-“Construction and demolition (C&D) waste resulting from both construction and demolition phases of the built environment is primarily released to land either directly to landfills or to incineration, then landfill.”

Creating Change: Ideologies, Trends, and Policies to Improve the Environmental and Human Health Performance of Materials and Products

Industrial Ecology

-“Most specifically it involves the shifting of industrial processes from linear, open-loop systems where resources move through the system to become waste, to a closed-loop system where wastes are used as inputs for new processes.”

Industrial Symbiosis

-“Industrial ecosystems have started to develop where excess waste and energy from one industry serves as an input for another.  Referred to as industries are collocated or at least within reasonable proximity.”

Construction Ecology

-“Within the goal of sustainable development, the building material production and construction industries ideally would shift their use of resources and fuels from nonrenewables to renewables, from waste production to reuse and recycling, from first-cost accounting where all costs such as waste, emissions, and pollution are factored into the cost of materials.”

Biomimicry

-“Biomimicry demonstrates direct applications of ecological concepts to industrial products, with the aim of creating strong, durable, and intelligent materials, with no waste and use of nonrenewable energy sources.”

Prevention Principle

-“The prevention principle dictates that waste and pollution prevention or minimization in all phases of a product’s life cycle should be given the highest prority.”

Dematerialization

-“ ‘The reduction of total material and energy throughput of any product and service, and thus the limitation of its environment impact.  This includes reduction of raw materials at the production stage, of energy and materials at the production stage, of energy and material inputs at the stage, and of waste at the disposal stage.’”

Factor 4 and Factor 10

-“Factor 4 and Factor 10, strategies developed to reduce resource use and support the idea of dematerialization, suggest that to live sustainably, we need to reduce resource use for products and services by one-quarter or one-tenth respectively.”

Design for Environment

-“Design for environment (DfE) is a proactive, frontloaded approach used in industrial design that minimizes environmental impacts during the development of a product and its related processes.”

Eco-Efficiency

-“Eco-efficiency is ‘achieved through the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life while progressively reducing environmental impacts of goods and resource intensity throughout the entire life-cycle to a level at least in line with the Earth’s estimated carrying capacity.’”

Closed-Loop Systems and Zero Waste

-“An alternative to the one-time use and disposal of materials is to reuse materials and material by-products multiple times with the aim of creating closed-loop material systems that reduce or eliminate waste and pollution.”

Cleaner Production and Zero-emissions Concepts

-“Cleaner production is a preventive goal that adapts production organization and technology to make the best possible use of materials and energy and avoid waste, wastewater generation, gaseous emissions, waste heat, and noise.  Zero emissions is a goal to emit no waste products from engines, motors, or energy sources that pollute the environment, contribute to climate change, or pose human health risks.”

Green Chemistry

Increased Producer Responsibility

-Producers don’t carry a lot of responsibility for the environmental and health impacts they create, but moves are being made to make producers more responsible.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

-“Extended producer responsibility asks the manufacturer of the product to be responsible for the entire life cycle of the product, including the take-back, disposal and final recycling of the product.”

Polluter Pays Principle

-“The polluter pays principle, part of extended producer responsibility, shifts the cost responsibility of waste from the government to those who produce it.”

Proximity Principle

-“The proximity principle advocates that waste should be disposed of or managed as close to the point of generation as possible.”