There has been some great press in the last couple of days related to Healthy Building Network's (HBN) newly released report "Chlorine & Building Materials Project". That report is over 200 pages long, but there is some great commentary available that makes the top issues much quicker to grasp.
Chlorine is used to make PVC and PVC is used extensively in buildings. Asbestos is used in the process of making PVC.
Go here: https://www.treehugger.com/plastic/report-healthy-building-network-slams-pvc-production.html to read a very good article that explains the process of making PVC and points out where it is made in this country. Full Disclosure: if you live in the gulf coast area and don't want your day ruined, you might want to skip this read.
Go here: Under Trump’s EPA, asbestos might be making a comeback to read about asbestos and how it is used in the US. There is a great Bill Walsh quote in that article that sums up this topic:
“In the case of asbestos, right now virtually all asbestos in the U.S. is used in the industrial process that makes chlorine,” says Walsh. “Most of that chlorine is used to make plastics, and the largest single use of chlorine is for PVC or vinyl plastics,”
For those of you with nothing but time, go here: https://healthybuilding.net/reports/18 to download the HBN report.
I have found over the last few years that the word Asbestos always works to get people's attention. Maybe in our effort to go PVC free, we can start quickly explaining that getting rid of PVC would have a side benefit of finally getting rid of asbestos.
