The products sold in the building industry have come a long way due to the study of building science. Building performance is more critical now than ever in history, with the need
to use less electricity and reduce carbon emissions from traditional power
plants. The builders of the old colonial and Victorian homes of 100 to 150 years
ago believed that the house needed to breathe or have a certain amount of ventilation
to remain a healthy environment for the occupants. The air changing freely was
thought to reduce molds and carbon dioxide, creating a more beneficial habitat for people there. The more modern view of a building is, the tighter the
house is built, or the fewer air changes a building has, a healthier
environment. Building science studies have discovered that air-tight damp, proof
foundations with a controlled air filtration system perform much better than
traditional foundations. Traditional building products are wasteful and take away
from the natural capital of the environment. These building practices can be
counteracted by producing more of the building products out of discarded waste
materials, with the cooperation of local, state, and federal governments mandating
that a certain percentage of new construction and remodels use recycled discarded
materials in the new buildings. A mandate like this would create use for
discarded materials like plastic or paper and inspire innovation to develop
more products from common waste materials. There are recycled building
materials that can be used from the foundation to finished flooring and other
materials that can be used to build the outside walls in tropical climate zones
or as insulation to help control the house's climate. Integrating recycled
building materials can directly affect the triple bottom line in sustainable
industry and building.
The
triple bottom line can be described as consciously accounting for economic,
environmental, and social impacts as part of the business model. The building
industry uses many wood products on the residential side, everything from
studs, plywood, flooring, siding, and doors. Wood can be considered a renewable
resource because it can be grown and harvested like a garden. The fact is
that wood is being used faster than it can re-grow, which harms the environment. Replacing many of these products with plastic materials made from waste or recycled plastic can allow trees a longer
growth span and reduce the amount of discarded plastic throughout the world. Socially
using recycled plastic can improve conditions in third-world countries like
Brazil and give use to all plastic floating in the oceans. Cleaning up
the oceans would positively impact the sea life that most of the world
depends on for food. The third part of the triple bottom line is the economic
impact, and using recycled plastic building materials can positively affect long-run economics. Plastic deck boards, for example, last longer than
wood when exposed to outside elements. They also do not need to be painted, which has economic and environmental benefits and disperse heat differently
than wood. The triple bottom line can be affected in the United States by
local, state, and federal government policies mandating a certain percentage of
building projects have a portion of discarded recycled material in the
finished buildings.
Reusing
or discarding material building percentages is an effective way to use discarded plastics in recycling centers, landfills, and the ocean, especially when
it comes to the life cycle of plastics, which has a slow rate of degrading. Building
codes are used as a minimum for building standards set by local, state, or federal governments that dictate safety, quality, and efficiency. The building permit cannot be signed off on and finalized with the authorization
of the building inspector. This can directly affect the financing of a project,
which means that home builders can be influenced by the
building codes that the building inspectors follow. This is a
cradle-to-cradle approach to the manufacturing of these buildings by using
materials that manufacturing is dependent on the reuse of plastic bags, bottles, and other forms of plastic products. The building materials can also
be recycled for reuse after their useful life creating a circular to follow. The
industrial level of any country does not affect the applications of reusing
plastics. For example, a third-world country can fill plastic bottles with dirt
and place them I a wall with either mud or mortar to create an earth-ship construction. In places like Columbia, the Conceptos Plásticos Company recycles plastics into LAGO-like boards that slide down, track, and interlock to build a wall. "Miniwiz Sustainable Energy Ltd. has
made bricks from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic." The implantation of these policies will first use up the available discarded
plastic resources in the United States and eventually create a need for more discarded
plastic resources. This may spur a ripple effect into other countries and a
need for human capital to aid in collections of discarded plastics, thus
moving toward achieving the ultimate goal of finding a use for the out-of-control plastic waste in the world.
Plastic
is out of control today, with a particle land mass of plastic bags
floating in the Pacific Ocean. Finding a positive use for discarded plastics is
only a tiny step in environmental stability but an important one with the
amount of discarded plastic worldwide today. The conscious push for recycling started
gaining momentum in the early 1970s, although recycling had been around in the
United States since Rittenhouse Mill in Philadelphia in 1690. Implementing legislation to use a certain percentage of recycled discarded plastics will clean up the environment while creating new markets for businesses to grow. Growing companies need more
workers, so they should create new jobs by harvesting or manufacturing these building materials. Goals like cleaning up the plastic land mass in the
Pacific Ocean can also be achieved with tax incentives to companies that harvest
their raw material from there. This would result in cleaner water and less marine life being killed by plastic in the ocean, help the fish population
recover, and eventually provide more food in the world. The extreme level of
plastic pollution is already plaguing, and not implementing some form of
policies like the building code inquisitive would allow the problem to
compound, damaging the environment even further. The greatest threat to this
type of pollution is doing nothing and ignoring the problem. The overrun of
plastic is just part of climate change. One of the fastest ways to successfully
overcome these issues is for governing bodies to take the problem seriously and
create legislation that will evoke change. People will only take problems
seriously if their elected leaders take them seriously. What is
needed is for people like Leonardo DiCaprio to bring attention to these problems so
that policies can be created and enforced.
There
are already companies exploring the options of using discarded plastics to make
building materials, and the economy is the most significant factor for them to go mainstream. A subsidizing project like this is crucial in overcoming plastic
pollution, another tool for policymakers. The lack of
conviction in leadership in the United States Senate is one of the most significant flaws in overcoming the plastic pollution problem. They could create
legislation to stop the production of plastic, but that would not take care of
the discarded plastic already out there. Reusing through manufactured building supplies
is a viable solution to this problem once leadership discovers its potential.
