Vinyl siding sustainable twelve times over
My gut reaction to vinyl siding is a stomach clenching ball of nausea that climbs into my throat. I don't like the stuff. I think that it looks awful (especially on historic homes) and it's plastic for crissakes. Vinyl or Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) releases over 100 different toxins when burned. PVC has also been known to release phthalates.
Now the Vinyl Siding Institute (VSI) has come out with a paper entitled, "A Dozen Things You Might Not Know That Make Vinyl Siding Green." I didn't even know that there was a "Vinyl Siding Institute" and I can't say that the words, "green, vinyl and siding" inspire anything good in me.
Here are few ways that the VSI has found a way to greenwash their product:
Now the Vinyl Siding Institute (VSI) has come out with a paper entitled, "A Dozen Things You Might Not Know That Make Vinyl Siding Green." I didn't even know that there was a "Vinyl Siding Institute" and I can't say that the words, "green, vinyl and siding" inspire anything good in me.
Here are few ways that the VSI has found a way to greenwash their product:
- Generates less was during manufacturing. Sure but what about the resources required to get the oil out of the ground, refined, turned into plastic and shipped to the manufacturing site. Besides, most wood waste in manufacturing is reused or recycled.
- It is engineered to last. Well I can't argue with that one. Vinyl siding will last and last and last even until long after the innards of the house have turned to dust.
- Contributes to less global warming than brick. Ok, I'm trying to figure out how they come up with this one. Bricks are made through several processes from collecting mud and setting it out in the sun to fired bricks (which have been around since thethird millennium BC). Maybe it's the "fired" part that VSI doesn't like. They prefer terms like "toxic, wood rot, and petroleum."
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