Precautionary List – Tracking Dangerous Chemicals in Building Materials
Architectural firm Perkins + Will is going open source with its database of chemicals in building materials.The purpose of the list is to create change through knowledge:
Rather than use harmful products, we will seek out alternatives that proect our health and the health of future generation. It is our hope that this list will be a catalyst for marketplace change.
According to a post on Jetson Green,
P+W’s Robin Gunther said at a panel last week, “amazingly, it’s hard to fathom that as architects we don’t always know what (chemicals) are in the building materials we use. It’s time for this to change; time to bring a standard for care to building design and construction by starting with the elimination of toxic chemicals in building materials.”
You can browse the data set several ways, including by category (e.g., chlorine- or fossil-fuel based components), by health effect, or by name. A robust search tool is provided, as is a long list of references.
Next-day addendum: as if to underscore the importance of knowing what we build with (we are what we eat?), there’s a new report in INHABITAT today about toxic drywall from China.
[...] What we need is a database of chemicals in products associated with health concerns, much like the open source database of chemicals in building materials published recently by Perkins + Will. [...]
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[...] What we need is a database of chemicals in products associated with health concerns, much like the open source database of chemicals in building materials published recently by Perkins + Will. [...]
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