Making the Best Choice: Green Plumbing Materials for Your Home
Making the Best Choice: Green Plumbing Materials for Your Home
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We have stumbled on this great article about Eco-Friendly Plumbing Practices for a Greener Home listed below on the internet and thought it made perfect sense to relate it with you on my blog.
Consider the Material's Lifespan
Go with pipes products that offer longevity and long life. Longer-lasting products suggest fewer replacements, reduced waste, and lower long-lasting environmental influence. As an example, copper and stainless-steel are both highly long lasting and 100% recyclable, which assists reduce waste.
Examine the Production Refine
Try to find products manufactured through environmentally friendly processes. This consists of materials like cast iron or copper, which can be generated with a relatively reduced ecological impact compared to plastics that need chemical-intensive production processes.
Focus On Water Efficiency
Selecting water-efficient fixtures, such as low-flow bathrooms, faucets, and showerheads, is important. These components reduce water usage, which not only reduces your water costs yet also decreases the energy consumed in water home heating and decreases the stress on sewage treatment facilities.
Choose Non-Toxic Products
Prevent products that leach chemicals into the water supply. Copper and PEX are generally non-toxic, but it is necessary to ensure that any type of plastic elements do not contain hazardous chemicals like BPA or phthalates, especially for drinking water lines.
Think About the Power Required for Water Home Heating
Select plumbing layouts and materials that reduce the power required for heating water. Insulating your hot water pipes and selecting effective system layouts can considerably reduce the energy used, hence decreasing your home's overall carbon impact.
Opt for Locally Sourced Products
Using locally sourced materials can decrease the carbon exhausts related to transport. Additionally, sustaining neighborhood businesses assists advertise a lasting regional economic climate.
Assess End-of-Life Disposal
Think about the recyclability and biodegradability of plumbing materials. Steels like copper and steel are typically recyclable, while some plastics and rubbers may not be, adding to garbage dump waste. Understanding the lifecycle of the materials you choose can assist in making a more lasting decision.
Seek Certifications
Seek items with ecological certifications. Accreditations like EPA's WaterSense, GREENGUARD, or Cradle to Cradle (C2C) show that items meet rigid ecological criteria throughout their lifecycle.
Look For Recycled Content
Choose products which contain recycled content. Many steel plumbing items, like those made from copper and stainless-steel, usually include a significant portion of recycled products. PVC and PEX can additionally contain recycled plastics, though their overall ecological impact may be greater as a result of their manufacturing and disposal processes.
Verdict
Selecting eco-friendly plumbing products includes taking into consideration the longevity, recycled content, manufacturing process, water and energy performance, toxicity, sourcing, disposal, and certifications of the items. By making educated selections, home owners can considerably decrease their ecological impact while ensuring the effectiveness and longevity of their plumbing systems.
The Impact of Plumbing Materials on the Environment
When buying a home you may be interested in having a sustainable home, and one of the most important aspects that you should not overlook the plumbing systems. With water contamination getting more and more common lately, it’s important to understand how plumbing systems work and their impact on the environment. Drinking water is carried through these pipes everyday and when choosing plumbing materials we must consider ecological toxicity, air pollution, fossil fuel depletion, and global warming.
Low Cost
When buying a home you may be looking for the cheapest way to be sustainable. Although some environmentally-friendly products may be somewhat more expensive than their competitors, money will be saved in the form of reduced water usage and decreased energy consumption in the long run.
A Life Cycle Inventory of residential plumbing systems done in 2011 showed that CPVC systems demonstrate 5% less energy waste than PEX systems and 17% less than copper. This study also indicated that CPVC systems wanted 30% less water than copper and 15% less than a PEX system. These numbers are likely due to the differences in thermal conductivity between these materials.
Copper has a thermal conductivity that is hundreds of times higher than plastics. PEX materials are the least thermal conductive of the three tested and this is why it is better in conserving water and energy.
Sustainability
While environmental performance is important, people can still be concerned about the sustainability of their home. The use of proper plumbing materials when building a home can greatly affect the future sustainability of the home, which can also affect future costs and bills.
A relatively new factor in plumbing, eco-friendly pipe materials can reduce both energy costs, and the overall environmental footprint of your home. These materials are not as widely available due to their recent introduction to the industry, but an understanding of the benefits of each can help save both money and the environment later down the line.
Environment-Friendly Materials
The two most common types of piping material in use today are metals like iron and copper, and PVC piping. Of the two, metal piping is more environmentally friendly and sustainable, but not without drawbacks.
PVC piping however, is notorious for low sustainability, contaminating water with chemicals, and increased waste or “greywater”. While PVC is recyclable, the process is expensive and not in high demand due to the cheap price of fresh PVC.
Metal piping however, has a longer lifespan with less chance of deterioration and no harmful chemical waste that could contaminate your water and potentially harm you or your family. Metal piping is susceptible to corrosion however, usually after a long fifty year lifespan.
The best alternative to these two pipings is relatively new eco-friendly plastics like the ones mentioned earlier. Polyethylene and polypropylene are the two main ingredients in these pipes which are recognized by Greenpeace, an environmental organization, to be the only “future-friendly” piping material on the market.
The more natural and longer lasting materials prevent long term contamination with eco-friendly materials that last long enough to rival the longevity of metal piping. Even local Atlanta plumbers and plumbing installers should have access to the materials you need to make your house eco-safe.
https://www.ecomena.org/impact-of-plumbing-materials-on-environment/
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