It wasn’t exactly a quite hush that settled over the San Francisco’s Moscone Center for the 50th PCBC convention but the crowds and exhibitors for this annual builders convention came in about one-half of last year. Nonetheless, in this era of minimalism and slimming down the show offered an array of notable speakers and some innovative products. Now of course, with the slogan “The New Age of Innovation” we hoped for more progressive Green products and not just in a marketing sense.
On the creatively intriguing side, we walked into the Icynene Inc. display booth only knowing that they create their Icynene LD-R-50 spray foam insulation partially from Castor oil. Honestly, we didn’t exactly know the origin of Castor oil. Castor oil comes from Castor beans (not true beans from Castor plant) and don’t serve a normal food source, so not food for insulation here. Castor crops don’t require pesticides or fungicides or even water to grow and are rapidly renewable. For this insulation, they use 15 percent castor oil (and unfortunately 85 percent polyglycol, which in our eyes is like using B15 biodiesel. Fifteen percent is better than zero percent but still a long way to go. This product helps eliminate dust, pollen and contains no VOCs as it is water blown. Most traditional cellulose insulation comes from 80% newspaper (up to100% post-consumer recycled) and 20% binders and fire-retardants, commonly borax, boric acid, sulfuric acid, ammonium sulfates and/or other chemical compounds. Smell the goodness.
One of the most disappointing aspects of PCBC would be the continual greenwashing that some organizations and companies wish to convey to the public and trade. The SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) had booth and lots of literature about how they which on the surface seems on the track to be doing the right thing with their Green certification but if you check below the tree cover it might not seem so verdant.
Most Green people would be disillusioned with the fact that SFI finds its roots firmly planted with the lumber companies which of course offers no value. Then they somewhat cleaned up their legitimacy a few years ago by creating third party certification, publicly available standards and a more transparent process.
We met the Director of Green Building for SFI at the PCBC booth where he did the hard sell offering such info that they continue to push the USGBC to include SFI certified wood in the LEED standard. To us, it seems like a lot of lobbying and less to do with the legitimacy of the certification.
When it comes down to it, the SFI wants people to think that they reign superior or even equal to FSC certification but take a look at some of the comparisons where SFI allows:
-use of genetically modified trees
- logging close to rivers and streams that harms water supplies
-use of toxic chemicals while FSC does not allow these in the forests.
And we can go on and on but as they say a picture is worth a thousand words so check out the SFI versus FSC forest land photo courtesy of heartofgreen.
‘nuff said.
Keith,
Interesting stuff, especially since I couldn’t make it to PCBC this year…
Recycled content in foam insulation is something I’ve been thinking about lately, and it occurs to me that maybe the recycled, or ‘natural’ content in this case is possibly missing the boat.
My understanding of chemistry of these foams is this: one part diisocyanurate (simple, straight up) to one part of some polyol mixture (heterogeneous– where the Castor oil fits in). In order to not mess up the polymer chemistry too much, you can’t add too much low-processed plant based material as a percentage of content, otherwise your foam won’t foam so good. So, you’ve either got to do some energy intensive polyol chain extension, or just go with a more readily available long-chain polyol source, crude oil. My fear is that the processing and chemistry inputs for improving the Castor polyols enough to meet specifications for higher concentrations will be more energy and material intensive than just deriving it from oil, as it currently stands.
Of course, I’m all for (r)evolutions in polyurethane chemistry that will allow for higher plant based content, but one also has to make sure the product quality actually exceeds that of conventional petrochemical based foams.
Really, I am merely opining that recycled or natural content branding and slogans don’t always do it for me anymore. In some products, it’s quite appropriate, in others, it’s a more minor issue. Insulation, in my view, is one of the latter. I need a more comprehensive life-cycle inventory of the various options, side-by-side in order to be a believer (Of course, I’m not holding my breath)
Keith,
Interesting stuff, especially since I couldn’t make it to PCBC this year…
Recycled content in foam insulation is something I’ve been thinking about lately, and it occurs to me that maybe the recycled, or ‘natural’ content in this case is possibly missing the boat.
My understanding of chemistry of these foams is this: one part diisocyanurate (simple, straight up) to one part of some polyol mixture (heterogeneous– where the Castor oil fits in). In order to not mess up the polymer chemistry too much, you can’t add too much low-processed plant based material as a percentage of content, otherwise your foam won’t foam so good. So, you’ve either got to do some energy intensive polyol chain extension, or just go with a more readily available long-chain polyol source, crude oil. My fear is that the processing and chemistry inputs for improving the Castor polyols enough to meet specifications for higher concentrations will be more energy and material intensive than just deriving it from oil, as it currently stands.
Of course, I’m all for (r)evolutions in polyurethane chemistry that will allow for higher plant based content, but one also has to make sure the product quality actually exceeds that of conventional petrochemical based foams.
Really, I am merely opining that recycled or natural content branding and slogans don’t always do it for me anymore. In some products, it’s quite appropriate, in others, it’s a more minor issue. Insulation, in my view, is one of the latter. I need a more comprehensive life-cycle inventory of the various options, side-by-side in order to be a believer (Of course, I’m not holding my breath)
Yeah SFI is a joke. I had it out with those guys at Greenbuild in CHicago a couple of years ago. None of their answers made much sense and it’s fairly transparent when it comes to their actual motives for wanting inclusion in LEED and acceptance as a legitimate 3rd party certification. That’s like oil companies creating an ‘independent 3rd party’ to certify fuel-efficiency.
Yeah SFI is a joke. I had it out with those guys at Greenbuild in CHicago a couple of years ago. None of their answers made much sense and it’s fairly transparent when it comes to their actual motives for wanting inclusion in LEED and acceptance as a legitimate 3rd party certification. That’s like oil companies creating an ‘independent 3rd party’ to certify fuel-efficiency.
They lied to you, but Icynene is good at that. According to the International Code Council (ICC) Evaluation Service division LD-R-50 is ONLY 8% BIOBASED CONTENT. You can check it out yourself by going to http://saveprogram.icc-es.org/reports/index.shtml.
They lied to you, but Icynene is good at that. According to the International Code Council (ICC) Evaluation Service division LD-R-50 is ONLY 8% BIOBASED CONTENT. You can check it out yourself by going to http://saveprogram.icc-es.org/reports/index.shtml.