Least Sexy Top Ten Green Building Product

Of this year’s Building Green Top 10 Green Building Products, the least sexy is, without a doubt, the LifeGuard electrical cable manufactured by Houston Wire & Cable Company. Wire isn’t a sexy new building material. But sometimes the most prosaic of materials can be interesting, and something as exciting as a top 10 placement can come from a new development that improves on an old and very familiar material.

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What makes the LifeGuard cable such a green product is not the wire itself, but the insulating jacketing material that wraps the wire. What makes it a Top 10 Green product is that is a low smoke and zero halogen compound material. This means that it has no chlorine and no fluorine in it.

“Two halogens – chlorine and fluorine, are found in many compounds that are used for insulating and jacketing electrical wire and cable. Many common materials like PVC, CPE, Hypalon®, Neoprene®, FEP and PTFE Teflon® contain significant amounts of these halogens. PVC for example, contains 29% chlorine by weight, CPE 19% chlorine by weight, and Teflon® 76% fluorine by weight.
Halogenated compounds are normally very stable. When they burn, however, the halogens separate and become highly reactive - forming very toxic, extremely dangerous, highly corrosive gases that can significantly damage organic, inorganic and metallic materials. The hydrogen chlorine gas produced from burning PVC for example, is very similar to “mustard” gas.”

LifeGuard cable is most likely to be used in hospitals and other locations where potential hazards from smoke and fire is especially high, but it is likely to come into wider use over time, as well. Like most products, what starts out as a specialty product eventually makes its way down to consumer levels. In some years, potentially, ordinary household wire may be available with non-halogenated jacketing, meaning that those damaging materials will not be entering into the environment as construction waste when it reaches its end-of-use. It also means that there is less need for chlorine and fluorine in the manufacturing process, and the extraction and production of those materials is not benign on its own, either.

Link: Houston Wire & Cable

Image Source: LifeGuard Cable

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