Greenwash Watch: 12 Ways Vinyl Siding is Green
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 10. 3.08
Somewhere in Washington, perhaps in a gracious vinyl-clad manse like the one above, resides the Vinyl Siding Institute, bravely lobbying away to promote the wonders of its miracle product. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. Someone has to let the world know that vinyl siding is really green. Like Wonderbread for the housing industry, it builds green houses in 12 different ways:
* Can contribute to points in leading green building programs
* Boosts a home’s R-value
* Generates less waste during manufacturing
* Produces little waste when installed
* Requires few resources to maintain beauty
* Is engineered to last
* Offers better environmental performance
* Balances economic with environmental performance
* Contributes less to global warming than brick
* Releases fewer toxic chemicals than other exterior cladding through its life-cycle
* Emits less dioxin than other exterior cladding
* Installs safely
It's all in their "green" paper, written by "Tad Radzinski, P.E., LEED AP, founder and president of Sustainable Solutions Corporation, who has served as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Waste Minimization Program National Expert " and who is a man with a vivid imagination.
He actually proposes that vinyl siding would qualify for LEED points for being local, recycled and energy efficient. You can download this epic greenwash here
No mention is made of the fact that "The production of PVC and its feedstocks, vinyl chloride monomer and ethylene dichloride results in the release of hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment each year, mainly in poor, communities of color in the Louisiana and Texas. PVC production is also a large source of dioxin into the environment." or that "Because of its majority chlorine content, when PVC burns in fires two extremely hazardous substances, hydrogen chloride gas and dioxin are formed which present both acute and chronic health hazards to building occupants, fire fighters and surrounding communities. In addition, when PVC burns, some 100 different toxic compounds are produced." ::Greenpeace via ::Kelly at Green Daily
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