Maintenance of Hard Flooring
Before Suzanne Barnes paid them a visit, Florida Hospital in Orlando accepted conventional wisdom when it came to flooring. The hospital sought out the cheapest products to satisfy its needs because the bottom line, after all, is the bottom line. Vinyl composition tile (VCT) was the cheapest hard flooring choice, ranging between $1.20 and $1.50/ft2 ($13.00 to $16.00/m2) to purchase and install. Sheet vinyl, they determined, was the next best thing, followed by rubber at $4.00 to $5.50/ft2 ($43.00 to $60.00/m2), installed. In 1997 and ’98, however, Barnes revealed that by considering only initial costs when comparing flooring materials, the hospital was deceiving itself. Stretching the bottom line to cover a 15-year time horizon recognized the costs of flooring upkeep and replacement, and turned Florida Hospital’s assumptions about the cost of flooring on their heads. In the end, hospital administrators concluded, VCT is the most expensive of the hard flooring choices. For their application, uncoated rubber turned out to cost the least over 15 years. The hospital’s revelation tells just the beginning of a complex flooring story, one with great implications for environmental health, human well-being, and, not least, cost.
Changing Maintenance Goals
Traditionally, maintenance was all about keeping the floor looking nice, but today emphasis is increasingly placed on health as concerns surrounding sick building syndrome, mold, and rising rates of respiratory ailments demand attention. “The primary objective of cleaning,” explains Michael Berry in Healthy Schools are Clean, Dry and Productive, “is to keep or get pollutants out of the building envelope, thereby reducing human exposure.” (Berry is a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and retired senior manager and scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.) G. Wentworth Smith, who retired last month from the flooring consulting firm that carries his name, agrees, complaining that making flooring appear clean often takes precedence over actually making it clean. This view is gaining momentum. Janitors, custodians, maintenance staff, and building operators are increasingly referred to as “environmental services staff,” and the acronym CFHS, standing for “cleaning for health and safety,” has replaced the word “maintenance” in some circles in an attempt to institutionalize an understanding of the relationship between maintenance and health.
Maintenance has other objectives as well. Appropriate care enhances a flooring product’s wear life. It also lengthens the use life of flooring, or the length of time for which it is actually used, regardless of its degree of wear. Lengthening either the wear life or the use life of floorcovering prevents spending energy and materials to replace it prematurely. And, as Berry stresses, proper maintenance has the potential to avert illness and injury, in effect lowering workplace absenteeism and avoiding litigation. Maintenance can also boost the morale of a building’s occupants, including its cleaning staff, thereby improving concentration and quality of work.
Maintenance Products and Methods
For hundreds of years, finishes have been protecting resilient and hard floorcoverings from scratches, spills, and general wear. Although natural waxes were used through the mid-1900s more durable synthetic polymers have all but replaced their natural counterparts. Until the last few decades, a typical floorcovering maintenance system consisted of a sealer, a finish, a stripper, and compatible cleaners. During the 1950s and ’60s, the introduction of polymeric chains and cross-linkages in those chains made sealers and finishes increasingly durable. Finishes are strong enough today that sealers have become obsolete, except during initial installation and under special circumstances.
One downside of these advances was the introduction of the heavy metal zinc as the cross-linking element in polymeric chains. Caustic ammonia-and, later, less-odorous ammoniated compounds-were then added to strippers to break the zinc bonds. Both zinc and the stripping agents threaten environmental and human health. Metal-free polymers emerged in the 1980s, paving the way for more benign strippers. Stephen Ashkin, green-cleaning guru and president of The Ashkin Group, warns that these new strippers will not remove a conventional coating; once the finish has been removed, however, a metal-free finish can be applied and corresponding strippers can be used thereafter. Although early metal-free finishes were less glossy, less durable, and more expensive than those they were replacing, technological advances have brought their performance and price to near-competitive levels. Metal-free polymers are still an anomaly, though, as conventional finishes continue to rely on zinc.
Maintenance experts are eager to usher in what Ashkin anticipates will be “the next generation of polymer coating”: ultraviolet-cured finishes. Under this technology, the composition of the finish itself remains the same, but the application of ultraviolet light leaves the finish extremely durable. UV coatings are currently undergoing testing and are expected to enter the flooring market soon. Another emerging trend is the use of semipermanent coatings that, except in very high-wear areas, shouldn’t need to be stripped and reapplied.
The only Green Seal-certified cleaning products intended for general use on impervious flooring are EnvirOx’s H2Orange2, Hillyard Industries’ Super Shine-All, Rochester Midland Corporation’s Enviro Care, and 3M’s Twist’n Fill. Certification is pending for a number of additional products, according to Mark Petruzzi, Green Seal’s director of certification.
Even when a building is designed to accommodate proper maintenance, with materials that can be reasonably maintained using sustainable products, building owners often devote insufficient support and resources to maintenance. “We’re the Rodney Dangerfield of industries,” Ashkin jokes. “The problem is that when architects and owners sit down to design a building, they don’t discuss how much it’s going to cost to maintain.”
Flooring and Maintenance Options
In carpeting, as with many other industries, recycling has consistently defined the environmental agenda. A number of companies are working to make their carpets recyclable while at the same time packing their carpets with recycled content. The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI), along with several government entities and nonprofit organizations, worked together to create the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) in 2002. Those groups established CARE through a memorandum of understanding that recognized the environmental cost of the estimated 5 billion pounds (2 billion kg) of used carpet that is discarded each year in the U.S. and usually landfilled. CARE is working to divert a growing amount of carpet from landfills by establishing collection sites-there are now 52 nationwide, said Bob Peoples, CARE’s executive director-and developing outlets for used carpet in waste-to-energy plants, in cement kilns, and as recycled content; however, the results so far are lagging behind expectations. Surveys show that 261 million pounds (97.4 million kg) of carpet were diverted in 2006, Peoples, told EBN, representing a 16% increase over 2005-strong growth but well short of the 100% increase forecast by Peoples last year (see EBN Vol. 15, No. 7).
Only one manufacturer, Shaw Industries, the largest carpet manufacturer in the world, says that its carpet is recyclable into new carpet, with face fiber going into face fiber and backing going into backing. Although in residential broadloom carpet, Shaw’s standard backing is latex (a non-recyclable thermoset plastic), Shaw’s Shaw Contract brand carpet contains its Ecoworx backing system, designed for a closed-loop recycling process. Ecoworx backing is a polyolefin-a thermoplastic that can be melted and reextruded. The bigger recycling challenge is the nylon 6 face fiber used in the carpet, and the key to Shaw’s claims that it can recycle nylon 6 is its Evergreen Nylon Recycling facility in Augusta, Georgia, which was expected to process 200 million pounds (90 million kg) of used carpet annually, to produce about 100 million pounds (45 million kg) of caprolactam, a monomer used to synthesize nylon 6 (see EBN Vol. 8, No. 9). However, the plant, acquired by Shaw in 2006, which employs selective pyrolysis (using heat and steam to melt and separate different compounds used in the carpet) and runs on a mixture of 90% post-consumer and 10% pre-consumer material, may not live up to expectations. Although Shaw is using Evergreen to tout the recyclability of its nylon 6 carpet yarns, it has not set a standard for recycled content, and the unwillingness of Shaw to disclose production details at Evergreen has some observers in the carpet industry skeptical that it will produce recycled nylon in meaningful volumes. Noting Shaw’s purchase of conventional nylon production capacity as part of its deal with Honeywell (Evergreen’s former owner). Dobbin Callahan, general manager of government markets for Tandus, which owns C&A and two other carpet manufacturing arms, speculated, “They bought it for capacity and are marketing the part of it that’s recyclable.”
Moreover, John Bradford, vice president of research and development for Interface, noted that the depolymerization system used at Evergreen has the largest environmental footprint in terms of its life-cycle, unlike mechanical separation of nylon fiber from backing material, which Interface plans to use to enable it to simply remelt the nylon rather than depolymerizing it. “That method has the smallest footprint and is the one that Mother Nature would smile upon,” said Bradford. He did not offer details on when or how Interface would offer that kind of recycling, however.
Biobased Materials
Even in carpet products with recycled content, the majority of the raw material used, particularly in the face fiber, is derived from petroleum. A number of companies have looked for paths to replacing that petrochemical input with agricultural input, so that even if virgin fiber is required, it may at least have a renewable source. A few carpet manufacturers also offer wool fiber in otherwise synthetic carpet, and some niche manufacturers offer completely natural products with wool fiber.
Carpet Considerations for Building Projects
Replacing petrochemicals
Interface has been among the leaders in the carpet industry in using polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable, thermoplastic polyester commonly derived from cornstarch. Interface currently uses PLA in a number of carpet tile products, said Bradford, noting, “It’s in a hybrid yarn system-it’s not resilient enough to be a singular fiber in a system.” Interface also offers a fabric, Terratex, that is 100% PLA fiber.
Mohawk Carpet plans to offer SmartStrand, a carpet fiber made with DuPont’s Sorona polymer, which will be introduced in Mohawk’s New Generation line of high-end and mid-range residential carpets. According to Jenny Cross, brand manager for Mohawk Residential, DuPont “is making one of the two monomers [required to make PTT, a polyester-like fiber] from corn. At the end of the day, the polymer itself will be 37% corn-based by weight.” Although the fiber reduces the petrochemical content of the carpet, it will not be compostable, unlike some biobased plastic products, and Mohawk does not have plans for recycling the used product. Similarly, Universal Textile Technologies (UTT), based in Dalton, Georgia, provides the carpet industry with several backing systems, including BioCel, a polyurethane backing in which a soy-based polyol replaces some of the petrochemical content of conventional polyurethane. Polyurethane carpet backing is not recyclable, and so while the soy content in the backing reduces petrochemical content, it does not offer a closed-loop solution.
Despite the attraction of growing our building materials instead of extracting them, some biobased materials, including UTT’s carpet with BioCel, and wool carpet, perform poorly in terms of life-cycle assessment (see below). Reflecting on the poor performance of agricultural-based building products, due in large part to chemically intensive farming practices, Healthy Building Network’s (HBN) Tom Lent commented, “We’re going to find an increasing need to look critically at agricultural practices with building materials. There are significant challenges, given the way that we raise crops now.”
Certification of Claims
Amid the claims being made for various carpet products, carpet buyers can fall back on the several certification programs that exist to verify manufacturer claims. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that, as with life-cycle assessment, each certification program has certain values embedded in it, which may skew results toward or away from the values of the team selecting carpet.
Indoor air quality
In 1992, following several cases in which chemical offgassing from carpets was implicated in sick building syndrome, the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) implemented the Green Label program, a voluntary emissions testing and labeling program. Emissions from carpets, carpet pads, and adhesives carrying the CRI Green Label are lower than allowable thresholds in terms of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs), formaldehyde, and several other substances (see EBN Vol. 15, No. 9). In 2004, CRI released a stronger, more comprehensive version of the program, Green Label Plus (see EBN Vol. 13, No. 7), which meets California’s Section 01350 specification. Most if not all of the major carpet manufacturers offer products meeting Green Label Plus standards.
Although Green Label and Green Label Plus have become recognized standards for indoor air quality in the carpet industry, HBN’s Lent argued that those labels don’t do enough. “My concern,” said Lent, “is that users are exposed to more chemicals than VOCs. VOCs are a big problem initially,” as new carpet offgases, he said, but they are “generally agreed to be a declining problem over time.” Lent supported broadening this focus: “Other hazardous contents that users are exposed to include semi-volatiles, flame retardants, and perfluorocarbons, which are not addressed by any certifications now.” Although there have been discussions around enhancing California’s Section 01350 to address some of those toxins, occupants now have little protection from those chemicals of concern other than individual product research and reliance on manufacturer information.
Multiple-attribute certification
Product certification programs offering multiple-attribute evaluation also offer a way for consumers and designers to find carpet products that meet a more holistic set of standards. Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification from McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry is one such multiple-attribute program (see EBN Vol. 16, No. 2), and Shaw trumpets its participation in it. According to James Ewell, a project manager for MBDC, Shaw is in the process of certifying its EcoSolution Q face fiber, its EcoWorx backing system, and a broadloom product. The only current C2C-certified carpet product is Ultron nylon 6,6 carpet fiber from Solutia, which is certified as a “technical nutrient.” While that certification indicates the feasibility of recycling Ultron, it’s another matter to recycle carpet made with Ultron. Even Shaw only recycles nylon 6 fiber, while downcycling nylon 6,6 into automotive parts, according to Shaw’s Bradfield.
Currently the most significant carpet standards are California Gold and NSF 140, both of which are in ongoing development and may soon merge. Previously, Emeryville, California-based Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) worked with several carpet manufacturers to develop an Environmentally Preferable Product (EPP) standard for carpet in 2002. However, several manufacturers had concerns, especially about the recycled-content requirements in SCS’s standard, and in 2004 the Carpet and Rug Institute began work on a new standard through the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS). Following several iterations as part of MTS’ Sustainable Textile Standard, management of the consensus review and approval process was transferred to NSF International, which released it for public comment in December 2005 as the Sustainable Carpet Assessment Standard (Draft NSF 140-2005). NSF 140 was due to be released officially in November 2007. The standard ranks products as bronze, silver, gold, or platinum, evaluating them in terms of sustainability in the areas of public and environmental health, recycled and biobased content, manufacturing process, and end-of-life management. Bringing its EPP standard up to date, SCS made that standard equivalent to the higher two levels of NSF 140 and certifies products to the standard through its Sustainable Choice program.
Meanwhile California has been developing its own purchase specification for state agencies, building on the draft that is now NSF 140, adding 14 requirements, eliminating the bronze and silver levels, and requiring third-party certification of each point. The resulting California Gold standard is thus similar to SCS’s EPP standard and to the higher two levels of NSF 140 (and is also certified under SCS’ Sustainable Choice program), but it offers more rigor. According to Jaclyn Bowen, a standards specialist with NSF, California has been involved with the NSF development process and is requesting that its new requirements also become requirements in NSF 140.
Among the carpet standards, California Gold’s Platinum level is the “most rigorous,” said Winslow. Lent agreed, while noting that “for laudable reasons they set recycled content minimums, but there are some unintended consequences of that that I don’t like.” The California standards require a minimum 10% post-consumer recycled content, which, despite the industry’s focus on carpet recycling, has been a challenge for some manufacturers. “The only carpets that meet that level today are PVC-backed carpets,” said Shaw’s Bradfield. “So what California has done is to create a preference for PVC.”
While manufacturers like C&A and Interface can meet the standards with their vinyl products, other manufacturers have used recycled paper, flyash, ground automobile glass, and other additives that don’t necessarily improve overall environmental performance. However, a product like C&A’s Ethos carpet tile with PVB backing has achieved California Platinum with a high level of post-consumer recycled content, without PVC, and with strong life-cycle assessment results. Furthermore, if Shaw delivers on its promise of carpet recycling through Evergreen, it shouldn’t have a problem meeting the standards.
Select Carpet Manufacturers and Environmental Attributes
Conclusions
The ease of keeping use of floorcoverings within sustainable limits is growing as the industry becomes more environmentally aware and competitive. It is offering more options designed to meet the needs of green builders, as well as better tools for evaluating carpet, including life-cycle assessment software, and broad-based certification programs. At the same time, the industry is still very resource-intensive, and its products contribute to a variety of environmental and indoor air quality problems. Similarly, awareness of the importance of maintenance in any type of floorcovering is growing as environmental considerations take root and as life-cycle cost analysis replaces a focus on initial cost. Florida Hospital’s story is being relived in commercial settings around the world.
There are bright spots in the industry. To name a few: C&A’s Ethos carpet backing uses a high level of non-PVC recycled content, offers a closed-loop recycling process, and performs well in life-cycle assessments. Interface, like many companies, continues to reduce its impact, pushing to eliminate negative environmental impacts by 2020. Shaw is aiming to reduce the significant, yet largely untouched, environmental footprint of nylon face fiber by creating a closed-loop recycling process. Yet improving carpet isn’t just up to manufacturers-it is designers, purchasers, and consumers who make carpet the popular floorcovering that it is, and it’s up to this group to use carpeting wisely and to continue to ask manufacturers to improve.
Cleanability of floorcoverings is directly related to indoor air quality and should be considered in any design and product-selection process. Because the cleaning agents themselves can be problematic, however, the ideal flooring choices will be maintainable with relatively mild products. “I have come to think of cleaning in the same way I think of pest control,” notes Terry Brennan. “There are two bad things: the harm caused by colonizing critters and the harm caused by things we do to get them out of the building. The same goes for dirt.” When it comes to longevity of the flooring, there is a tradeoff between the costs (both financial and environmental) of frequent, intensive maintenance and the benefits for appearance and longevity that such maintenance offers.