Taking the toxic out of building

By Joe Lynam
BBC World Service business reporter

Gaia's ideal is to use non-toxic materials in its buildings

An investigation by the BBC's World Business Report has uncovered major doubts about the impact of many so-called "green" initiatives. Critics argue that many moves could actually end up doing more harm than good.

We consume more every year, and the building industry is no exception.

To take one example, over the past 20 years, the amount of glass manufactured in Britain has almost trebled. And making glass devours energy.

The ironic thing is that the latest regulations designed to cut energy waste may be making things worse.

New buildings need to include more complex bits of technology than ever before - items which might end up on landfill sites when we have finished with them, be they double glazing, air conditioning or boiler systems.

Waste cycle

The architect Howard Liddell is an adviser to lawmakers in Scotland. His Gaia group has been designing green buildings for the past 20 years.

His ideal is to avoid hi-tech and instead use non-toxic materials which can be safely returned to the earth and be eaten by some creature or other.

We manufacture 3.5 billion bricks a year and we destroy about 2.5 billion bricks each year. As far as I can see, the world is going backwards Thornton Kay, Salvo

"We don't address the waste cycle at all. We don't think about buildings as to when they're going to be deconstructed," says Mr Liddell.

"I'm just back from a week looking at buildings in Germany and the leading edge are buildings that actually have very little in the way of technology in them. They're just very clever buildings in the way the fabric is put together.

"In my perfect world, reaching for technology is the last resort and not the first and we have an industry that has been reaching for technology as the first resort for the last 30 years."

'Going backwards'

Recycling is supposed to be good for the environment.

But building waste that might - in the past - have been placed in local landfill sites now has to be transported many miles to crushing sites for recycling, which burns up more energy.

Thornton Kay runs salvage network Salvo. He insists that repair and reuse is far more beneficial to the environment than recycling.

"It doesn't benefit big industry to reuse things, and to make the life of things last longer," he says.

"It is actually going to cut down on their markets. And they know that. We're trashing more buildings now - 50% more waste now than 10 years ago. In terms of bricks, we manufacture 3.5 billion bricks a year and we destroy about 2.5 billion bricks each year. As far as I can see, the world is going backwards."

But concerns about hi-tech buildings don't just centre on waste.

Mr Liddell is also worried about the health impact of many of the new products, introduced to meet energy-saving saving regulations. He is particularly concerned about people spending more and more time in sealed up buildings.

Asthma fears

"The obsession with just energy is really missing the point. Sustainable development is about a lot more than energy. There are a whole series of issues to deal with," he says.

"Sealing up a building, reducing draughts and so on, once you've done that, you've effectively created an incubator and therefore you've got a perfect situation for dust mites and mould and so forth. And you have got this mammoth increase now in allergies and asthma."

"Scotland, for example, is the leader in the world with nearly 20% of its population now with asthma and 37% of 13 to 14 year olds with asthma. England's not far behind and Wales not far behind that."

Mr Liddell says the number of available building materials is up from 500 a century ago to 55,000 today.

"That mammoth, exponential growth in the number of available materials (most of them man made) has had a concomitant rise in toxic building materials. And that kicked in in the sixties, shot up in the eighties and now it's virtually a pandemic. And we're not dealing with it."