•urethane-reinforced alkyd floor enamel

•exterior oil-based primer

Recycling leftover paint is an idea whose time has come. Paint disposal is one of the biggest headaches facing contractors and municipalities nationwide, and improper disposal can cause extensive environmental harm. Several municipalities and counties have run paint collection and re-use programs, often mixing together unwanted paint into a beige primer. The office sponsoring the event typically pays for the collection and remixing of the paint and then distributes the product free to users, as the cost of recycling is less than that of hazardous waste disposal. According to a report from the Marin County (California) Office of Waste Management, however, this remixed paint has unreliable quality and often clogs spray nozzles. Moreover, these municipal or county collections are generally limited to household waste, meaning that contractors and institutions are not included.

Several paint companies are developing more sophisticated recycling operations. Two of these companies, Major Paint of Torrence, California and The Green Paint Company of Manchaug, Massachusetts, now have viable products on the market. Because they can still charge for taking in unused paint, the recycled paint products can be a great bargain and, in terms of quality, they’re literally “as good as new.”

The Cycle II™ line from the Major Paint Company (the manufacturing arm of Standard Brands Paint Co.) contains at least 12% recycled paint collected from consumers and 38% in-house waste from washing machinery. The remaining 50% is virgin material. Cycle II is available in flat, semi-gloss, and primer formulations in about a dozen colors ranging from beige to dark brown, with a few greyish blues and greens. A new antique white color is made with 50% collected paint, leaving out the factory waste.

Company Vice President Hubert Kim, who runs the recycled paint program, explains that before 1984, Major Paint sent 1500 tons of hazardous solid waste annually to a landfill. Now that waste goes into 500,000 gallons of recycled latex paint. Although the choice of colors is limited, the quality of Cycle II is well proven. Gina Purin, head of hazardous waste management for Marin County, gave away thousands of gallons of the paint to agencies, businesses, and individuals to find out how well it works. Response from the users was almost uniformly positive. Several large institutions, most notably the U.S. Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, were so impressed that they are now committed to buying only recycled latex paint.

Exterior, below-grade foundation insulation has fallen into disfavor in some areas because it provides termites with a protected pathway into the structure. The problem is so serious that some termite prevention companies are refusing to treat houses with exterior foundation insulation, and code officials are releasing builders from energy code requirements for foundation insulation. One expanded polystyrene (EPS) company may have a better solution. AFM Corporation of Shorewood, Minnesota, has patented a process that incor­porates a borate pesticide into the foam.

AFM serves 19 EPS manufacturers across the U.S., all of whom now sell the treated foam under the name Perform Guard™. The borate preservative used, U.S. Borax’s TIM-BOR®, has been shown to be an effective termite-prevention material in other applications and is relatively non-toxic. Mike Tobin, marketing manager at AFM, estimates that Perform Guard costs about 10% to 15% more than untreated foam. Tobin adds that it is becoming popular for all below-grade applications, as well as for foam-core panels.

Apartment buildings have for the most part been left out of residential recycling programs because of the difficulty of getting residents to haul recyclables to a storage area by hand. As recycling requirements are adopted by more and more municipalities, however, architects and building owners find themselves forced to deal with the problem. A common solu­tion is to set up separation rooms on each floor that are serviced by maintenance personnel. The labor costs, space requirements, and fire and health code complications make this solution less than ideal. A new invention by Mark Shantzis, CEO of Hi-Rise Recycling Systems, Inc., offers an alternative solution.

The Hi-Rise Recycling System takes up no more room than a standard disposal chute and is almost as easy to use. The system involves electronic control panels that are installed next to the disposal chutes on each floor. Occupants push a button identifying the type of waste they are sending down (up to six categories can be used). They then wait ten seconds while a lazy Susan in the basement rotates, moving the appropriate bin into place under the chute. When it’s ready, the machine emits a beep and releases the door, allowing disposal of the garbage or recyclables. A separate light on the control panel informs users if the system is in use by someone on another floor.

Lightweight, high-strength panels made entirely from recycled fibers will become available this fall for use in trade show displays. Robert Noble of Gridcore Systems International (GSI) has chosen that market as the starting place for a panel system that may eventually revolutionize a whole range of industries, including low-cost housing. Gridcore’s first manufacturing facility is scheduled to begin production this fall, making panels out of old corrugated containers. Noble claims that they have developed a process that is forgiving enough to use almost any recycled paper stock, even with significant contamination.

The Gridcore technology was developed at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, under the name Spaceboard™. Gridcore panels are made by pouring a slurry of cellulose or other fibers onto a rubber mold shaped like a waffle iron. Excess water is then sucked out through pores in the mold, and the fibers are heat-pressed into a solid panel with one side smooth and a square grid pattern on the other. No binders are needed, according to Noble, because, as with paper, the hydrogen bond between the cellulose fibers provides all the strength needed. Two of these panels are then glued together with their smooth sides facing out, to create a single high-strength panel. The factory is set up to make 4' x 10' sheets of varying thicknesses.

Foam-Tech, Inc. of North Thetford, VT, this past April became the first company to offer a urethane spray or injection foam with zero ozone-depletion potential. Super Green™ is produced with hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) 134a, which contains no chlorine and thus does not damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer. In 1991, concern about the environment led Foam-Tech’s president, Henri Fennell, to switch from CFC-11 to HCFC-22 as the foaming agent in the insulation. HCFC-22 has only 1⁄20 the ozone depletion potential of CFC-11, but even HCFCs are slated for phase-out (see EBN, Vol. 2, No. 1).

The switch from CFC-11 to HCFC-22 two years ago was a real headache, according to Fennell, but HFC-134a proved to be a simple drop-in replacement for HCFC-22, even though the new chemical had not been widely identified as a potential foaming agent for urethane. Fennell and his foam supplier, Preferred Foam Products of Branford, CT, began experimenting with HFC-134a last year as a potential substitute for HCFC-22. Interestingly, the switch was so easy because of changes they had implemented for environmental reasons. To cut down on waste, they had switched to reusable pressurized containers for shipping the HCFC-22 foaming agent. It turns out that those pressurized containers can also be used for the low-boiling-point HFC-134a. The new foaming agent does increase the price of the foam to some extent—about 10% according to Fennell—but he expects to see the price of HFC-134a (currently about $5 per pound) go down, making Super Green comparable in price to HCFC-22 urethanes.

FiberBond, made by Louisiana Pacific Corp., and a similar but now discontinued product, Gypsonite, (which was made by Highland American Corporation), have received a lot of attention among green builders because of their use of recycled cellulose fiber. They have been widely used in environmental demonstration homes, including ReCraft 90 (Missoula, MT), the Here Today House (Portland, OR), and NAHB’s Resource Conservation House (Bowie, MD). With Gypsonite now gone, we’re down to only the FiberBond product. Does it live up to its environmental image? How does it compare with conventional drywall?

Unlike conventional drywall, which has paper facings surrounding a core of pure gypsum, FiberBond has cellulose fiber uniformly distributed in a matrix of gypsum and perlite. The cellulose content is about 15% by weight, according to Dave McGinnis, a chemist at LP’s FiberBond plant in Nova Scotia, Canada. Because the fibers weigh less than the gypsum, McGinnis estimates that the percent fiber by volume might be 30% or more. One hundred percent of that cellulose fiber is recycled. So far, so good.

For clients with in-sink garbage disposal units who would like to produce compost instead of sending all that organic matter down the drain, here’s an interesting new product: the Kich’n Komposter. The device fits under the sink in the wastewater line after the disposal unit. By flipping a switch, the homeowner can divert the flow out of the disposal unit through the Kich’n Komposter to spin-dry and save the finely ground waste material for composting. Some users EBN spoke with report getting usable compost from these ground scraps in as short a time as two weeks when mixed with sawdust; others simply bury the grindings in their garden and let it decompose there.

The unit costs approximately $130 and is easy to install and use. A diverter valve in the sink cabinet lets you choose which materials to save and which to flush down the drain. Meat scraps, for example, should not be composted. Owners should use the device only to save scraps appropriate for composting. Because the ground-up material has to be cleaned out after each use, the Kich’n Komposter makes the most sense for serious gardeners. Unfortunately, the device does not make garbage disposal units any easier on private septic systems. Grease, the bane of septic tanks, will pass right through the Komposter and down the drain.

A couple of fiber-reinforced cementitious siding products have been getting a lot of attention in the sustainable building community recently. These products have some advantages, especially when they are used to replace top-quality wood products that come from old-growth forests. They also provide excellent fire ratings and good long-term durability (under the right conditions). Other environmental advantages are hard to find, however. On the whole, their report card as “green” building products is mixed at best.

Hardiplank™ from James Hardie Building Products is a new product in North America, but an old one in Australia. It is manufactured in a plant in central California from Portland cement, virgin wood fibers (imported from New Zealand), sand, and water. The ingredients are mixed into a slurry and deposited in layers on a roller. When the desired thickness is reached, the roller off-loads the wet sheets onto conveyers, where the sheets are cut to length and width using high-pressure water jets. The individual pieces are then cured in an autoclave, which uses high temperature and pressure to reduce the curing time for the cement from 28 days to 12 hours.