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Formidlingsprojekt om alternativer til blød PVC i byggebranchen

Summary

The purpose of the project was to give a complete outline of the consumption of building products, which contains soft PVC in Denmark. At the same time to draw up possible alternatives to these building products. One essential element of the project was to carry out an environmental screening and from a technical and economic point of view to give a general assessment of the alternative building products.

In addition to this report, an application guide was prepared, addressing parties involved in a building project.

This survey on the use of soft PVC within the building industry and the assessment of alternative products are based on mainly telephone interviews with suppliers and manufacturers with a thorough knowledge of the market for each of the building products.

The survey showed a yearly consumption of soft PVC within the Danish building industry of 21,400 tons. Major areas are cables and pipelines (11,400 tons); surface treatment of structural steel (4,500 tons) and flooring and wall lining (3,900 tons).

To most of the building products, which contain soft PVC, alternative environmentally safer materials were identified, which could, either completely or partially, replace the PVC-containing building products.

In most cases the PVC-free alternatives can easily be used in stead. Other times the choice of alternatives may result in minor technical changes, but in the designing phase these changes are not considered to be very important.

Some of the PVC-free building products are less expensive than the equivalent product, which contains soft PVC. For other product groups the price difference is insignificant, and for yet other product groups the PVC-free products are more expensive than the PVC-containing product.