PVC conduit alternatives [RE-wrenches]

[Allan Sindelar]

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Wrenches,

We use a lot of PVC conduit, especially in our direct-buried runs from
arrays, generators, and the like. I am aware of its health/environmental
hazards (see below for a blurb on it by Bill Walsh founder of the Healthy
Building Network, taken ffrom Grist). I'd like to use it as little as
possible.

What alternatives have you found that are less toxic than PVC?

Thanks,
Allan @+E

We focus on PVC or vinyl because the weight of available evidence tells us
that among building materials, it may well be the single most important
source of many of the worst toxic chemicals plaguing the global environment
today. Dioxin and three other chemicals targeted for elimination under
international treaties can be traced in significant quantity to the
production and use of PVC. Some 65 tons of mercury have been unaccounted for
by chlorine factories, which produce the feedstock for vinyl. That's more
than the annual mercury emissions from power plants. More than half of all
chlorine produced is used to make PVC, which can be over 50 percent chlorine
by weight. (By comparison, less than 5 percent is used for drinking and
wastewater disinfection.) There's more, including growing bodies of evidence
that chemicals leaching from PVC contribute to indoor air quality problems.
And PVC has been declared a "contaminant" to other plastics recycling, after
more than a decade of failed efforts to effectively recycle it.

What people really need to understand is that no other plastic is based on
chlorine, so other plastics do not have the unique environmental impacts of
PVC. But many other plastics, not to mention other materials, do offer equal
or better performance at comparable cost. If PVC makes the grade in green
building, then what doesn't? Failing to distinguish PVC from other plastics
is like failing to distinguish old growth from other lumber. This is the
easy one folks -- the low-hanging fruit!

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