environmental Strategist™, between the lines: Who are you doing business with? This is the first question a business answers as they develop and execute their environmental Management Strategy (eMS). The article below is an excellent example of why it’s critical to find out who you are doing business with.
An eMS is the first step a business takes on their sustainable path. An eMS is designed to identify your environmental foot print to drive growth and profits in today’s business environment.
The four footings of an eMS are:
- What’s coming in your front door? (Who are you doing business with?)
- What goes on inside your corporate walls
- What goes out your back door
- Who are your neighbors
For more on developing and executing your eMS go to www.estrategist.com.
Report backs Chinese drywall health complaints
Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY1:04 a.m. EDT May 2, 2014
Chinese-made drywall used in more than 20,000 homes in the United States could have caused nosebleeds, headaches, difficulty breathing and asthma attacks in tens of thousands of Americans exposed to it, the federal government said in a long-awaited report released Friday.
The drywall was installed in mostly Southern homes since 2005, and it has been the subject of multiple lawsuits. In addition to health-related complaints, homeowners have also alleged sulfur dioxide and other chemicals found in the drywall caused foul odors and corroded pipes and wiring. There have been five settlements totaling more than $1 billion, but it’s not clear how much of the drywall was replaced.
“The bottom line is that this modeling data suggests that levels of sulfur dioxide and other sulfur compounds found in the Chinese manufactured drywall were sufficiently high to result in the health effects people have been reporting,” said Vikas Kapil, chief medical officer with the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The health research began in 2011 but was not finished until now because of the work necessary to create scientifically valid models that allowed researchers to estimate what the sulfur emissions from the drywall samples “might mean for people in a room in a house” containing that drywall, Kapil said.
As of Jan. 20, owners of 20,244 properties had registered for compensation in a multistate settlement program overseen by the New Orleans federal court where all the lawsuits were consolidated. Claims have been filed by homeowners, home builders, contractors and construction material distributors.
The homes smelled like rotten eggs, many reported. Appliances and electronics failed as their wiring corroded and metal in the homes tarnished and pitted.
The only way to deal with the problem is to rip out and replace the faulty wallboard.
The drywall, sometimes called wallboard, was imported from China beginning in 2005, after the record-breaking hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 created a shortage of U.S.-made wallboard.
Drywall is made of gypsum plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper, and is used to make interior walls and ceilings.
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry sent staff to China, where they obtained samples of wallboard manufactured there in 2005, 2006 and 2009.
The samples were tested by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Results from those samples were then used to estimate how much of the chemicals would be present in the air of a home with the defective wallboard.
High levels of sulfur dioxide were found in the samples of Chinese wallboard, as well as hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, carbonyl sulfide and ethyl mercaptan.
Samples of U.S.-made wallboard had very low or undetectable amounts of those chemicals.
The samples gave off the highest amounts of chemicals when they were exposed to hot, humid conditions — much like those found in Florida and Louisiana, two states with the largest number of cases linked to the wallboard.
Tainted Chinese drywall is no longer sold in the United States since the 2012 passage of the Drywall Safety Act, which set chemical standards for domestic and imported drywall.