As a consumer, what’s the first word that comes to your mind in buying building materials? For me, it’s safety. Sounds a little puzzling? Compared with price, quality, design, I care more if the building material has bad impact on human well-being and the environment.
Today, not only me, but more and more consumers put top priority on safety due to the improvement of our education and living standards. Will the building material leads to respiratory disease or irreversible environmental impacts? Is the material source renewable? Regardless of material itself or technique used in composition, will any production link has bad effect on human health and the environment? Let’s talk in two parts.
Safety to Health
Building materials, ranging from foundation, flooring to interior and exterior wall materials may have the potential to damage human health. We all know that formaldehyde and benzene can result in respiratory disease and impaired growth and development. Asbestos fibers can cause serious health problems such as lung scarring and asbestosis. So we should take into account in reducing the use of such materials in building material. We could either find substitutes or invest more in R&D to improve technology.
Safety to Environment
Choose materials that minimize environmental impact. Keep “sustainable development” in your mind. Every day, numerous trees are to be cut down for being made to wood furniture, wood flooring, and so on. Are there any alternatives? Bamboo, the growth speed is much faster than trees, so the wide use of bamboo may give the forests a break to regenerate. In addition, solar is gorgeous green. Solar roof shingle is an emerging eco-friendly building material functioning both as solar panels and as durable roof tiles — so your roof will still be protected while it absorbs sunlight for energy use.
Today, safety has become one important factor in measuring building materials. Various eco-friendly and healthy building materials spring up in the market. It’s a new era, suppliers and manufacturers should keep up with the pace of demand, be responsible for the society, the environment and our earth.
