‘Green’ Countertop Options Are Wide Ranging

What do you think? E-mail us your feedback, contact information and the subject line, 'Fabricating Techniques' with your message.

As scientific evidence of global warming mounts, the trend toward environmental responsibility in new construction and remodeling grows as well. Interviewed in February in the Memphis Daily News, Jim Lutz, professor of architecture at the University of Memphis, said that the green building movement “is going to be the issue that dominates the field of architecture for the next century.”

Lutz and his students have designed a home to be built this summer that will be one of the first to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines for homes.

Homeowners today are increasingly likely to weigh the environmental impact of the various materials they are considering for use in their homes, and the visibility of countertop surfaces leads to increased attention to “green countertop materials.”

Solid Surface

Many green building advocates object to conventional solid surface materials because their ingredients are made from non-renewable resources. Acrylic resins are derived from petroleum, and alumina trihydrate fillers are obtained from bauxite ore, which is most often obtained from open pit mines in Third World countries.

Solid surface manufacturers say they are striving to improve their environmental performance in many different ways. The aluminum industry has made a commitment to rehabilitate old bauxite mine sites to a condition “indistinguishable from their pre-mining condition,” according to the International Aluminium Institute.

It takes roughly one barrel of crude oil to make the acrylic resin needed to manufacture the solid surface material for countertops in an average-sized kitchen. Those countertops can easily last for 20 to 30 years or longer, and can be repaired or renovated as needed. Informed consumers must decide whether or not it is unreasonable to use petroleum in this way.

Large manufacturers of solid surface materials, quartz products and plastic laminates used by countertop fabricators, such as DuPont, Cambria, Silestone, Formica, Nevamar and Wilsonart, have obtained independent, third-party GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality certification, which assures that their products comply with strict standards limiting chemical emissions, primarily volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

New Options

The desire to use a countertop material that meets even higher environmental standards has led to a proliferation of new products that are being marketed as environmentally friendly. These products are manufactured using a variety of recycled or renewable raw materials. For example, at least three companies now offer countertop slabs made primarily of recycled glass.

IceStone is manufactured in Brooklyn, NY out of recycled glass in a concrete matrix. Some patterns also incorporate recycled post-industrial Mother of Pearl chips. The company operates in a renovated day-lit facility and employs a multicultural workforce that is over 20% Tibetan refugees.

EnviroGLAS uses recycled glass and porcelain embedded in epoxy resin binder to make its countertop product called EnviroSLAB in Garland, TX. The material is 75% recycled glass and 25% binder by volume. The company won the National Recycling Coalition’s 2006 Outstanding Market Development Award.

Vetrazzo is another countertop material that consists of 85% recycled glass in concrete. The company operates in Richmond, CA out of a renovated factory that is on the National Register of Historic Places, and it recently received a $1.3 million grant from California to expand its product line.

Two companies are manufacturing paper-based countertop materials. These products bear some resemblance to plastic laminates, but are much thicker and lack the melamine top coat common to plastic laminates.