Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: Urgent Advise Wanted: Sheet Rock - Good or Bad??

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "John Abdon" <jabdon@hotmail.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Urgent Advise Wanted: Sheet Rock - Good or Bad??
  • Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 13:58:25 -0700

True enough. My response was certainly incomplete, and way too emotional.
And for sure we should keep the stuff out of the dump for many reasons.

The science of good radiation moderators is kind of fun to examine. There
are not very many good radiation moderators. A Boolean search for "gypsum"
near "radiation" produced 300 to 400 hits on almost all the common engines.
Just a few for reference :

At 'Nuclear Garden'
(http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/nuclearGarden/u_word.html) "Uranium-238 is
found in higher than average concentrations in many of our common building
materials: gypsum (gipsplaat), granite, sandstone and cement."

Half way down the page at 'Radioactivity in Nature'
(http://www.sph.umich.edu/group/eih/UMSCHPS/natural.htm) under the heading
'Natural Radioactivity in Building Materials' again gypsum stands out
(especially in the waste product).

And this alarming comment found at 'Environmental Building News'
(http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/Greenbuilding/Radon.html): "Personally,
I'd be most concerned about drywall. It can contain gypsum made from the
gunk that you get by scrubbing sulphur in the smoke stacks of coal-burning
power plants with lime (calcium
sulphate). -------------------------------------------------------- Norbert
Senf

Currently, gypsum is being used in various ways as a nuclear moderator: the
calcium is great at absorbing radiation. So various industries (and the
natural environment) 'deposite' chunks of radiation in the gypsum 'bank'.
Take some non-radioactive gypsum, leave it around awhile, and presto! It's
radio active! Trouble is, many of the decay series for particles lighter
than Iron end up as Radon gas. Ouch!

The litany of troubles caused by proximity to gypsum suggest to leave it out
of the picture. The proper use of salvage gypsum board is to wrap other
nuclear waste with it and place it far, far away from living organisms.

Hey, just where is far, far away, anyway?

`\\\\\\\\|||/
(@@) johnAbdon jabdon@hotmail.com
ooO_(_)_Ooo___________________________________
_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_


----- Original Message -----
From: <Permacltur@aol.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 1999 7:43 AM
Subject: Re: Urgent Advise Wanted: Sheet Rock - Good or Bad??


>
> In a message dated 7/28/99 12:36:46 AM, jabdon@hotmail.com writes:
>
> <<I lived in Cody, Wyoming, USA where a sheet rock factory was producing
large
> quantities of the stuff. Horrible! At certain points of the process, the
air
> quality in the region became almost unbreathable - and I do not have any
> known lung condition. And you should see the open pit mines that the
gypsum
> comes from. Yuk. Additionally, the product is very dense and therefore
> places an inordinate pressure on the global transportation network. Please
> use something else.>>
>
> I don't see where salvaging gypsum board from the dump increases the
> motivation to mine and manufacture. Once the damage is done, it makes
sense
> to get whatever value there is from it. It is like throwing food in the
> dump because it wasn't grown organically.
>
> For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
> 1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design
Courses,
> consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual
correspondence
> courses via email. Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52,
> Sparr FL 32192 USA Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com
>
> We don't have time to rush.
>
> A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
> http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html
> Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture
Teachers
> assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: jabdon@hotmail.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
leave-permaculture-75156P@franklin.oit.unc.edu
>
>

---
You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: london@metalab.unc.edu
To unsubscribe send a blank email to
leave-permaculture-75156P@franklin.oit.unc.edu




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page