Using Life Cycle tools for evaluating alternative building materials in dwelling walls built in Mendoza (Argentina)

ARENA, A.P.; MITCHELL, J

Madrid

Encuentro; 11th Annual Meeting of SETAC Europe; 2001

Society of environmental toxicology and chemistry

The building sector is one of the main contributors to the environmental impact produced by human activities, including resource depletion, energy consumption, pollutants emission and waste production. In countries with a positive population growth rate and with a severe dwelling shortage, like most developing countries are, good technological alternatives for diminishing that impact while keeping affordable costs are needed. Besides, tools for assess the environmental and economic consequences of different design alternatives are required. Most of the buildings in Argentina are built using masonry, being clay bricks the most used material for walls. Producing clay bricks requires usually fossil energy for their baking, with their associated environmental impact. In particular, in Mendoza clay bricks are produced mostly in a handicraft way using naturally grown wood as fuel, which produces additional negative impacts on the environment in an arid region as Mendoza is. One technological alternative to those bricks are the cement-sand blocks, which require no energy for their production, but they do include highly energy intensive materials among their components, as cement. A streamlined LCA has been applied in order to compare these alternative materials from the environmental viewpoint, when used for building the walls of a dwelling located in Medrano, in the department of Junin (Mendoza). The environmental consequences of applying insulating materials in external walls was also evaluated. A life cycle costing analysis was performed in order to assess the economic consequences of the application of thermal insulation in external walls.