Moving in to a Healthy Home

Greenpeace volunteers worked with Habitat for Humanity and other groups to build a without polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl) material or other toxic household products. With a typical construction budget of $60,000, the home was completed two days before Earth Day after a month-long construction effort. It may serve as a model for Habitat homes and affordable housing around the country. The PVC-free Habitat house is the first project of its kind for Greenpeace.

To document the construction, Greenpeace produced a short video and published a report, authored by architect Bruce Hampton, on lessons learned and how to build PVC-free homes.

More than two-thirds of all PVC or vinyl production is used in construction materials such as siding, window frames, waste water pipes, floor tiles, carpeting, wiring and wall covering. One of the most widely used plastics, PVC is also the most toxic, releasing hazardous chemicals such as dioxin during its lifecycle. These chemicals can build up in the air, water and food chain, causing severe health problems such as cancer, immune system damage and hormone disruption. Pollution from PVC plants has displaced entire towns and disproportionately affects low-income and African-American communities, particularly in the Baton Rouge-New Orleans corridor known as “Cancer Alley.”