• Question: Why is Tee-pex dangerous for the enviroment?

    Asked by cathkidston to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I think that it’s dangers are two-fold. Firstly being an artificial plastic it is very hard to degrade naturally. Unlike most organic waste, which can be broken down by bacteria, In the case of plastics such as PEX (Which stands for Cross-linked Polyethylene) there are no bacteria that can do this and they persist for a long time.

      Another concern is that the cross linking can be degraded by sunlight. PEX itself is not harmful but when it breaks down into smaller molecules some of them may be. This is a concern where it is used to make water pipes. However there was a large study done fairly recently testing the health impact of PEX piping and it was found that there was very little effect on health so don’t worry to much.

      I’d say the third reason would be that PEX is made from petroleum by products. I’m sure you know about the environmental problems of fossil fuels, and all the pollution caused by their extraction and purification. Since PEX is made from fossil fuel based products then its manufacture will also contribute to this pollution.

    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      A lot of materials in the modern world either don’t biodegrade (break down) or use poisonous chemicals to be made. We have to be careful of the way these are disposed of, and of course recycling is really important if we’re not just going to use everything up! This is especially true of petroleum, which is *not* going to last forever.

    • Photo: Robert Thompson

      Robert Thompson answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I really know nothing about this. What I do know is that we use way way too much packaging. We don’t need to use it and most of it doesn’t degrade.

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