We’ve been discussing the materials used in our new house and are pretty set on not using any plastic. However, there are a few key places where it might be extremely helpful so I decided to look into how bad it really is (from a carbon footprint perspective). I am still strongly opposed to having exposed plastic that would off-gas and degrade into the air, but if it is built into the structure maybe I wouldn’t mind quite so much. Here are the numbers I came up with:

• 600 square feet of 6 mil plastic → 100 kilowatt hours of electricity
• 100’ of 3/4” PEX tubing → 45 kilowatt hours of electricity

This is only counting the manufacture of the materials I believe, not the transport of the finished product. for a reference point, our current house uses about ~120 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. The average home in the US uses about 800 kilowatt hours. This will be helpful in determining when we want to use plastic.

Sources:

• 6 kg CO2 per kg of plastic
• 1.306lbs CO2 per kWh of electricity
• weight of 6 mil plastic
• weight of PEX