Stego Sustainability Report

The Necessity of Plastic for Effective Vapor Protection

CIRCULARITY

Plastic is ubiquitous across many industries and is an important, useful, and versatile material neces sary for many applications. Below-slab vapor protection is one of these critical applications.

The Challenge with Plastic Film Recycling

Stego barrier films (and many accessories) use high-grade, virgin polyethylene (PE) resin technology. These raw materials — petroleum-based resins — are admittedly a non-renewable resource with rel atively GHG-intensive extraction and refining processes. However, our barrier films do not represent a take-make-waste scenario. Polyethylene, as a material, offers characteristics well-suited for products used in construction, including flexibility and cost efficiency. In our high-performance vapor barrier solutions, critical to effectively isolating buildings from soil threats, we rely on virgin polyethylene and strategic film engi neering to achieve necessary performance attributes. Simply stated: current material science and technology lends itself to the use of virgin plastic as a raw material to engineer effective below-slab and crawl space vapor barrier systems that balance performance (e.g., low vapor permeance, strength, and longevity), ease of installation, and cost. In doing so, this science and technology yields a final product with a life cycle to serve a building for the entire length of its intended use.

Given the long-term effects of plastic in landfills, as well as the issues with current incineration technology and littering, diverting plastic waste through recycling is a common approach toward circularity. However, plas tic recycling can be challenging, especially with plastic films. Unlike other materials (e.g., paper, metals, or even other types of plastics like PET plastic bottles or HDPE milk jugs), some plastic films are partic ularly challenging to recycle effectively, especially if they contain different types or densities of polymers in the same construction. In such cases, they may require specialized recycling facilities, and can cause damage to sort ing equipment when mistakenly added to curbside or common residential and construction waste management streams. In addition, the difficult business case for plastic film as a raw material — it is often more expensive to make something out of used plastic film than from scratch — amplifies the challenge of creating an economy that prior itizes plastic film recycling.

EASE OF INSTALLATION

STRENGTH

LOW VAPOR PERMEANCE

LONGEVITY

COST

A paradox exists with plastic films: easy to critique from a circularity perspective, while still offering broad benefits toward sustainability.

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SUSTAINABILITY REPORT | 2023

CREATING BETTER SYSTEMS

3 9

INTRODUCTION

OUR IMPACT

OUR RESPONSIBILITY