The Poisonous Chinese Drywall Fiasco

If the home you live is a relatively new construction that goes back no farther than the Second World War, then more likely than not, the walls you see around your home are made not from plaster, but from gypsum board, the man-made structural material known popularly by the trade names Drywall and Sheetrock. Prior to this time, homes around the country always had walls painstakingly put together with plaster. The modern alternative, Drywall, is manufactured out of naturally-mined gypsum powder; quantities of this material are pressed into sheets and packed between layers of cardboard to be formed into rigid material suitable for construction.

The housing sector collapse of 2008 in America happened to come about after a preceding five-year period of intense real estate and building activity. Intense demand for the purchase of new homes placed severe pressures on manufacturers of construction materials like Drywall, used in the building of homes. When the United States' domestic production of Drywall of about 15 million tons a year seemed to be inadequate to meet demand, the market began to accept imported material from China to make up for the shortfall; in all, a quarter of a million tons of Chinese-made Drywall was called in for the domestic construction industry, to put into homes and offices everywhere.

Drywall made in China was attractive not only because it was easily available in large quantities, but also because each sheet of Chinese Drywall happens to be about ten cents cheaper than a sheet of American Drywall. Ten cents may not seem like much to begin with; but multiplied over hundreds of sheets for each home and over thousands of homes built, builders began to see a way they could make substantial savings; builders began to actually prefer Chinese Drywall to the American-made stuff. But the picture, as you might imagine, was not all rosy.

Not long after families began to move into these homes made of Chinese materials, they began to notice certain problems. In the heat of summer, there were always strange smells indoors that came from the walls: it was the smell of rotten eggs. People noticed that the copper piping in their air-conditioning systems that was meant to last ten years quickly corroded in just a couple. LCD displays began to go on the blink, household silver lost its sheen and light bulbs begin to burn out quickly. More alarmingly, children in the family began to suffer uncharacteristic attacks of rashes, respiratory illnesses and headaches. The U.S. Congress has had reports of children in families in such homes requiring surgery and hospital visits. Most of these problems were reported in homes around Florida and other nearby coastal states, where the bulk of the Chinese drywall shipment was deployed; but smaller outbreaks of these problems have occurred in dozens of states.

The Environmental Protection Agency took cognizance of this issue in the middle of 2008. Investigations found high levels of dangerous chemicals in the Drywall installed in all of these homes that reported the problems: chemicals that include sulfuric acid, iron sulfide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and others, all believed to be chemicals capable of causing all of the problems noticed. The Chinese company whose factory the questionable Drywall came from, denies any wrongdoing in its manufacturing practices. It is believed that chemicals used to fumigate the material could have been responsible, though the company denies it. Attention has also come upon a particular industrial by-product used in the manufacturing process, called fly ash. Fly ash is coal ash, and can be quite toxic. In the US, this material is properly refined for use in Drywall, a practice that is skipped in the manufacturing process in China. Interestingly enough, the government in this country does not have safety standards for imported Drywall, a shortcoming that was addressed by the Drywall Safety Bill of 2009.

As can only be expected, the entire country is seething with lawsuits over the matter; not a simple thing either when there is nothing completely established in who might be responsible. The homeowners sue the builders, the builders sue the drywall distributors, and they in turn sue their Chinese suppliers. Little is known about the exact mechanism by which drywall poisons people, and there is proportionately little headway made in these cases. Builders, finding themselves in a tough spot, have offered to rebuild all the walls in the affected homes. But even this extreme step it is felt might be insufficient, as the sulfur and other poisonous chemicals may have seeped into the very framework of homes. As of now this is a situation in a state of flux. There are no definite answers, even as lawsuits fly in every direction. Only time will tell how this unfortunate situation will play out.

Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/