Green Options

Building with reclaimed building materials is a great way to reduce the environmental footprint of a building. LEED and GreenPoints both award points for use of reclaimed materials. However, some reclaimed materials can be radioactive.

Some granite emits substantial amounts of radiation and radon gas. There is no way to tell which stones are radioactive just by looking. Testing is the only way to know for sure. However, the problem granites are more likely to be exotic and to have a lot of “movement”, such as swirls or banding.

Many of us think about green living and reducing our carbon footprints. But do we get enough fresh air into our homes? Energy efficient homes don’t get much ventilation, unless windows are opened regualrly. Airborne contaminants in homes can build up to many times the outdoor concentrations.

How can air quality in the home have more pollution than outside the home? Discover the three elements which contirbute most to indoor air pollution in your home.

Some granite emits enough radon to increase the radon concentration in a kitchen. The radon in Cathy Woods’ kitchen was three times as high as the radon in her bedroom. That lung cancer risk at that level was nearly as high as smoking 10 cigarettes a day.

The Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act of 2009 does not address lung cancer prevention. The bill states that 60% of new lung cancers are in non-smokers, but it makes no mention of radon gas, the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

Senate bill to reduce lung cancer ignores radon gas. Radon is the #2 cause of lung cancer.

A Silicon Valley real estate agent told her clients, “There is no radon in California. You don’t need to worry about it.” The couple purchased a home in Sunnyvale, CA, which has some of the higher radon levels in Santa Clara County. Another home in Sunnyvale had 29 picoCuries/liter (pCi/L), more than 8 times the EPA action level (4 pCi/L). A home in Los Gatos had 56 pCi/L, which is 14 times the action level.

A homeowner in Menlo Park, CA recently discovered that his home had 14 picoCuries/liter of radon, three times the EPA action level of 4 picoCuries/liter (pCI/L). He tested his home for radon because he was concerned about his new granite counters. However, his granite was not the source of the radon. He had “geologic” radon coming from the soil beneath his house.

Cathy Woods’ new granite counters were radioactive. They contained as much uranium as commercial uranium ore. The showroom that sold Cathy her Jupurana Bordeaux granite did not warn her that some granite is radioactive. When I contacted the salesman, posing as a customer, he assured me their granite “is no more radioactive than soil or water”. However, Cathy’s granite emitted gamma radiation at many times background. The radon gas emitted by the stone tripled the radon concentration in her kitchen. [...]

This post is a follow-up to The Fight Over Radon in Granite Countertops Heats Up, which will provide some background information on the granite/radon issue.

With the legion of both deniers and alarmists out there attempting to monopolize the discussion over the safety of granite countertops, it is difficult to find unbiased information.  Peruse the comments in the above post and you can see the discussion has devolved into name calling.  The deniers, many of whom work in the granite industry, blast any insinuation that granite could be dangerous as “fear-mongering” and put down the current research as “junk science.”  The alarmists, many of whom sell competing countertops, argue that consumers shouldn’t take the risk that comes with granite.  The truth, as with most heated arguments, can be found somewhere in the middle.