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yacht_boy t1_ircpplb wrote

Reply to comment by Jealous-Pop-8997 in Widely used sewer pipe repair technology creates and emits nanoplastics into the air by ajwhelton

We had our deck redone with azek and the house re-sided with cementboard and plastic trim. It killed me to see the guys just making huge piles of plastic "sawdust" and having it run off everywhere. I have a shop dust collector and dragged it out for them to use and they just looked at me like I had 3 heads. I was out there after they were done trying to vacuum the driveway.

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[deleted] t1_irdm8hj wrote

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yacht_boy t1_ire8liq wrote

I looked long and hard for other decking. It comes down to pressure treated, which has its own environmental issues and looks absolutely awful no matter what you do to it, or exotic hardwoods ripped from the rainforest. And all the wood decking requires regular maintenance with things like poly, which is just another kind of plastic.

Outside of the small amount of construction dust, which contractors could mitigate if we pushed it, the plastic deck systems aren't shedding plastic at any appreciable quantity, last a really long time, don't contribute to tropical rain forest degredation, and don't require frequent applications of chemicals that just wash off the deck every year or two.

And don't forget that you have to actually work with a contractor, and if you get into exotic, hard to use materials many contractors will turn down the job. I looked at black locust decking and it was impossible to source, didn't come in the historic porch flooring style I wanted, cost about 3x as much, and my contractor wouldn't even consider using it.

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HeadmasterPrimeMnstr t1_ireb5gg wrote

Your problem with environmental degradation of the materials can be very easily solved without poly or pressure treating by adding a roof to your deck so it's covered. In addition, it's fine if your standard wood begins to degrade in the environment because it's just a matter of replacing a decaying plank with a new one.

I don't know how long you were looking for your deck to last without maintainence, but I'll be honest, I think you're really underestimating the life cycle of untreated wood (when sanded & varnished as needed).

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yacht_boy t1_irecv42 wrote

You have no idea what you're talking about if you think adding a roof over an existing deck is "easy" or that high VOC, toxic varnishes are environmentally friendly.

Get out of here with your holier than thou sanctimony.

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