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Can it be said that plastics save energy and help to protect the environment? Yes, because they insulate buildings from the cold, heat and noise. They consequently help to reduce heating and air conditioning costs and carbon dioxide emissions. That way they contribute towards protecting the environment.

This material has numerous uses in the field of construction. In all kinds of buildings and public works, underneath the plaster, tiles and concrete, there are numerous elements made out of plastic, from window moulds to cabling pipes and roofs, pipes, flooring, tubes and sheets of wall covering. 

Material of the twenty-first century
Plastic is a fundamental material in the building sector. In fact, approximately one fifth of the plastics used in Europe are building products. After containers and packaging, it is in construction that plastic is most commonly used. 

By way of example, around 25% of the plastic used in Germany is used in construction. In almost all modern homes and infrastructures, be they bridges, roads or channels, plastic can be found. Furthermore, most of the paint used is plastic. Some architects even believe that polymers are the building material of the twenty-first century, since they have practically unlimited possibilities. The characteristics that make plastics ideal materials for building are their solidity, resistance to water and heat, and their flexibility. Plastics are also very light and require hardly any maintenance: they don’t rust or rot.

With data
In order to achieve the ambitious objectives set by the Kyoto Protocol, many countries have committed to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). In order to be able to fulfil these intentions, it is necessary to reconsider how buildings are constructed and insulated. 

Insulation is key to saving and plastics have a lot to do with it. A recent study by the Austrian global analysis company Gesellschaft für umfassende Analysen (GUA GMBH) concludes that if plastic was no longer used in Western Europe the energy demand would increase by 26%. It is estimated that the plastic-based insulation installed in Europe in 2004 alone would enable a fifth of the energy consumed in the EU in 2002 to be saved. 

Studies like this one show how important it is to assess the impact of materials and products throughout their lifecycle. Plastics in the form of foam offer significant saving possibilities and extraordinary comfort to the user which benefit the environment. Polymer insulators are most commonly used under roofs and floors or in external and internal walls. Injecting polyurethane foam into cavities provides an additional improvement to the insulation properties. In order to insulate external walls polystyrene foam sheets are used, which reduce energy consumption by a significant percentage.

In the area of polymer insulation a real change is anticipated in the coming years due to the progress in nanotechnology. The new PVC windows, with multiple cavity foam moulds and triple glazing, reduce the energy consumed in heating by at least a third.

The GUA studies have also demonstrated that 40% of the energy consumed by products normally occurs during use. If only 5% of plastic insulator production was devoted to improving current insulation levels, an energy saving of more than three time the energy required to produce these plastic elements would be obtained with a 3% annual growth rate, the report concludes.

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