Notoxika

Environmental hero with a focus on fighting environmentally hazardous substances

The National Property Board Sweden (SFV) continually works to phase out environmentally hazardous substances. The goals are to:

• remove all environmentally hazardous substances from SFV´s buildings
• actively promote the use of only environmentally-friendly substances

Sustainable systems last longer

Before renovations, SFV always conducts an environmental assessment to ensure that any integral environmental toxins e.g. asbestos, lead and mercury are handled correctly. To the extent possible, SFV uses sustainable and traditional building materials e.g. good quality linseed paints, lime plaster, brick and good quality timber.

Everyone who contributes to the work is an environmental hero. Examples of efforts that have been carried out are presented below.

Byggvarubedömningen (Building Materials Assessment Association)

SFV manages over two million square metres of real estate and is therefore a major purchaser of building materials. Since 2003, SFV has been a member of Byggvarubedömningen (Building Materials Assessment Association), a joint venture by Sweden´s largest and most important property owners and builders. The purpose of Byggvarubedömningen is to draw up a standard for the environmental assessment of building materials. The aim is to construct and renovate buildings using only assessed and approved products.

SFV always strives to choose building materials and chemical products that are approved by Byggvarubedömningen. This is an excellent way for SFV to take responsibility for the materials we use in our buildings and leave to future generations.

Environmental assessment

According to SFV´s procedures, an environmental assessment shall be carried out prior to demolition and renovation. This involves identifying whether the building contains building products and materials that should not be left in the property after renovation. The result of this assessment process is entered into the demolition plan and an environmental program is formulated, which states how the purification and handling of hazardous waste shall be carried out.

Hazardous substances

The majority of those buildings that SFV manages are very old and do not contain hazardous building materials. However, there are materials that have been put into buildings during modern times that must be dealt with.

In order to handle these materials in a proper way, we carry out an assessment and identify the following substances:

• Asbestos, primarily used as fire protection, insulation and filler in paints and glues.
• PCB, is mainly found in joint beams and insulated glass.
• Lead, is primarily found in batteries, joints in mould-core pipes, old cables, and also pigment in old paints.
• Cadmium, mainly found in batteries, plastics, and paints with shades of red, yellow and orange.
• Mercury, found in different types of meters in older installations, lamps and fluorescent lights, thermostats/thermometers.
• PVC, plastic flooring, pipes and cables.
• Electronic waste, all types of old electronic equipment.
• Polluted building materials and ground areas, remains from earlier operations such as oil and chemicals that have leaked or been left at the site.

PCB decontamination in the Embassy facilities in Moscow, Russia

The Embassy in Moscow consists of several buildings and was designed by architect, Anders Tengbom. The facility was completed in 1972. Unfortunately, it was quite common at that time to use elastic jointing boards that contained PCB. That was also the case in Moscow. Several of the embassy area buildings had PCB-joints between various building components in facades and walls at the embassy facility. In 2003, PCB decontamination was carried out. All accessible PCB-joints were removed, decontaminated and then rejoined. The PCB waste was then transported back to Sweden to be destroyed in an environmentally responsible way. The cost of the project was SEK 1,200,000.