Blue Jean Insulation
Reported May 2006
HACKENSACK, N.J. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Skinny jeans. Fat jeans. Designer jeans ... Jeans in your walls? Your favorite jeans may keep you walking in comfort in more ways than one.
In these walls at Hackensack University Medical Center's newest building is blue jean insulation.
"We were looking for an alternative to the traditional fiberglass insulation, which contains formaldehyde, which we know is a toxic element," says Suzen Heeley, who is director of design and construction at Hackensack University Medical Center in N.J.
Although the jean insulation costs 50-percent more, environmental engineers say it's worth it to remove toxins and carcinogens from the air, which both trigger asthma and allergies. The goal? To keep workers and patients healthier. Installers also benefit.
"They also realized that they were not experiencing the traditional itch that they felt with fiberglass," Heeley tells Ivanhoe.
She says 98 percent of the new Women's and Children's Pavilion at Hackensack has jean insulation. The cotton material comes from the scraps of blue jeans. It's thick, so it holds more heat and absorbs more sound. Homeowners can get it at building material stores.
The jean insulation is just one eco-friendly choice at the Pavilion. Hackensack uses non-toxic cleaning products; floors are rubber vs. laminate; the wood is WheatBoard instead of particle board; and the hand rails are made without PBCs.
"It really comes down to common sense that we have provided holistic, healthy healing -- a true place of healing," Deirdre Imus, founder and president of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology at Hackensack, tells Ivanhoe.
Hackensack estimates the scraps of 117,000 blue jeans went into the insulation at the new building. From supermodels to environmental models ... And building trends to come.
Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:
Bonded Logic, Inc.
411 East Ray Road
Chandler, AZ 85225
(480) 812-9114
http://www.bondedlogic.com
Hackensack University Medical Center
Suzen Heeley
(201) 996-3784
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