CalStar gives sneak peek of low-carbon brick factory

Calstar is a Greenwash.

The company plans to use ash from the Oak Creek power plant in WI.

Here are the facts on the toxicity of the fly ash - EPA’s data on the toxic metals emitted by the Oak Creek power plant in its fly ash. The data was extracted from EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.

Oak Creek produces about 114,000 short tons of fly ash annually. The fly ash contains the following toxics (annual emissions):
Arsenic: 6,657 pounds
Barium: 214,501 pounds
Chromium: 18,000 pounds
Copper: 20,000 pounds
Lead: 4,600 pounds
Manganese: 13,000 pounds
Nickel: 9,000 pounds
Thallium: 10,000 pounds
Vanadium: 4,750 pounds
Zinc: 6,900 pounds

The total amount of toxics contained in Oak Creek’s annual production of fly ash is over 300,000 pounds.

Just ONE fly ash brick (standard size, residential, 5 lbs) contains over 3 grams of highly toxic metals.

The toxics from just ONE fly ash brick can potentially poison 13,000 gallons of water.

Now, imagine the toxic hazard associated by a wall of fly ash bricks.
Imagine the toxics on your hands from handling these bricks.
Imagine the toxics you breathe in with the dust from these bricks.
Imagine these bricks in contact with water and the toxics leaching from the bricks.

The leaching of these toxics from Calstar's fly ash bricks has been confirmed - the company's own results show that the bricks are unsafe and leach a whole range of highly hazardous metals.

Calstar - the Greenwash company.

A quick analysis of the data on toxic metals leaching from Calstar’s fly ash bricks (you can find this at http://calstarproducts.com/resources/gradient-memorandum/)

In the case of Arsenic (a listed Carcinogen) – the results show that a staggering 800 ug of Arsenic will leach from one brick in one month – or almost 10 mg of arsenic per brick per year. The arsenic from just one brick is enough to poison over 250 gallons of water. This is from Calstar’s own data.

How about the toxic cocktail of other metals that leach from Calstar’s bricks – beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel and thallium? Over 2 grams of highly toxic metals will leach from ONE brick - poisoning over 1,000 gallons of water. Just ONE brick. All from Calstar's own data.

How about a house faced with fly ash bricks? A standard residence in WI has about 1,500-2,000 square feet of wall face, requiring about 8,000 – 10,000 of standard facing bricks.

So, a residence faced with fly ash bricks will have a total toxic metals content of over 20 POUNDS. These toxics leach - as confirmed by Calstar's own data, and are enough to severely poison residents and the environment - enough in fact to poison over 1 million gallons of water.

So, a house with Calstar's fly ash bricks will in effect be a miniature fly ash landfill - leaching toxic metals and poisoning everything inside it and around it.

There is nothing “Clean” nor “Green” about Calstar’s fly ash bricks.

Here is more disinformation from Calstar (http://calstarproducts.com/resources/) – concerning “Product safety”.

Calstar claims: “Our commitment to green extends to product safety; we test our products extensively to ensure they are safe throughout their lifecycle, from manufacture to placement to use (and reuse) to end-of-life disposal”

This is very far from the truth – Calstar has not produced enough bricks to do placement, reuse, disposal or any of the elements of lifecycle testing. Oh, and of course, they have not done an environmental footprint assessment of LCA – because, they know very well that will show what a Greenwash their product is.

Calstar claims: “Our process for making fly ash into bricks binds the materials within a strong crystalline matrix that holds even if exposed to the intense acids found in landfills.”

This is nonsense. Calstar’s curing process does not form any significant crystalline matrix – the borate-alkanolamine system they use has been known for decades and is known to form an amorphous matrix that degrades over time and is not effective at binding toxic metals. In fact, alkanolamines increase metal leaching, and that is why they are not used in fly ash products. And what strong acids are they talking about? The short-duration leaching tests they cite use very dilute solutions similar to rainwater which effect a very mild leach. And their own results show that toxic metals rapidly leach even under these very mild conditions.

Calstar claims: “While hundreds of millions of tons of fly ash have been safely included in concrete buildings and infrastructures around the world for decades”.

Nice spin. Fly ash has indeed been used extensively in concrete around the world – however, in all cases, the fly ash is safely encapsulated with portland cement and/or blast furnace slag – these are known from decades of research to react with the fly ash and effectively bind toxic metals, and the products are known to be stable and safe. This has no bearing on Calstar’s bricks. In fact, Calstar’s own data shows that metals leach from their bricks.

Calstar claims: “CalStar Products, Inc. has undertaken extensive testing of our products to ensure the same levels of safety apply. Test results on our products from respected third-party laboratories have been reviewed and analyzed by Gradient, a respected environmental consultancy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They find that “the presence of coal fly ash metals in newly manufactured CalStar bricks is not expected to result in any exposures of health concern”.

More spin. Calstar has done no significant safety testing of their product, and has used a contract firm that is associated with the fly ash industry and which promotes fly ash, to certify its products. Important point here – Gradient did not do any of the tests – they were paid by Calstar to “interpret” the tests – hence the very careful wording of the safety statement. If Calstar does any meaningful testing, the toxicity of the bricks will become even more apparent – Calstar knows this all too well. The irony is that even their very mild preliminary tests show that the bricks are not safe and that metals leach out.

Calstar – the Greenwash company.

The SPLP data shows that the leachate contains 0.25 to 0.6 ppb of arsenic. And, the tests are conducted with 20-vols of leaching solution (relative to brick) over a period of 18 h.

So, a standard (5 lb) brick under the same leaching conditions will equate to 11.4 to 27.4 ug of arsenic per brick per leaching period (18 h).

So, over one month, the arsenic leaching is 456-1,094 ug of arsenic. This is enough to poison 140 to 340 gallons of water. One brick. And when you consider the cocktail of other metals that leach out, each brick is enough to poison over 1,000 gallons of water. One brick.

The actual situation may be worse because the leaching of arsenic and other toxics from fly ash can have a significant lag phase (minutes to hours to days) characterized by a low leaching rate, after which leaching increases in a non-linear manner, and then decreases thereafter. This is because of the finite time required for infiltration, the kinetic barriers for reaction, equilibration and leaching from fly ash phases and diffusion controlled transport to the particle surface. So these results may represent the low-level kinetically-inhibited, non-equilibrium phase, and longer-term leaching may uncover the transition to a higher-level quasi-equilibrium state characterized by increased leaching of arsenic.

The main value of the SPLP and TCLP tests is to uncover the toxic hazard.

The fact that the tests show that toxics like arsenic leach, is an immediate and major red flag and indicates a significant health and environmental hazard.

The actual leaching may be much worse and long-term leaching tests (years, in-place, in-the-field) must be done, and the safety of the product proven, before any decision to introduce this product

The toxicity of fly ash bricks is a very serious issue ? not one to be so lightly Greenwashed by Calstar.

If the bricks are truly "inert and do not leach" and are "eco-friendly" as Calstar?s CEO Michael Kane and their marketing state, then surely Calstar must be ready to back this up with a lifetime warranty that their fly ash bricks are non-toxic, not a health or environmental hazard and completely safe.

But they will never provide such a guarantee - Calstar knows, contrary to their claims that their bricks are toxic, and they know they cannot guarantee product safety - their own tests show that the bricks leach toxics within just one day.

How does the safety of cement and concrete products containing fly ash compare with Calstar’s fly ash bricks?

Here is a quick overview:

Fly ash is used worldwide throughout the Portland cement/concrete production chain – for production of cement clinker, in blended cements and as a cement replacement in concrete – particularly in the EU, Canada, China and Asia and S. Africa.

The standards in these countries for blended cements and Portland cement-substituted concretes allow for usages from ~ 0% to 20% in the US, and from ~ 5% to 40% in the rest of the world. The actual usage rates are lower: ~ 0% to 15% in the US and ~ 0% to 25% in the rest of the world, with the overall averages being about ~ 3% to 5%.

When fly ash is used to manufacture cement clinker, it partially substitutes for clay, bauxite and iron ore, and the final product is indistinguishable from normal cement (the toxic metals present in the fly ash are vaporized – and the emissions from the kiln are scrubbed).

When fly ash is used in blended cements or in concrete, it undergoes a series of reactions with calcium-containing phases in Portland cement, resulting in the etching of fly ash particles, precipitation of calcium silicates/aluminates, exchange of calcium and magnesium in silicate/aluminate minerals with toxic metals, release of calcium and further etching and formation of silicate/aluminate phases, etc. The net effect is that the Portland cement degrades, mobilizes and mineralizes fly ash and in doing so binds the toxics into stable silicate/aluminate minerals. Portland cement is unique in this respect – its high calcium content and reactivity enable it to encapsulate and effectively immobilize fly ash and other hazardous wastes – including heavy-metal containing industrial sludges, low-level radioactive waste, etc.

A number of studies have shown that at low fly ash levels, fly ash is quite effectively encapsulated by Portland cement, and that cements, concretes and products made with Portland cement plus fly ash appear to be stable and have a low hazard. However, there is still a significant hazard of metals leaching from the fly ash under certain conditions – such as in salt water, acid rain, etc, and of metals exposure during recycling.

In the case of Calstar’s fly ash bricks, there are a number of problems that make their bricks unsafe:
1) Fly ash, even high-calcium class C fly ash, does not contain enough of the mobile calcium-containing phases to act as a reactive encapsulant in the same way as Portland cement (as seen from the leaching of toxics from the bricks).
2) The “proprietary” chemistry that Calstar – borates plus alkanolamines, is very poor in terms of hydraulic reactivity and binder capacity. Calstar’s chemistry is not proprietary – it is taken from decades-old formulations that were abandoned because of poor product performance.
3) Calstar appears to be using efflorescence control agents to reduce salt leaching – these are known to compromise hydraulic reactivity, set, strength and metal binding (as seen from the powdery white surface deposits and chalking).
4) Calstar is using sand in its bricks (probably for the purposes of improving texture and hardness) – however, the formulation they are using shows no matrix-aggregate bond, and this results in decreased strength, and increased permeability and leaching of toxics (as seen from poor edge structure, and surface porosity and efflorescence on the bricks).

All of the above problems arise because of Calstar’s “proprietary” technology – it is a badly performing decades-old abandoned technology known to have a range of serious problems.

The irony is that there are any number of ways to greatly increase the safety of the fly ash bricks – incorporate lime, Portland cement, use efficient fly ash binder and cure formulations, etc.

The fact that Calstar has such a poor product using such an outdated and substandard formulation shows that the company is dangerously inept and ignorant.

Some takes from visiting the Calstar booth at Greenbuild and examining their bricks.

The fly ash bricks look very different to clay bricks – even from a distance. Up close, they have a whitish bloom which rubs off.

Edge hardness is poor and seams are porous and friable. Dimensions and edge/face structure are variable.

Color is variable with pigment bleed around grain structure – since the coloring is from oxide pigment additions rather than firing.

The bricks show water beading and mortar pullback – typical of masonry impregnated with water repellents/efflorescence control agents.

Despite the additives, you still see salt migration – as pinhole breakthroughs, bleeding/staining and salt banding around sand grains and at the mortar joints.

Delusions and untruths from Calstar’s CEO Michael Kane (http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_c152a97a-ff0b-11de-a0d3-001cc4c002e0.html):

Quote from Kane: “We’re going to address the global warming issue,”

What fanciful Nonsense! Brick production accounts for about 0.3% of total carbon dioxide emissions in the US, and under 1% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions globally.

Also, about 50-80 tons of carbon dioxide are produced for each ton of fly ash. So, the truth is that the carbon dioxie emissions associated with Calstar’s fly ash bricks are about 125 to 200 times greater than with clay bricks.

Quote from Kane: “We’re the future.” and “The old methods of brick-making will fade away over time”

Lets compare Calstar’s fly ash bricks with clay bricks:

Calstar’s bricks.
1) Made from a hazardous waste.
2) Toxic to people and the environment.
3) Contain and leach highly toxic metals.
4) Very high CO2 footprint.
5) Completely unproven – no performance data.
6) Known to leach toxic metals.
7) Known to have freeze-thaw problems.
8) Known to have salt efflorescence problems.
9) Known to have mortar bonding problems.
10) Known batch-to-batch and within-batch variability

Traditional bricks.
1) Made from a renewable resource.
2) Completely non-toxic and totally recyclable.
3) Less than 1% of the CO2 footprint of fly ash bricks.
4) Proven for milenia across the world.
5) One of the most Green building materials available.
6) Performance proven for hundreds of years.
7) very high product consistency.

So, according to Calstar and Kane, a high-performance, safe, established and Green product will be replaced by a toxic, non-Green product known to have a range of performance and toxicity issues?

A very grim future according to Calstar and Kane.

The scam continues.

Calstar's CEO - Michael Kane has jumped ship.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Boral-appoints-US-division-president-pd20100204-2BTYV?OpenDocument&src=hp14

In a striking and ironic refutal of Calstar's fly ash brick product, Kane has moved to Boral, the largest clay brick producer in the US.

So much for Calstar's "Green" and "Eco-friendly" fly ash bricks. Even Calstar's own CEO did not believe Calstar's hype and greenwashing.

Obviously Kane sees much better better prospects at Boral. Boral is a solid company with excellent products, including clay bricks, cement block and a range of building products made with fly ash. Quite the change from Calstar's greenwash operations.

Damage control time for Calstar.