More than 30 billion square feet of drywall are produced every year in the U.S. and Canada, an energy-intensive process that spews 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
EcoRock, a new drywall product from Serious Materials, may help shrink that carbon footprint.
Standard drywall is made by grinding gypsum and other fillers into a paste that is rolled flat and oven dried, using fossil fuels. EcoRock, which looks, feels and installs like gypsum drywall, requires 80 percent less energy to produce. That's because the mix of materials and chemicals used in EcoRock react to create their own heat.
Unlike gypsum, which must be mined, raw materials used in EcoRock are largely industrial by-products such as fly ash, slag and kiln dust.
And there's even more to like about EcoRock. Avoiding the starch fillers used in gypsum drywall, EcoRock is termite- and mold-resistant. It scores and snaps crisply, resulting in less dust than with gypsum drywall. Impact resistant, it also resists ceiling sag. And when it needs to be removed, it can be safely recycled, used as a soil additive or disposed of in a landfill.
Cost of EcoRock is comparable to high-end drywall, poising the company to compete in green and mainstream markets. The material was just coming into production at the end of 2008.
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