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Houston, We Still Have a Problem
Source: CNS Magazine
A number of scientists and environmental groups warn that a critical mass of cable sitting unused in buildings multiplies the risk of fires and associated health problems to office employees. Once the cable deteriorates, it can release a witch's brew of nasty toxins.
By Perry Greenbaum
One of the chief health and safety concerns today is what we ought to do with the millions of miles of abandoned cable that has been stuffed in the plenum spaces of office buildings in Canada and the United States.
The removal of abandoned cable has become a front-line issue, now that the requirements of the 2002 editions of the National Electric Code (NEC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) are beginning to trickle down to the local level as the law of the land, to varying degrees in Canada and the US.
"We might have made an error in judgement in allowing all this cable in plenum spaces," says Frank Bisbee, a data cable consultant and editor of Wireville.com in Jacksonville, Fla. "Now we are facing a problem of clean-up."
Bisbee compares the problem to one companies faced with asbestos in the 1980s.
To be sure, the problem developed over the last 30 years, notably during the telecommunication boom of the 1990s. At its height, companies re-cabled on the average every three years, essentially installing new cable on top of old.
In the U.S. alone, for example, there is an estimated 45 billion feet of cable housed in the ceilings, walls and raised floors of the estimated 500,000 office buildings .
A significant portion has been abandoned.
Although the safety codes state that abandoned cable must be removed, it is taking place slowly, as some building owners find ways to circumvent the law, or at least delay its implementation as a way to reduce costs.
Even so, the slow pace of removal is raising alarm bells, because for many experts and safety bodies, including at the NFPA, cable in plenum spaces poses a fire risk, if not a public-health risk.
For one, as reported in last year's issue (May 2003), cable in plenum spaces acts as a fuel load equivalent in energy to gasoline. Each day, there are a reported 15 office fires in the U.S. and although most are minor and quickly put out, it gives one reason to pause.
A number of scientists and environ-mental groups say that a critical mass of cable sitting unused in buildings multiplies the risk of fires and associated health problems to office employees, once the cable deteriorates, thus releasing a witch's brew of nasty toxins.
PVC cables, for example, emit both hydrogen chloride and dioxin.
Dioxin, say environmental group Greenpeace, "is the most toxic synthetic chemical known to science," and long-term exposure has been linked to health problems such as cancer, reproductive disorders and birth defects.
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