Principles for evaluations of healthiness of new materials

Abstract

During the twentieth century, many new human-made materials have been developed, often leading to only subsequent understanding of the damaging effects these have on human and environmental health. This chapter traces the key patterns in historical and recent recognitions of harmfulness of human-made substances used in building materials. It uses the history of the past recognition to propose a need for insisting on an improvement in the way human and environmental health are considered when developing new materials including ecomaterials.