Are Your Walls Wearing Blue Jeans? Insulate Your Home with Comfy Cotton

Your article contains some errors and needs a few corrections.
1. Bonded Logic is not made with “old blue jeans” and, in fact, contains no post-consumer recycled content at all. Denim insulation is made out of approx 85% post-industrial denim scraps and cotton fibers. The remaining 15% is hazardous fire retardants.
2. Because cotton and paper fibers are combustible, they cannot be used for insulation unless they are treated with fire retardant chemicals. Most cotton and paper insulation is 15% or more by weight added borates, which is a hazardous chemical under the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard. And there is some data to suggest that the fire retardant chemicals may not last for the life of the insulation. Also, cotton insulation mfgr’s like to have it both ways – a “safe” product but the added fire retardant chemicals are also strong enough to act as a “pest inhibitor.”
3. By contrast, inorganic fiber glass is naturally noncombustible.
4. Cotton insulation is typically much more expensive than fiber glass for the same R-value. I have read on other blogs that cotton and denim insulation can be ten times more expensive than fiber glass insulation. And fiber glass insulation is also more widely available at big box retail.
5. Cotton is likely not a true sustainable insulation unless there is some certification that the cotton was originally grown under sustainable agriculture standards. Does the manufacturer guarantee that pesticides and herbicides were not used in growing the cotton? What about the working conditions of the agricultural workers? Fiber glass insulation workers are permanent full-time employees with health care, retirement and other benefits and they work in conditions where safety is the highest priority. Many are members of unions. Can the same be said of agricultural workers? Fiber glass operations are intensively regulated by federal, state and local agencies and we hold comprehensive permits that strictly limit any pollution from manufacturing. Can the same be said about agricultural operations?
6. Nor are the Bonded Logic fibers Natural. “Natural” means minimially processed, which cannot apply to any cotton fibers that are dyed blue and to which fire retardant chemicals are added.
7. If you are interested in insulation that has no added formaldehyde and is naturally fire-retardant, then you should consider Johns Manville Formaldehyde-freeTM fiber glass building insulation. Johns Manville has 20% post-consumer and an additional 5% post-industrial recycled content(NA average) as certified by SCS. And if you do not want to touch the insulation, Johns Manville makes ComfortTherm, insulation that is encapsulated.
Here’s the full disclosure – I am with Johns Manville, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. For more information, go to http://www.jm.com. Thanks.
Bruce Ray

I agree (obviously) with much of what Bruce wrote (our posts overlapped in timing), but I don’t think I’d conclude in favor of non-formaldehyde fiberglas over Ultra Touch. My conclusion is a little subjective, deriving in part from some very bad experiences installing fiberglas years ago (including a trip to an ER to wash a fiber out of my eye in spite of wearing protection), but it really comes down to the environmental impacts — in production and usage as well as end of life — of fiberglas vs non-organic cotton insulation. It’d be great to see comparative Life Cycle Analyses. I could be swayed by that.