Most people know their city’s concrete manholes are more than just eyesores. They crack, leak, corrode, and require repairs that are becoming increasingly frequent and costly. Beyond the financial strain, concrete infrastructure carries hidden environmental burdens that accelerate long-term carbon emissions and sustainability challenges.
But with every problem comes an opportunity. Cities addressing failing manholes today can also make strategic moves to reduce their carbon footprint and strengthen resilience tomorrow.
Concrete is one of the most carbon-intensive building materials in the world. According to the EPA, cement plants in the U.S. reported direct (Scope 1) emissions of around 67 million metric tons of CO₂ in 2019 alone. This is why federal sustainability initiatives like the Reducing Embodied Carbon of Construction Materials program are setting stricter thresholds and pushing for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
Embodied carbon, the emissions created through material production, transportation, and installation, makes concrete especially unsustainable for infrastructure like manholes that often require frequent replacement. Every cycle of failure, demolition, and rebuild locks municipalities into both fiscal and climate liabilities.
It’s already common knowledge that concrete manholes often fail due to freeze-thaw cracking, corrosion from salt and sulfide gasses, root intrusion and water infiltration. These failures are followed by significant repair budgets, frequent maintenance, and worker safety risks due to confined spaces. But another hidden cost is that embodied carbon, as each replacement emits more CO₂, it morphs infrastructure spending into both fiscal and climate liabilities.
Due to the carbon-intensive nature of increased concrete production, choosing concrete over long-lasting alternatives where they’re already available only increases the road to reaching climate goals for communities across the United States.
These problems are exactly why the Poo Pit was created. Polyethylene access chambers are:
- Watertight and corrosion-resistant, blocking infiltration/inflow and preventing many of the failure modes common in concrete.
- Durable over a longer lifecycle: designed for ~100 years of service, whereas concrete often needs partial replacement or repair well before that.
- Faster, and safer during installation: no heavy lifting with cranes, fewer confined-space tasks, less labor and safety risk.
- Lower embodied carbon: because the material is lighter, less carbon gets embedded through transport, manufacture, repair. Plus fewer replacements reduce repeated emissions.
By choosing durable, low-carbon, watertight solutions like Poo Pit access chambers, municipalities can resolve today’s challenges while aligning long-term infrastructure strategies with emerging federal sustainability policies. For communities that want to be resilient, safe, and climate-smart, it’s a decision that delivers returns for decades, not just months.
