PVC and vinyl are shorthand names for polyvinyl chloride, the most versatile plastic on the market today. PVC/vinyl is manufactured in some 17 plants in the United States and in other countries all over the world. CNN promotional articles for an upcoming television show raise questions about the impacts on residents living near industrial manufacturing facilities such as those making PVC/vinyl, and on businesses and consumers who purchase and use products made from the material. Following is a question-and-answer in response to issues that have been raised or are anticipated.
What is PVC/vinyl and how is it made?PVC/vinyl starts as a powder, known as resin, made from chlorine (derived from salt) and ethylene (from natural gas). Turning this powder into myriad PVC/vinyl products is comparable to making assorted baked goods from flour. Depending on the ingredients mixed in with PVC resin, a manufacturer can produce pipe, window frames, siding, roofing, flooring, wall covering, electric wire insulation, packaging, auto products, and more. PVC can be rigid, flexible, or semi-liquid for coatings; colorful or clear; thick or thin, and it can be processed in many different types of industrial molding and shaping operations.
Are there alternatives to PVC/vinyl?Without PVC, here in North America we would be spending approximately $20 billion more to find alternative materials for the many uses of PVC, and they might not work as well. That’s the conclusion of an economic study done for the Vinyl Institute. It’s very difficult to replace PVC in many vital products. PVC is the material of choice in critical-care blood bags and medical tubing. It's the material of choice in pipe to deliver safe drinking water. It's the material of choice for insulation of wire in buildings that will last decades behind walls without allowing catastrophic failure. It's the material of choice for tamper-resistant seals on packaging to help keep children safe. Even in the digital music age, many music enthusiasts consider vinyl the material of choice for audio recordings. These are just a few applications of PVC/vinyl.
How much risk do workers face from the chemicals used to make PVC/vinyl?
PVC/vinyl manufacturing facilities are subject to strict federal and state regulations designed to protect workers and local communities. Operations are tightly managed to be in compliance with regulations. All industrial facilities must report their annual workplace illness and injury rates. Comparisons show that our industry’s rate is one-third lower than for the chemical sector and only one-sixth as much as for the overall manufacturing sector.
How much risk do near-by communities face from PVC/vinyl manufacturing? Communities located near PVC/vinyl plants are protected by strict federal and state regulations that set limits on emissions – with extra margins of safety. Emissions of key chemicals are down by about 99 percent since the 1970s.
What do plants that make chemicals and plastics like PVC/vinyl do to protect workers and local residents? PVC/vinyl plants are large facilities that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year round. The management teams at these plants develop and run health, safety and environmental programs to ensure that their operations are in compliance with regulations. Safety training is a living, integral part of the corporate culture. Controls and monitors (and medical evaluations of workers) ensure the systems are working to provide protection in the plant and in the surrounding community.
Emissions, controlled by regulation, are driven even lower as companies implement improved technologies and stewardship programs to reduce their environmental footprint. Manufacturing plants also have community advisory boards that meet regularly with management for dialogue on operations and community issues. These plants strive to be good neighbors. After all, they draw their employees from the community, and provide jobs and taxes.
What about dioxin emissions?
Dioxin is a byproduct of many human and natural activities. It comes from burning almost anything, operating vehicles and machinery, power plants, and different types manufacturing operations, to name a few sources. The PVC/vinyl industry’s dioxin emissions reduction effort has been a great success. While other industries have also worked on reducing emissions, our industry has been a leader in studying and implementing controls, which have reduced our emissions to only a few grams per year in the production of billions of pounds of resin.
These emissions are so low that it would be virtually impossible to detect changes in environmental levels of dioxin even if important PVC products were not being made every day. As overall dioxin emissions to the environment have declined for decades, production and use of PVC have risen multifold. Dioxin down, vinyl production and use up: clearly, we’re not a big source.
The biggest man-made source of dioxin today is backyard burning. (Forest fires are considered the largest natural source.) There are laws against backyard and open burning throughout our country, as there should be, because uncontrolled fires of this sort release all sorts of pollution in addition to dioxin.
Are emissions of dioxin causing health problems to local communities? The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, part of the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control) was called into Mossville, La. (Calcasieu Parish), where a number of chemical and plastic plants are located, to investigate concerns about health effects that some residents thought were linked to dioxin emissions from industry.
The agency looked at blood dioxin levels in residents of Calcasieu Parish, and compared them to levels in residents of Lafayette Parish, which does not have a manufacturing base. ATSDR found the blood dioxin levels in the two parishes were comparable, suggesting that people were getting dioxin in their bodies through routes other than local industry emissions. The finding should be encouraging to the plant communities that the industrial facilities are not adding to their dioxin burden.
For more information on the ATSDR study,
click here. Additionally, the Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals has looked at cancer rates in industrial parishes compared to rates in non-industrial parishes in the state, and to national rates. The department found no overall differences.
How do we get dioxin in our bodies, and how can it be reduced?According to the Food and Drug Administration, we all have tiny levels of dioxin in our bodies, and the major route of exposure is eating, especially high-fat food. FDA’s advice is to follow the recommendations in the Federal Dietary Guidelines. “For most people, following Federal Dietary Guidelines will reduce fat consumption and, consequently, reduce dioxin exposure,” the agency advises. For more information, see
FDA’s Q&A on dioxin.
What happens to medical waste, which can include PVC/vinyl blood bags or tubing?
Medical waste disposal is highly regulated. A significant amount of medical waste is categorized as infectious or contagious and by regulation has to be incinerated to protect public health. Dioxin and other emissions from medical incinerators have dramatically declined, as they have from other sources because of regulations and improved technologies. What incinerator studies show is that how wastes are burned matters much more than what wastes are burned in controlling dioxin.
Are companies moving away from using PVC/vinyl products?Billions of pounds of PVC are manufactured and used in products every year, and new products are being developed. All companies continually search for new ways to do business, or new products to use. Some companies have come to believe, without good evidence, that they should look for alternatives to PVC. Some say they are looking for substitutes, but they continue using PVC because the alternatives do not perform as well. They find that PVC was the best material in the first place. We have seen this in medical products, packaging, flooring, roofing and other product categories.
The important point is that if companies are trying to switch away from PVC on environmental grounds, they're doing it for the wrong reason. The most complete, comprehensive studies of the life-cycle health and environmental impacts of PVC/vinyl versus competing materials have shown consistently that vinyl’s impacts are in line with those of other materials – and can be lower.
Hasn’t Kaiser Permanente said it found better materials than PVC/vinyl in healthcare products and is moving away from the material?Kaiser Permanente is an example of a company that says it is trying to move out of PVC even as it continues to use PVC products because they are the best for the job. The Vinyl Institute has written to Kaiser asking the company to publish the data that shows that the alternatives to PVC/vinyl they have found are safer and have less environmental impact throughout their lives.
Kaiser’s response to the Vinyl Institute acknowledged, “We still use products that contain PVC because we have not found suitable alternatives for all products.” As for evidence showing their alternatives are better, Kaiser wrote, “we don’t have unlimited resources to undertake the research ourselves on all the products we purchase….” Kaiser did not provide or cite any data supporting the health or environmental preferability of the PVC alternatives in their product line-up.
What about phthalate plasticizers used to make flexible PVC/vinyl products?
FDA looked at vinyl medical products that were made flexible with phthalate plasticizers and found they had been used safely for decades. Although phthalates are restricted in toys and childcare articles by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the restrictions were not supported by studies from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which reviewed the safety of these plasticizers for several years and concluded that vinyl toys made with them were safe. Phthalates continue to be the best types of plasticizer for many vinyl products, delivering excellent performance.
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For more information, contact:
Allen Blakey
VP-Industry & Govt. Affairs
The Vinyl Institute
1737 King St., Suite 390
Alexandria, VA 22314
Office: 571-970-3283
ablakey@vinylinfo.org