| Your task force making no determination, namely a negative one about vinyl, baffles me. Were we talking about asbestos there would now be little debate about coming out against and individual product, so why is it that you let the vinyl industry say single products should not be singled out. In many ways vinyl is worse than asbestos. There are plenty of single products so toxic or costly in their life cycles that they are not rated green! There are other plastics (not to mention other types of materials) to substitute for anything vinyl is used for in building. In Helfand’s documentary, many experts like Dr. Malatnoni provide evidence to condemn vinyl – in his case thousands of rats exposed to vinyl chloride contracted a rare fatal liver cancer, “Angio Sarcoma.” Also, many issues of Rachel’s Environment and Health News Weekly have written about the problems with hormone disrupters – vinyl being one in many of its stages of life cycle including to the grave if it is incinerated. The plastics industry considers it toxic waste and does not want its waste stream contaminated with it. Sandra Steingraber has written how dioxins are created when it is incinerated or accidentally burns. When it is manufactured large piles of monomer wastes are burned. Also when it is burned in the presence of wood products furans are produced which are the carcinogens found in cigarette smoke. Even mopping a vinyl floor with detergents will leach some of it into aquatic environments when put down the drain. It also meets fire underwriter’s criteria due to a fluke, when it reaches a certain temperature instead of burning it explodes into soot particles less than ten microns in size and later will cause cancer, when not outright killing people like it did when the MGM Grand burned. I could write a book about why we should practice the precautionary principle on vinyl, as well as cite plenty of reasons it is too toxic from the cradle, and also in the grave. When there are so many links to the life cycle chain lacking with it how dare you say the jury is out! It is the epitome of what a green product is not! Also, you should note that many nations in Europe are no longer using it in wiring, because the wires when heated enough droop and can short out, besides giving off toxic fumes when in a fire. Furthermore, when used in things like siding it is also loaded with other poisonous “pthlates, ultraviolet stabalizers containing cadmium, lead or (tin in the case of windows) and flame retardants with cholorparaffins and antimony trioxide. In PVC gutters, cables and pipes lead is often used as the ultraviolet stabilizer. There are likely to be emissions from production plants of chlorine gas, ethylene, dioxin, vinyl chloride, the solvent dichloretane, mercury, and other damaging substances. Certain larger plastics works have emissions of tons of phthalate into the air every year. During production, workers can be exposed to organic acidic anhydrieds. (Berg pp 154, 155). Finally, it is not a very durable product and is more of a host to microbial growth than wood, with “plastics with phthalates, which probably serve as a source of carbon and nitrogen...When burnt it can form concentrated hydrochloric acid and dioxin. PVC waste can form hydrogen chloride when exposed to solar radiation." (Bjorn Berg). Berg also suggests a building product should have a functional life span of fifty years, and most plastics do not. Specifically, when PVC is burnt it emits CO1,CO2, CH4, HCL, Ba, and Cd. “PVC [is a] persistent carcinogenic; can cause damage to liver, lungs, skin and joints; irritates inhalation routes; [and is] poisonous to water organisms” (Berg, p 148). Furthermore, since there is so much embodied energy in PVC it has quite a global warming potential, and it comes from a non-renewable resource! What is green about it? Nothing! And as the largest source of chlorine in waste products let’s not forget about what it can do to our ozone layer! |
| Sandra Steingraber in Living Downstream , EBN issues comparing linoleum to vinyl, and several citations from Judith Helfand’s documentary, “Blue Vinyl.” And numerous issues of Rachel’s Environment and Health News Weekly, and The Ecology of Building Materials, 2001, by Bjorn Berge and translated by Filip Henley. |