Clean Production Action (CPA) and its red-list allies, once again, are misleading the public about PVC. In a recent “Buyer Beware” report, CPA and its cohorts twist the facts and assert a number of groundless claims challenging the safety of PVC – claims that just aren’t true.
We’ll be specific:
Among the myriad of mischaracterizations, the report questions the safety of PVC water pipes – but the authors omit that PVC pipe is one of the best, most efficient delivery methods used across the country for safe drinking water. And unlike metallic pipes, PVC pipes don’t corrode or leach contaminants into the water system. Recent news reports have praised PVC in this regard -- and NSF International has even certified PVC for safe drinking water delivery. Of course, these facts were predictably missing from CPA’s reflexive, agenda-driven position against PVC.
But wait, there’s more. …The report dishonestly conflates the findings of a 1970s-era PVC workplace exposure study with common, everyday, real world PVC interaction – as if to suggest that both are somehow remotely comparable. Fittingly, it’s no shock the report omitted any reference whatsoever to the 1974 OSHA standards that reduced workplace vinyl chloride exposure by 500 times, and the enormous strides the industry has deployed since to make PVC production safe for its employees.
CPA is flat wrong on the facts about PVC. And given the group’s strident opposition to nearly 13,000 chemicals (you read that correctly), do they honestly expect anyone to take them seriously?