GreenBiz: The construction industry's place in the new circular plastics economy

In a recent piece for GreenBiz, Matthew Kendle points out that the public conversation around plastics often conflates durable plastic products like PVC pipe with single-use plastic products such as water bottles or shopping bags. In reality, sustainability is more complicated than the media sometimes presents it, especially in the construction industry. PVC pipe has a better embodied carbon profile than alternative materials like iron and concrete. Read the whole article for more:

Plastics are not all equal

Not all plastics are bad, and consumption within the industry looks set to increase, with plastic pipes, for example, already accounting for most new pipe installations.

"Contrary to popular belief, it’s important to acknowledge that plastics in construction are often a positive thing," says Allan Sandilands, principal consultant at sustainability consultancy Resource Futures. "Many are highly durable, long lasting and permanently installed, so they’re unlikely to become marine litter."

Additionally, plastics are cost-effective, strong yet light, easily formable and easy to maintain.

[...]

From an embodied carbon perspective, plastic is far less energy intensive to produce than traditional materials such as concrete and steel, especially when recycled. It also has engineering benefits such as its high strength-to-weight ratio, durability and resistance to corrosion. Combine all those characteristics and you have an environmentally attractive proposition. 

[...]

As economies around the world grapple with how to move to a new circular plastics economy, the construction sector is well placed to become an important part of the transition.

Continue reading at GreenBiz.com.

CBS Boston Misses the Mark on PVC Pipe

A recent I-Team segment from CBS Boston on PVC pipe missed some important context and background information. We contacted the station to give the information they had missed but, unfortunately, they didn’t respond to our effort to make sure their viewers were fully informed. Here’s what they missed:

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Cheryl Fiandaca
Chief Investigative Reporter
WBZ-TV Boston

Dear Ms. Fiandaca

On behalf of the Vinyl Institute, in response to your recent I-Team segment on PVC pipe [“Plumbers say PVC is a Long-term Hazard,” 6/7/21], I write to provide some important background information -- and context -- about piping materials and installation missing from your story.

First, I am compelled to point out the one-sided nature of the story itself. While the segment devotes ample space for critics of PVC pipe to air their complaints, just one line is provided for the Plastic Pipe and Fittings Association to respond. 

Second, your I-Team story was not fact based. For instance, the piece attributes a claim to an anti-PVC activist group about the use and disposal of PVC products. Had WBZ-TV contacted the Vinyl Institute, we would have raised the fact that the vast majority of PVC that’s ever been produced is still in use today, and doesn’t require nearly the type of maintenance and repairs as other materials. Additionally, we would have noted that PVC is recyclable, and that according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), just 0.8 percent of all landfilled material is PVC. 

Third, other assertions featured in the story were not given proper context. For example, viewers were not informed that PVC resin is inert, and PVC dust produced from cutting PVC pipe is considered a nuisance dust by OSHA, and as such safely falls below OHSA’s permissible exposure limit. On the other hand, cutting, grinding, and sanding iron or copper pipe has many associated dust hazards from inhalation, including metal fume fever, iron oxide-induced benign pneumoconiosis or chronic manganese poisoning. None of these facts were included in your story.

When joining PVC pipe for indoor plumbing, cleaners and solvent cements are typically used. As is the case with many aspects of indoor construction, proper protection is recommended and indoor spaces should always be properly ventilated when work is being performed. Again, this is not specific to PVC pipe; some older iron pipe joints rely on leaded joints while joining copper pipe can expose workers to aluminum oxide, copper fumes and solder flux. Viewers were given the false view that PVC pipe is somehow uniquely flawed in this regard when many materials demand protective measures to ensure the safety of the installer. Regardless of piping material used, installers need to take worker safety precautions seriously, including wearing appropriate gloves, face masks, and eye-/ear-protection when cutting and joining piping systems. 

The story also falsely calls into question the safety of PVC with respect to the EPA’s designation of vinyl chloride monomer. PVC’s safety has been evaluated and approved for use by government agencies as well as independent certification and testing bodies for over 60 years, including the EPA, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). 

NSF Standard 61 assures the quality and safety of drinking water from PVC pipe and plumbing components. This Standard, first developed by the U.S. EPA in the mid-1980s, has been a requirement for U.S. water systems and codes since 1986. And according to the National Academy of Science report “Management of Legionella in Water Systems (2020), PVC plumbing also offers greater resistance to legionella disease than either copper or iron.

Your audience should have the full picture about the advantages and disadvantages of all materials used in construction applications when your station examines these important issues. Should you revisit PVC in the future, we ask that you give us the opportunity to respond to claims about the material so that we may provide your viewers the balance and context they deserve.

BobVila.com Misleads on PVC

A recent article published by BobVila.com contained a false and misleading claim about PVC. We contacted the editors of BobVila.com to inform them of the error so that it could be corrected and readers wouldn't be further misled. Unfortunately, they didn’t respond to our request. It is disappointing when media outlets betray the trust of their readers by leaving factual errors in print after they have been brought to the attention of the editors. At Vinyl Verified, we’re committed to making sure that the public has the facts. That’s why we’re publishing the correction we sent to BobVila.com:

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Kathleen Corlett
Editor-in-Chief
BobVila.com

Dear Ms. Corlett,

It has come to our attention that a recent article published by BobVila.com [“The Best Shower Mats to Prevent Slips in the Bathroom”] contains an incorrect statement about vinyl and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The story makes the following claim:

“However, both vinyl and PVC raise the potential for health concerns, typically when people are exposed to vinyl chloride in high amounts. So, weigh the risks and benefits before purchasing a shower mat made of these materials.” 

The suggestion that “vinyl and PVC raise the potential for health concerns” is false. The story links to a National Cancer Institute webpage on vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), which is not the same as PVC. This misleads readers by incorrectly conflating vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) with PVC. To ensure readers are not further misled, we request that this statement be removed immediately. 

woman&home Magazine Misleads on PVC Yoga Mats

A recent article from Woman & Home Magazine made a series of inaccurate claims about PVC yoga mats. We reached out to the editors at Woman & Home Magazine to inform them of their mistakes but they ignored us. We have a responsibility to make sure the consumers have the facts. So we are publishing the correction we sent to Woman & Home Magazine:

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Ms. Lauren Hughes
Senior Content Editor
Woman & Home Magazine

Dear Ms. Hughes,

It has come to our attention that your article [“How to pick the right yoga mat for you, whatever your budget and ability” published October 10, 2020]  contains several factual errors.

The story contains the following quote from Jamie Kent of Yoga Download:

“The main material to try to avoid when purchasing a yoga mat is PVC, which stands for polyvinyl chloride. Many everyday yoga mats are made from PVC, which is a toxic plastic. PVC has been classified as a human carcinogen and is harmful to the planet. This material does not break down easily and its toxins can be bioaccumulative, meaning tiny pieces build up in our bodies.” 

Ms. Kent’s claim that PVC is classified as “a carcinogen” is categorically false. PVC has never received any such classification by any other authoritative source. In the story, no source is provided for this claim. To ensure readers have the facts, we request that this statement be removed immediately. 

Additionally, she is wrong to claim that PVC is ‘a toxic plastic.’ PVC is an inert material that has never been demonstrated to pose any human health risks as a result of exposure to PVC yoga mats. Her claim is misleading to readers and should either be corrected or removed.

It’s also worth noting that many of the alternative materials referenced in the have serious health and environmental downsides that are not acknowledged in the piece. For example, cork contains large amounts of methylene chloride, a highly toxic extractable, which has been described as a probable human carcinogen by the US Environmental Protection Agency. And rubber can take 50-80 years to decompose naturally. 

These errors and oversights are made even more egregious by the fact that Woman & Home did not seek or publish a comment from anyone with an opposing view. Woman & Home purports to be “impartial, thorough and accurate,” to “speak to credible experts,” and to “verify all stories being published.” This is why we find it disappointing that neither the Vinyl Institute nor any other vinyl industry organization was offered an opportunity to offer a comment about PVC in connection with this story.

Nevertheless, we would like to offer the following comment for inclusion in the piece so that readers have both sides of the story: 

PVC is an inert material that has been rigorously studied for decades. It has been used safely in consumer and commercial products for more than 50 years. PVC yoga mats are durable, safe, easy to clean, and affordable for users. It’s no wonder PVC yoga mats are widely considered to be one of the most resilient and innovative options available on the market today.

We look forward to your reply.

Andrew Whelton’s Plastic Pipe Study Fails the Grade

Any valid scientific study must, first and foremost, represent real world conditions within a controlled study environment to generate meaningful, accurate and reliable results. 

We’ve touched on this topic before. But a quick look at a study by Andrew Whelton, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering, shows he failed to meet this basic standard. The study claims to assess the impacts on water quality from damaged plastic pipe after the wildfires from Northern California. Whether Whelton’s long-standing bias against plastic influenced his methodology and conclusions is unclear. What is clear is that his flawed findings collapse under scientific scrutiny. This was in fact confirmed to have occurred by the Paradise Town Manager who said they found contamination in both metal and plastic piping after the fire.

Good scientists are like detectives – they let the facts lead the way. They don’t guide an investigation toward a predetermined outcome. They don’t create fictional laboratory scenarios that would never represent reality to condition the answers they seek. They aren’t driven by the level of news coverage they may generate for their work, the promotion they may receive from special interests, or the needless public fear their flawed research may spark. Above all, a good scientist will seek knowledge and adhere to the process of learning, rather than blindly defending results, especially if they are flawed.

Here are some of the reasons why Whelton’s study conclusions, originally published in The Conversation and reprinted by the Associated Press, Fast Company and other outlets, cannot be supported: 

• Whelton never tested an actual intact segment of plastic pipe for his research on … plastic pipe:  He cut tiny fragments from each pipe and used them as the source material for his research. This does not accurately reflect how an actual plastic pipe would respond to a real fire. Without relying on an engineering analysis on how a pipe behaves in the simulated conditions he selected, Whelton promotes the work as being representative of just that.

• Whelton then heated the fragments to an unrealistic extreme temperature that would likely compromise the structural integrity of the pipe itself. But he couldn’t account for this since he was using tiny pipe fragments, so his research doesn’t replicate how a plastic pipe would actually respond under such unrealistic laboratory conditions. Instead he selects “mass loss” as the first point at which degradation is detected, but a pipe is certain to cease holding its shape, much less holding water under pressure, at far lower temperatures.

• Whelton then took the remaining remnants and manipulated them to increase their studied surface area, which artificially skewed the leachate results. 

“If the concern is about safe water delivery,” the Vinyl Institute wrote, “then the test should reflect meaningful conditions where water is still being delivered. … If similar logic were applied to ductile iron piping, the researchers would have taken a piece of ductile iron pipe and submerged it in an acid bath to simulate the effects of acidic soil. This would of course lead to the pipe dissolving and leaching heavy metals such as chromium.  The same exaggerated approach to making broad claims would have led to a statement that “exposing ductile iron pipe to typical soil conditions can generate detectable heavy metals that remains in the pipe and ultimately leaches into the water.” 

Other organizations have challenged Whelton’s research. The Plastics Pipe Institute (PPI) points out that “The study done by Dr. Whelton and his group fails to present any practical, meaningful evidence of the effect of fire or heat on safe water delivery. “ 

PPI’s David Fink also stated: “There is no evidence that the heating or burning of plastic pipe is responsible for the contamination of the water system[s in Northern California].” But rather, “[a]s water is used for firefighting or it runs out, it creates a negative pressure that allows contaminants to be drawn back in. Backflow is the technical term, and it can occur regardless of the piping material.”

The town manager of Paradise, California has explained that their examination showed that plastic pipes were not the cause of benzene contamination and even pointed out that the town is replacing damaged plastic pipe with new plastic pipe.

The PVC Pipe Association recently published a report pointing out that “the primary source of benzene in forest fires is from the combustion of wood. Burning homes and other structures are secondary sources. And that “[t]he most likely source of benzene in municipal water systems after a wildfire is not from burning or melting water mains but from outside contaminants entering the system via damaged service lines. . . As water in the system is used to fight the fire, suction draws in contaminants.” And finally that “Santa Rosa and Paradise have confirmed that PVC water transmission and distribution mains were unaffected by the forest fires that impacted their communities. This fact alone makes it impossible for PVC pipe to have been a source of benzene contamination in these localities.”

These critiques call into question the methods used by Whelton and the real-world applicability of his findings. But these facts haven’t stopped the iron pipe industry from promoting Whelton’s flawed study. The large iron pipe manufacturers and their activist “consultants” have seized on it to promote their own products despite the fact that the most likely cause of benzene contamination – backflow drawing contaminants from wood combustion into the system through damaged service lines – is just as likely to happen with their products. 

The press is also to blame for reinforcing the use of crude methods by giving them far more credence than they deserve. The Associated Press reflexively published Whelton’s study, which originally appeared in a publication called The Conversation, without doing any homework of its own to assess or evaluate its scientific integrity.  Fast Company and Yahoo News did too. These outlets failed their readers and have fueled public fear by giving this study attention it simply doesn’t deserve.

MORE: The Facts About PVC Pipe and Wildfires

Chemical Watch gets it Wrong on PVC

Last week, Ginger Hervery, a reporter for Chemical Watch, asked us to comment on a report from IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network) that contained numerous misleading claims about PVC. Even though we were only given one day to examine this 92 page report, we provided her with a thorough comment on the report, its many shortcomings, and the well-established safety of PVC. From this, Ms. Hervey and her editors included a two sentence paraphrase of our statement in her story. In all, the article includes 445 words uncritically regurgitating activist talking points and only 38 words giving readers the other side.

We believe Chemical Watch’s readers have a right to even-handed reporting. Therefore, we will give you the facts they did not. Here is the full on-the-record comment we offered to Chemical Watch: 

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To suggest that PVC products are unsafe due to their chemical composition misleads the public. This kind of oversimplification is irresponsible and distorts the facts. Even the authors emphasize the importance of noting that this issue involves complex, multi-factorial diseases that occur due to a combination of genetic predisposition, lifestyle and environment. Therefore, EDCs are one of the environmental factors that contribute to increased likelihood or severity of disease. Overstating the role of PVC products in this context has a high potential of misleading readers rather than informing and educating them about emerging science.

Decades of scientific study and real world use have demonstrated the safety and reliability of PVC products. It is one of the most researched materials plastic in history.  PVC manufacturing adheres to strict regulatory requirements, and for nearly 50 years, there has been no reliable scientific evidence that shows exposure to PVC poses any human health risks.

Additives used in PVC products undergo a rigorous regulatory review and approval process. For example, PVC medical products also adhere to the US Pharmacopeia guidelines and have been used safely for decades. A major medical product producer actually tracked the use of PVC medical products for more than eight billion patient days without any significant health effects. The unique benefit of phthalate plasticized PVC is improved blood safety and blood banking efficiency. The increased durability and flexibility prevents container breakage and bacterial contamination, and it allows for steam sterilization, heat welding, centrifugation/componentization.

Independent studies (including those considering the inhalation, dermal contact, and ingestion pathways) have demonstrated that exposure to phthalates in vinyl flooring and other products is de minimis if not non-existent, repeatedly finding no unacceptable risk. Even where vinyl flooring is manufactured with phthalates and/or where legacy products contain phthalates, the potential for exposure to phthalates from these products is extremely low. In response to public perception of purported health risks associated with phthalates, there has been a shift in market demand towards phthalate-free vinyl flooring; as a result, manufacturers have, as a general matter, moved away from the use of phthalates (specifically, ortho-phthalates).

Additionally, the report gets basic facts wrong like suggesting that cadmium and lead are common PVC additives. In reality, manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Australia moved away from these materials years ago (nearly two decades ago in the U.S.)

What You Need to Know About Vegan Leather

If you take a look through your closet, you’re likely to find something made from vegan leather. Whether it’s a coat, shoes, or a skirt, artificial leather is a common material for the fashion industry because it’s stylish, durable, and reduces the need for animals to be slaughtered to produce real leather. For decades, PVC has been the material behind this revolution in fashion and upholstery. Vegan leather made with PVC is one of the most durable, affordable, and stylish leather substitutes on the market. 

Consumers are more conscious of the impacts of using animal hide for leather garments and upholstery than ever before. As a result, they’ve sought out alternatives. Vegan leather made with PVC has proven to be a very popular alternative. Its adaptability and durability have given designers the flexibility to bring their visions to life and give consumers access to high quality, stylish products that are made to last. More importantly, PVC vegan leather costs less than real leather or the trendy, plant-based products touted by high fashion magazines. This means consumers from all socio-economic backgrounds can afford leather alternatives.  

Unfortunately in recent weeks, we’ve noticed a concerning trend in the rise of news coverage promoting dubious claims about vegan leather made with PVC. These breathless stories are light on facts and heavy on scaremongering and, in the end, mislead consumers about the products they use.

Some outlets promote unfounded chemophobia of the materials used to make PVC vegan leather. For example, Vogue Business recently published a story decrying the use of phthalate plasticizers in these products. Of course, phthalates have been safely used in consumer and commercial products for more than 50 years. 

Still, other writers claim that vegan leather made with PVC is bad for the environment. The production of PVC in the U.S. – including for vegan leather – is strictly regulated to ensure the health and safety of our communities and the environment. Vogue Business also repeats the common and inaccurate claim that U.S. PVC production releases ‘dangerous’ amounts of dioxin. The simple fact is that the entire U.S. PVC industry is responsible for about 5% of total dioxin emissions to air and water that people have the potential to be exposed to. And vegan leather made with PVC makes up a minuscule fraction of that.

And finally, some misguided reports suggest that, because PVC is a kind of plastic, vegan leather made with PVC is a major contributor to plastic pollution and ‘fast fashion.’ This is just not the case. One of the great advantages of PVC vegan leather is its exceptional durability. Products made with PVC tend to have exceptionally long useful lifetimes. And clothing and accessories made with PVC vegan leather are not just single-use, throwaway items. In fact, many of these items last for many years after the original purchaser uses them on secondary markets and consignment stores. It’s also worth noting that of all of the plastic found in the world’s waste stream, just 2.8% is PVC according to the United Nations.

Unfortunately, some fashion writers would rather remove this affordable, high quality, and stylish item from the choices available to lower-income consumers. We believe that consumers ought to have access to the best, most durable, and most affordable products possible. This is why we’re committed to keeping this kind of scaremongering out of the public discourse. We hope that outlets will stick to facts and let our products speak for themselves.