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Materials Outlook: The PVC Controversy

With environmental friendliness hitting the mainstream, retailers, product manufacturers, and consumers are taking a closer look at green packaging. As this happens, certain packaging materials, especially polyvinyl chloride (PVC), are once again coming under close scrutiny—and triggering heated debate.

PVC’s merits and drawbacks have been argued for years. PVC detractors maintain that PVC emits toxins when it is being produced and that it contaminates the plastics recycling stream when it is disposed of. These opinions are not new.

What is new is how retailers have been responding to these opinions. As more companies are feeling the pressure to be green, major retailers and consumer product companies have recently begun phasing out PVC packaging, including bottles, clamshells, blisters, and labels. This article’s sidebar specifies what some of these retailers are doing.

In response to these actions, PVC advocates are fighting back, speaking out about PVC safety. In this article, we take a look at both sides.

PVC Supporters Fight Back

In January, the Vinyl Institute launched an aggressive campaign to clear up what it believes to be rumors and misinformation about the safety of PVC.

“Anti-PVC activists, such as the U.S. Center for Health, Environment, and Justice and the Environmental Defense in Canada, are engaged in a fear-mongering campaign that is attempting to convince retailers like Sears to ‘deselect’ PVC without a shred of scientific evidence,” says Patrick Moore, chief scientist and founder of Greenspirit Strategies (Vancouver). Greenspirit Strategies is a consulting company that focuses on environmental policy and communications in the areas of natural resources, biodiversity, energy, and climate change. Interestingly, Moore is also a founding member and former president of Greenpeace, one of the organizations leading the campaign against PVC.

Moore says that PVC is one of the most thoroughly tested plastics available. Alternatives, he says, “simply don’t match the safety, affordability, and flexibility of PVC.” Moore says that recent attacks on PVC are without any basis in scientific fact and could hurt consumers by forcing retailers to sell riskier and less-affordable materials. (One of PVC’s major benefits is that it is tamper resistant when used for packaging applications. When talking about the material’s safety, Moore might be alluding to the fact that PVC is often used for products in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.)

“It’s completely unacceptable for activists to call PVC toxic when PVC’s effects on health and the environment have been investigated at every stage, from manufacture through use and on to final disposal. In all cases, vinyl has been shown to be safe and environmentally sound,” Moore says.

Allen Blakey, senior director of public affairs for the Vinyl Institute, says that PVC’s negative image within the industry is undeserving, and that misconceptions are fueling the decisions by some companies to not use the material. “There are a lot of rumors circulating about PVC that aren’t true. We wanted to present the actual facts.”

Can PVC Be Considered Green?

Those in favor of PVC are going so far as to say that it is an environmentally sustainable packaging material.

“Because vinyl takes less energy to produce than most competing materials—20% less than other plastics—it helps to reduce the use of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels. It also curbs CO₂ and other greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming,” states a Vinyl Institute report.

“PVC, 57% of which is derived from salt, uses considerably less energy in its manufacture and generates far less CO₂ emissions than other plastics that are composed of 100% fossil fuels,” Blakey says. “It is important to look at all the facts to effectively evaluate materials.”

Many other experts have opposite opinions about PVC. “I don’t see how PVC could be considered an environmentally friendly material at all,” says one expert. “PVC still poses serious issues from production right through end-of-life scenarios.”

PVC and the PET Recycling Stream

Blakey hopes to clear up the misconception that PVC can’t be recycled. “PVC packaging is not currently being recycled because U.S. plastics reclamation is limited primarily to PET and HDPE bottles only. It doesn’t mean that the material itself can’t be recycled, however, if the proper channels were in place.”

The fact is, however, that the proper channels are not in place. (Many experts say that this is also the case in regard to eco-friendly bioplastics.) Those who oppose the use of PVC say that PVC can’t be collected for recycling and that it contaminates the recycling stream when consumers put it in the wrong bin—an easy mistake to make—where it mixes with other plastics. Tim Greiner, cofounder of Pure Strategies, an environmental consulting firm, explains that after plastics are recycled, they are bailed and sent to a recycling facility where the plastics are shredded. “The plastic goes into a tank of water. HDPE floats, while PET and PVC both sink, making them impossible to separate,” Greiner says.

Once PVC is mixed with recycled PET resin, even in small amounts, the whole batch is unusable. According to the Web site www.plasticsrecycling.org: “The use of PVC attachments of any kind on PET bottles is undesirable and should be scrupulously avoided. These include, but are not limited to, closures, closure liners, labels, sleeves, and safety seals. Very small amounts can severely contaminate and render large amounts of PET useless for most recycling applications.”

Blakey believes that this is a misconception. “This belief is outdated. Today, automated sorting technology solves this problem and prevents contamination, so this is not an issue anymore.”

Another source strongly disagrees: “PVC packaging is definitely a contaminate to the recycling stream.”

Eric Lombardi, executive director of Eco-Cycle (Boulder, CO) and president of the National Grassroots Recycling Network, also confirms that contamination is a current problem. His experience in the recycling industry has included visits to hundreds of recycling centers across the United States. His facility, Eco-Cycle, is a nationwide pioneer in the recycling industry and one of the largest nonprofit recycling centers in the United States.

Lombardi says that automated optical sorting equipment, such as the type that Blakey refers do, does exist, but that it is so expensive that very few facilities have it. “I would estimate that fewer than 5% of the facilities in the United States are currently using it,” he says. Lombardi says that more facilities will get this equipment eventually when the price comes down, but he doesn’t think that will happen any time soon. “I run a very large facility, and I can’t afford it,” he adds.

Blakey is trying to explain to the industry that the problem lies with the recycling infrastructure and not with any particular type of package or any particular material it is made from. “Blister packs and thermoformed clamshells normally don’t get collected for recycling anyway, no matter what type of plastic they are made from. The recycling programs in the United States aren’t set up to deal with these types of packages.”

The Phthalates Controversy

The Vinyl Institute hopes to be able to disprove another misconception about PVC. “Companies say that they need to switch from PVC because it’s banned in Europe. That’s not true. We haven’t found any ban in the world on PVC packaging,” says Blakey.

The EU does, however, ban the use of certain phthalates when used in certain products, such as nail polish and toys. Phthalates are a liquid compound used as a plasticizer to make some PVC softer and more flexible. Blakey says that government bodies from around the globe have weighed in on the safety of phthalate plasticizers and report them to be safe for their intended uses. “The FDA regulates the use of different additives in packaging, and phthalates are allowed in the United States,” he says. He goes on to say that another common misconception is that phthalates are used in all PVC packaging, when in fact rigid PVC, such as that used for clamshell and blister packaging, does not contain phthalates.

Some experts disagree with the belief that phthalates are safe just because they haven’t been proven otherwise. “Phthalates are thought to affect reproductive systems if certain levels of exposure occur at certain times in our lives,” says one sustainable packaging expert.

Greiner feels that it’s risky to wait until the necessary scientific evidence is available to prove that phthalates are harmful before the industry stops using them. “There is a lot of scientific uncertainty about these issues right now. Some countries are passing restrictions on the use of certain phthalates because they believe a fetus’s exposure to it could affect development. How do you prove they are harmful? We can’t just expose a bunch of people to phthalates and see what happens,” he says.

Greiner says alternative ingredients are the answer. “There are substitute plasticizers that aren’t believed to be harmful that we could all be using instead, but they cost more,” he says.

PVC and Dioxin Levels in the Atmosphere

Dioxin is the subject of yet another controversy surrounding PVC. Dioxin is a term used for a large family of compounds, some of which are believed to be highly toxic pollutants of the environment. When vinyl chloride, which partly makes up PVC, is manufactured or improperly incinerated, dioxin is produced. PVC is most often improperly burned in other countries, not in the United States.

Statistics from the Vinyl Institute seem to support the belief that PVC isn’t causing dioxin levels in our environment to increase. According to the organization, dioxin levels have consistently fallen since the 1970s, while vinyl production has soared during this same time period. Blakey isn’t surprised.

“The largest source of manmade dioxin in the United States used to be municipal waste incinerators, but now they’re regulated and dioxin levels have plummetted,” Blakey says. “Paper, wood, food, and grass trimmings all contain salt, and, when burned improperly, all produce dioxin. Any organic waste can be considered a generator,” he adds.

Greiner disagrees with the belief that the burning of PVC isn’t causing toxic fumes. “It’s true that in a perfectly tuned incinerator, PVC does not produce anything that is terribly noxious. However, it often gets burned in less-than-ideal conditions, so there still is the potential of people being exposed to toxic fumes,” says Greiner.

Another source says that he believes in taking the safe route by finding an alternative solution. “There have been many advances in manufacturing and incineration that would reduce the potential for issues with PVC, but if you had an alternative, why would you take the chance that you might be endangering human health or the state of the environment?”

Lombardi explains that incinerators sometimes produce dioxin from plastics. “Extremely high temperatures are necessary to burn plastics. When certain types of trash, such as grass clippings, are burned, the temperature inside the incinerator goes down. A bottle might come through next and will get burned at that lower temperature. Then, you will have an ‘incident.’ The temperature drops so low that dioxin goes out the stack,” he says. This is due to the mixing of different materials that weren’t properly recycled, he says.

In the future, changing the way trash is sorted and collected would be a tremendous solution to this issue. Lombardi wishes that everyone would put anything made from something that was once alive into a compost bin. This includes paper, food scraps, and bio-resins.

“For now, the only solution is for packaging to be designed and produced according to the collection and recycling systems that we currently have in place,” Lombardi advises. The fact that major corporations, including beauty companies, are moving away from using PVC indicates that they are beginning to consider the recycling systems currently in place, he says.

Buyers Aware

The consumer’s perception of whether or not PVC is safe or harmful to our environment is perhaps the most important issue companies are facing. Consumers are paying more attention now to the materials that their products and packages are made from.

“Consumers are very concerned with the safety of their products and packaging, especially with all of the recent issues coming out of China right now,” says a source. “Companies, including those in the business of selling cosmetic and personal care products, can’t risk the possibility of consumers losing trust in a brand because they think a harmful material is being used for its packaging.”

The Vinyl Institute agrees that products coming out of China have been a concern recently; however, it says that it is important to understand that the underlying problem is with bad or improper product manufacturing processes. Products and packaging films produced by responsible companies in regulated countries comply with U.S. guidelines and laws.

Blakey says that the industry, as well as consumers, need to understand that packaging materials that are made by responsible companies are in compliance with U.S. laws and guidelines.

Sustainability is an emerging concept in the United States. “It’s a complicated topic, yet buyers and suppliers are expected to become instant sustainability experts,” says Blakey. “Many believe that if a package is made from a renewable resource or has a high recycling rate, it is probably more sustainable. But most are unsure about what qualifies a package as being sustainable. You really need to look at the whole life cycle. Often, perception does not comport with reality.”

If your company is taking a position on the use of PVC, we’d love to hear about it. E-mail marie.redding@cancom.com.

Actions Speak Loudly

Major Corporations Ban PVC

As major companies set goals for sustainable packaging, many have singled out PVC as the material to avoid—and they are taking steps to do so.

One such company is Wal-Mart. According to Wal-Mart’s Web site, beginning in the third quarter of 2008, the retailer anticipates using its Packaging Scorecard to determine which products will continue to be packaged in PVC and to eliminate PVC from all of its private-label packages.

Sears is another company taking action. On December 12, 2007, the company announced that it would begin reducing and phasing PVC out of its packaging and merchandise because of, according to a Sears press release, “the potential health and environmental risks tied to the manufacture, use, and disposal of PVC.” Sears has even gone a step further by marking some of its private-label products as being “PVC-free.” The retailer will also encourage its vendors to do the same.

Instead of using PVC, Sears says that it will identify more-sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to PVC and will incorporate them into the design and manufacturing processes for its private-label merchandise and packaging. The company stated that its long-term goal is to use bio-based polymers that are a sustainable source, have a high recycled content, and can be reused, recycled, and composted.

Johnson & Johnson’s Healthy Planet 2010 initiative has targeted the elimination of PVC in primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging. This program began in January 2006 and will run through December 2010. Performance is reported publicly each year in the company’s annual sustainability report.

In 2006, Target established a packaging team focused on the sustainability of its private-label packaging. Since then, the team has decided to replace all of the full-PVC clamshells used for its Media Storage product line with a modified paperboard-and-clamshell package instead.

Major beauty companies have also joined this movement. One of the highlights of The Estée Lauder Companies’ Environmental Packaging Design Protocol states that “PVC shall not be used in product packaging when it is feasible to use other materials.” Estée Lauder created the Protocol in 2001 to ensure that all new packaging meets the environmentally friendly criteria of each region in which a product is sold, including the European Union’s Essential Requirements for Packaging.

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