Photo by Ragina Johnson.The Buzz
At a recent green building conference, a colleague mentioned the amount of “noise” in the air with regard to PVC and its place in the world of architecture and building materials. So much is being circulated these days on the health impacts (real or fabricated?), durability (supported by LCA or not?), and environmental concerns (radical misperceptions or valid science?) that it is difficult to tease out the truth. As far as my friend is concerned, the basic question is settled, over, done with, kaput. Science has proven PVC’s negative impacts, and we should now move with the flow of the market to new developments in healthful building materials.
We know, for example, that the chlorine component of PVC (poly-vinyl chloride), making up almost 60% of the PVC molecule, can lead to the production of dioxin, the most carcinogenic substance known to humankind, during manufacture or combustion.i We know that ethylene-dichloride and vinyl chloride, both PVC precursors, are toxic and carcinogenic. We know that the plasticizers, or phthalates, used in vinyl building materials to make them pliable and soft, have been the subject of studies that show abnormal genital development in male humans as well as rising asthma rates in children through exposure to household dust.ii Phthalates, in addition to being a reproductive toxicant, are also considered semi-volatile organic compounds and harmful indoor air pollutants. In addition, we know that vinyl needs other harmful additives, such as lead and cadmium, in order to be transformed into viable products.
For every bit of exhaustive science from the anti-PVC camp, there is a corresponding rebuttal from manufacturers, suppliers, and trade organizations representing the PVC industry. These groups have funded their own studies and have pointed to other precedents to formulate a basis for the claims that PVC-containing materials pose little or no threat to the environment or to health. The Vinyl Institute states that vinyl (curiously, not PVC) is not as energy-intensive to manufacture as other plastics and is easily recycled and safely land-filled. They also claim that dioxin emissions are not affected by the amount of vinyl materials in our environment, but rather are the result of inadequate incinerator operating conditions.
What’s At Stake?
Clearly, the controversy is brewing, with each camp claiming dueling studies. Ultimately, it is up to us as architects and design professionals to specify PVC-containing products or not. As architects, we are obligated to ensure reasonable life safety in our buildings. To do so, we need to know what is at stake: what PVC is and how it affects the human body and the environment.
Let ’s first understand the distinction between the useful catch phrase “vinyl” and PVC. Not all “vinyls” are PVC. Pure PVC is almost 60% chlorine, and from this chlorine molecule springs the root of the difficulty. Healthy Building Network cites certain other vinyls that are similar to PVC but without the chlorine, all petro-chemically based but as yet unstudied to the same depth as PVC, and possibly more environmentally benign: ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA); polyethylene vinyl acetate (PEVA), a copolymer of polyethylene and EVA; polyvinyl acetate (PVA); and polyvinyl butyral (PVB), used in safety glass films. Many of these are being substituted for PVC in various products.iii
PVC’s Structure
PVC’s molecular structure consists of strings of vinyl chloride monomers (VCM), each made up of three hydrogen atoms, one chlorine atom, and two carbon atoms. The source materials for these monomers are oil and salt. Through electrolysis of the sodium chloride, a chlorine molecule is produced. By combining the chlorine with ethylene, produced from oil, we get ethylene dichloride. This element is heated at high temperatures to create VCM, and with the addition of heat stabilizers and fillers such as lead and of plasticizers, or phthalates, it attains its workable form, either rigid or flexible, for such materials as resilient flooring, carpet backing, wall covering, wall guards, window frames, siding, furnishings, cable and wiring sheaths, piping, shower curtains, raincoats, car interiors, medical devices, drug delivery systems, food packaging, and children’s toys. You will even find vinyl in hip modernist home furnishing stores: those cool tote bags, welcome mats, and placemats. Cheap, lightweight, and workable, PVC has been hailed as the miracle plastic since its invention in 1872 as a destination for chlorine waste from the acetylene gas lamp industry.iv Taking pigment well, with a degree of saturation that designers like, it is literally the “fabric of our lives.”
Human Health
The fabric of our lives, however, is really the web of our food chain, water cycle, and physical environment. When we add to that web a burden of bio-accumulative toxic by-products like dioxin, lead, various phthalates, and heavy-metal stabilizers, we begin to toy with environmental balance and to affect human health. Throughout the life cycles of the versatile PVC products we use, their by-products, additives, and precursors can lead to serious health impacts—among them cancer, endocrine disruption, endometriosis, neurological damage, birth defects, impaired child development, and reproductive and immune system damage.v The additives used to make PVC a viable product flake, off-gas, or leach out over time and can cause cancer, asthma, and lead poisoning.vi
Some of the chemicals of most concern in this debate are persistent bio-accumulative toxic chemicals, known as PBTs. “Persistent” means that they do not break down rapidly in the environment and may also travel far from their source. “Bio-accumulative” refers to the tendency of the chemicals to accumulate in the fat tissues of living organisms, concentrating in more and more potent doses as they go up the food chain from plants to fish to humans. PBTs come under the umbrella of persistent organic pollutants, or POPs. Parties and signatories to the UN Stockholm Convention mounted an international treaty in 2001, signed by the U.S. and ratified in 2004, to restrict and reduce the production and use of POPs (four of which relate to PVC production) throughout the world. According to the Convention, “POPs are chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods, become widely distributed geographically, accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms and are toxic to humans and wildlife. POPs circulate globally and can cause damage wherever they travel.”vii That Inuits and other remote cultures, who live thousands of miles from industrial settings, are now showing levels of dioxin in their blood is proof of the pervasiveness. The concept of a body’s chemical burden, deciphered in blood, tissue, or breast milk, made headlines when Bill Moyers had his own blood tested, revealing some surprising results.viii
Environmental Burden
The burden to the environment is no less dramatic. Residents of the low-income communities located around the clusters of PVC-manufacturing plants end up with several times the normal amount of chemicals in their bodies as a result. Because PVC is difficult to recycle among plastics (a single PVC bottle will contaminate “100,000 (PET) bottles, rendering the entire stock unusable for making new bottles or products of similar quality”), it ends up in landfills or incinerators where it leaches phthalates, lead, and other harmful additives to groundwater and the air. Further down the PVC life cycle, at disposal, PVC produces toxic residues equal to its weight.xi Charges of environmental racism have been leveled at PVC-producing factories and incineration facilities that for the most part are located in the poorest regions of the South.xii Chemist Michael Braungart, co-founder of MBDC, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, in Charlottesville, Virginia, notes, “It costs five times more to dispose of this waste than to manufacture PVC. It socializes the risk and privatizes the profit.”xiii
Over 30 countries, 62 Spanish cities, and many members of the EU, including Norway, Germany and Austria, have placed limits on some aspect of PVC, ranging from packaging, food wrap, building materials, use of plasticizers in children’s toys, vinyl incineration, manufacture, and recycling, by 2003. Denmark is working toward minimizing the use of PVC in building materials, restricting the use of stabilizers and phthalates, and even going so far as to levy a tax on both PVC and phthalates. In the 1990s, the international environmentalist and activist group, Greenpeace, suggested that we begin a global phase-out of PVC, heating the debate even further.xv
Kaiser Permanente’s Role
One of the major players in the PVC transition is Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest HMO, serving the healthcare needs of 8.3 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a long track record of leadership in innovation and has initiated a major culture change in line with their philosophy of healthcare: “thrive.” Two major environmental mandates are supported by George Halvorson, the CEO of Kaiser Permanente. The first is the identification and reduction of toxic materials throughout its organization, from mercury in thermometers to PVC in building materials.
The second policy, a pledge to adhere to the 12 POP reductions of the Stockholm Treaty, is also in line with Kaiser Permanente’s philosophy of preventative medicine. In addition, Kaiser has agreed to pilot test the new “Green Guide for Health Care” (GGHC), a voluntary self-certification system for health care facilities released in 2004 by the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and sponsored by Health Care Without Harm and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among others.xvi
One of GGHC’s rating points addresses the PVC-reduction issue head-on by calling for the elimination of materials in a building’s exterior or structural systems, interior finishes, or mechanical/electrical systems that release PBTs in their life cycle. PVC is included in this credit as the biggest of a number of chlorinated plastics that release dioxin.xvii Other industries have joined the camp: in 1984, the U.S. Navy replaced PVC-coated cables with a PVC-free alternative; Nike has worked toward eliminating PVC from its shoe line. Many local firefighters groups have asked designers to stop specifying PVC-containing products, because the combustion of PVC adds another lethal level to the blazes they battle;xviii NASA has banned PVC in the construction of its shuttle fleet, and the London Underground has banned halogenated cables (containing chlorine) in their system due to similar fire concerns. Because PVC is so prevalent in medical products (27% of all disposable plastic medical products), several health care facilities are performing PVC audits in order to begin to eliminate PVC-containing materials.xix Many European environmental-labeling systems, including Germany’s 20-year-old Blue Angel, and “Nature Plus,” in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Holland, are steering toward a “no PVC” policy for products.xx
Noteworthy architectural projects such as London’s Tate Gallery and the 2000 Sydney Olympics precinct also called for PVC minimization. The first building to be awarded the Green Star rating (Australia’s green building rating system), by developer Canberra International Airport, was significant because of its PVC avoidance. The Australian Green Building Council allocates a point in Green Star to PVC reduction in buildings. By relying on precedent and transparency, they have deflected the volleys of criticism and have implemented the credit thanks to the hefty amount of PVC-free alternatives, says Che Wall, Director of Green Building Council of Australia.xxi A few LEED® registered projects have opted not to use PVC materials, even though no specific credit guides the process and in spite of the fact that a special USGBC PVC Technical Advisory Committee issued a draft report in late 2004 taking the side of industry on PVC elimination. The issue is still alive within the USGBC community, apace with the bubbling controversy worldwide.xxii
Alternatives to PVC
Happily, the building materials industry has responded with ingenuity to the call for alternative plastics. From the perspective of a green building practitioner, this is good news about a niche that has long needed filling. One interesting PVC-free newcomer to the materials world is PVB, polyvinyl butyral, a safety film used in glazing for commercial office buildings and in windshield coatings. Post-consumer recycling technology allows PVB, a product that would be for the most part either landfilled or burned, to be recaptured to produce carpet backing. Developed by Tandus and spurred by Kaiser Permanente’s demand for a PVC-free carpet backing, this carpet meets the demanding 01350 IAQ standards,xxiii has more than half post-consumer recycled content, and allows both backing and fiber to be recycled together as a closed-loop technical nutrient back into more carpet backing. This recycling technology is something carpet manufacturer Collins & Aikman, a subsidiary of Tandus, has pioneered for over a decade.
Certain linoleums, cork, rubber, and chlorine-free plastics like polyolefins can be substituted for PVC-resilient sheet and tile flooring. Kaiser is a leader in this area as well, having eliminated PVC flooring from their standards in favor of Nora rubber flooring and Amtico’s non-chlorine resilient tile, Stratica. In the area of wall coverings, wall protection, window treatment and acoustical ceiling tiles, several PVC-free products incorporate paper and other plastics as feedstock. Building service products and systems such as piping, cable and conduit, and roofing and waterproofing membranes all have their non-PVC parallels. Designers will find Healthy Building Network a PVC-free treasure trove, providing an exhaustive list of PVC alternatives in CSI format as well as a wide-ranging list of PVC-free resilient flooring alternatives such as cork and linoleum. Healthcare Without Harm also has a PVC-free materials database. Greenpeace has its own database and in 1996 issued a report entitled “Building the Future: A Guide to Building Without PVC,” citing several alternatives to PVC building materials. In 1994, Environmental Building News published what is still considered a comprehensive assessment of the PVC controversy, an analysis of its life cycle, and a selection of PVC-free alternatives.xxiv
How the Plastics Industry Has Responded
Much progress has been made since the early days of PVC production. Improved incinerator scrubbers can now reduce 99% of hydrochloride emissions from the incineration of PVC-containing materials. PVC manufacturers and makers of PVC-containing building materials are working with the U.S. EPA to continue to reduce dioxin emissions.xxv
According to the Vinyl Institute’s website: “The vinyl industry’s dioxin emissions are a very small part of overall emissions, constituting less than one-half of one percent of the total emissions to air, water, and land as identified by the EPA. The vinyl industry emits about 12.6 grams of dioxin a year, compared to the EPA’s recent estimate of nearly 3,000 grams a year from known sources.”xxvi PVC-specific recycling efforts are being conducted to encourage further reductions in PVC manufacturing.
What is perceived as an inconclusive nature of the USGBC’s draft report and other scientific data has served to round out the argument in support of PVC. In the eyes of the industry, a low-cost, versatile material is being persecuted for the as yet undetermined potential for harm. Bracing for more pressure from the environmental movement, however, some manufacturers have moved toward PVC transformation and have weighted their R&D and market outlooks accordingly. Moving to newer plastics whose benefits or harm have not begun to be assessed is a way of hedging bets in an uncertain future. In the meantime, resilient flooring manufacturers withdrew from a high-profile lawsuit filed by them in New York State in response to what was claimed as discrimination against PVC. The resilient flooring trade industry’s suit was part of an effort to call PVC materials “green” and qualify a building for tax credits. Their withdrawal was framed as a victory by both sides, though the suit was never litigated or settled.xxvii
Conclusion
As design professionals, we’ll need to make up our own minds as to the validity of the conflicting messages we manage to extract from the noise. Emerging from the pervasive clamor of today’s PVC debate is yet another buzz, the voice of the precautionary principle.xxviii In brief, the precautionary principle means to do no harm, much in the same way as Hippocrates’ physician’s oath. Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development of 1992 states: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”xxix Several cities, including San Francisco, the first city in the U.S. to do so, have adopted the precautionary principle as part of their environmental policy.xxx The precautionary principle is not new and, in part because of its longevity, it will likely be the tool that transcends finger pointing and the spectacle of opposing scientists duking it out on the world’s PVC podia. It will assuredly be the measure by which we guide, not squelch, the technological ingenuity we so value in our culture.
RESOURCES
Health Care Without Harm.
Green Guide for Health Care.
Kaiser Permanente.
Healthy Building Network.
Joe Thornton, PhD, “Environmental Impacts of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Building Materials,” a briefing paper for the Healthy Building Network.
Judith Helfand and Dan Gold, Blue Vinyl, Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary on the PVC life cycle.
NOTES
i. “Exposure and Human Health Reassessment of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD) and Related Compounds,” EPA report currently under review by NAS, www.epa.gov/ord/researchaccomplishments/dioxin.html and “America’s Choice—Children’s Health or Corporate Profit: The American People’s Dioxin Report,” Technical Support Document, November 1999, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Falls Church, VA, www.safealternatives.org/report.html#Chapter%207.
ii “Phthalates in Indoor Dust and Their Association with Building Characteristics,” http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7809/7809.html. See also www.saferproducts.org/page.php?p=dust and Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 113, Number 8, August 2005, “Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure,” http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/press/052405.html and http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/8100/abstract.html.
iii “HBN Sorting Out the Vinyls—When is Vinyl not PVC?” www.healthybuilding.net.
iv. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpvc.htm and www.pslc.ws/mactest/pvc.htm.
v. www.healthybuilding.net/pvc/facts.html.
vi. Ibid.
vii. http:// www. pops. int/.
viii. “Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report,” www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/problem/bodyburden.html and “Inside Bay Area, A Body’s Burden: our Chemical Legacy,” published originally in The Oakland Tribune, www.insidebayarea.com/bodyburden.
ix. Vinyl Chloride, CAS No.75-01-4, first listed in the First Annual Report on Carcinogens, EHIS 9th Report on Carcinogens, revised January 2001.
x. “PVC Bad News Comes in Three’s: The Poison Plastic, Health Hazards and the Looming Waste Crisis.” Authors: Michael Belliveau, Environmental Health Strategy Center (EHSC), and Stephen Lester, Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), 12/04.
xi. Beverly Thorpe, Clean Production Action, www.cleanproduction.org, in a presentation March 7, 2003 in Toronto.
xi. http://www.emagazine.com/view/?250 as well as www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk4NyZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5NjM4MDY1OCZ5cmlyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTI or http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1882-cn.htm or www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/water-eau/doc_sup-appui/vinyl_chloride/index_e.html.
xii. http://www.healthybuilding.net/news/braungart-020705.html and www.braungart.com/.
xiii. www.soldana.dk/eng/emballagedirektivet.htm as well as “PVC-Free Future: A Review of Restrictions and PVC-free Policies Worldwide,” a list compiled by Greenpeace International 9th edition, June 2003 and 8th edition, August 2001.
xiv. www. ecvm.org/code/page.cfm?id_page=193&id_presse= 9.
xv. “Heathcare without Harm and Green Guide to Healthcare Rating System,” November 22, 2004, www.noharm.org, www.gghc.org.
xvii. Letters to Healthy Building Conference attendees from: Fire Brigade Union, UK, 9/30/96, San Francisco Fire Department, 2/1/00, International Association of Firefighters, 4/ 14/ 98.
xviii. Healthcare Without Harm: www.noharm.org/pvcDehp/reducingPVC.
xix. www.natureplus.org.
xx. HBN interview with Che Wall, 1/20/05, www.healthybuilding.net/news/australia-012005.html.
xxi. For more information on the USGBC’s draft TAC report on PVC and the controversy it has generated, refer to: www.usgbc.org/Docs/LEED_ tsac/USGBC_TSAC_PVC_Draft_Report_12-17-04.pdf [this link is no longer active; here’s an alternate: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=153] and www.oikos.com/news/2005/01.html#USGBC. Refer also to: www.vinylinfo.org/pressmaterials/press-releases/122204-USGBC.html for the Vinyl Institute’s perspective on the USGBC draft report and to http://www.healthybuilding.net/usgbc/tsac.html for critiques from the Healthy Building Network and a range of technical analysts, corporations and NGO representatives.
xxii. Special Environmental Requirements Specification Section may be downloaded at: www.ciwmb.ca.gov/greenbuilding/Specs/Section01350.
xxiii. Refer to: http://archive.greenpeace.org/toxics/reports/btf.html and http://archive.greenpeace.org/toxics/pvcdatabase/productalt.html.
xxiv. Environmental Building News, January/February 1994, Feature Article, Volume 3, Number 1, “Should We Phase Out PVC?” www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm?filename=030101b.xml.
xxv. Vinyl Institute Website: www.vinylinfo.org/, Vinyl and the Environment.
xxvi. Vinyl Institute Website: www.vinylinfo.org/, Vinyl and Health.
xxvii. Affidavit of Judith Schreiber, Senior Public Health Scientist with the New York State Attorney General’s Office from the case Resilient Floor Covering Institute v. New York State (2003), http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/1623 and http://www.rfci.com/.
xxviii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle.
xxix. An international treaty in 1987 arising from the Montreal Protocol www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm and www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?ArticleID=1163& DocumentID=78&l= en.
xxx. www.sfenvironment.com/articles_pr/2003/article/110003_3.htm.
Trained as an architect, author Marian Keeler runs a green building consulting business and writes, lectures, and mentors about green building issues.
Originally published 4th quarter 2005 in arcCA 05.4, “Sustain Ability.”
