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Discover how bisphenols and phthalates, commonly used in plastics for added strength or flexibility, can disrupt hormone function, and learn ways to reduce their use for improved health in this informative video.
Phase 1 of this report is the first of its kind plant-by-plant accounting of the production, use, and releases of chlorine and related pollution around the world. It is intended to inform the efforts of building product manufacturers to reduce pollution in their supply chains.
Chlorine is a key feedstock for a wide range of chemicals and consumer products, and the major ingredient of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. The report includes details about the largest 86 chlor-alkali facilities and reveals their connections to 56 PVC resin plants in the Americas, Africa and Europe. (The second phase of this project will inventory the industry in Asia.) A substantial number of these facilities, which are identified in the report, continue to use outmoded and highly polluting mercury or asbestos.
Demand from manufacturers of building and construction products now drives the production of chlorine, the key ingredient of PVC used in pipes, siding, roofing membranes, wall covering, flooring, and carpeting. It is also an essential feedstock for epoxies used in adhesives and flooring topcoats, and for polyurethane used in insulation and flooring.
Key findings include:
Supplemental Documents:
Research from Healthy Building Network (HBN) documents how vinyl building products, also known as PVC or polyvinylchloride plastic, are the number one driver of asbestos use in the US.
The vinyl/asbestos connection stems from the fact that PVC production is the largest single use for industrial chlorine, and chlorine production is the largest single consumer of asbestos in the US. [1] More than 70% of PVC is used in building and construction applications – pipes, flooring, window frames, siding, wall coverings and membrane roofing. [2] This makes the building and construction industry the single largest product sector consuming chlorine, bearing sizeable responsibility for the ongoing demand for asbestos. [3]
Despite the existence of asbestos (and mercury) free chlorine production methods, the PVC industry has positioned itself at the vanguard of industry efforts to frustrate stronger asbestos regulation. According to Mike Belliveau, the Executive Director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center and a senior advisor to Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition, “The PVC market has spurred chemical industry lobbyists to urge the Trump Administration to exempt their use of deadly asbestos from future restrictions.” The last time the vinyl industry positioned themselves so publicly on the other side of common sense, they were defending the use of lead in children’s vinyl lunch boxes.
The health hazards of asbestos exposure, painful and deadly lung diseases including cancer, are clear. Green building professionals do not have to wait. Do your part to prevent asbestos-related diseases here and abroad. Don’t specify vinyl building products.
1. In the US more than half of chlorine is produced using asbestos, despite the availability of an alternative production method that does not require either asbestos or mercury.
2. http://www.vinylinfo.org/vinyl/uses
3. According to IHS Markit, “A majority of chlor-alkali capacity is built to supply feedstock for ethylene dichloride (EDC) production. EDC is then used to make vinyl chloride (VCM) and subsequently used to manufacture polyvinyl chloride (PVC). This chain, EDC to VCM to PVC, is normally called the vinyl chain. PVC demand correlates closely with construction spending, therefore, it can be concluded that chlorine consumption and production are driven by the construction industry. Hence, chlorine consumption growth depends on the growth of the global economy, since a country will spend more on construction if it has a healthy gross domestic product.” (IHS Markit. “Chemical Economics Handbook: Chlorine/Sodium Hydroxide (Chlor-Alkali),” December 2014. https://www.ihs.com/products/chlorine-sodium-chemical-economics-handbook.html)
4. Fifteen chlor-alkali plants last reported to be using asbestos diaphragms include, in order of estimated chlorine capacity:
5. Carpentier, Steve. “Minaçu, a cidade que respira o amianto.” CartaCapital, May 21, 2013. http://www.cartacapital.com.br/sustentabilidade/minacu-a-cidade-que-respira-o-amianto-8717.html
This paper was prepared by Perkins+Will, in partnership with Healthy Building Network (HBN), as part of a larger effort to promote health in the built environment. Indoor environments commonly have higher levels of pollutants, and architects and designers may frequently have the opportunity to help reduce or mitigate exposures.
The purpose of this report is to present information on the environmental and health hazards of PVC, with an emphasis on information found in government sources. This report is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the PVC lifecycle, or a comprehensive comparative analysis of polymer lifecycles. Rather, in light of recent claims that PVC formulas have been improved by reducing certain toxic additives, this paper reviews contemporary research and data to determine if hazards are still associated with the lifecycle of PVC. This research has been surveyed from a perspective consistent with the precautionary principle, which, as applied, means that where there is some evidence of environmental or human health impact of PVC that reasonable alternatives should be used where possible. Furthermore, and more generally, this paper is intended to build greater awareness of this common building material.
Phthalates are endocrine disrupting chemicals that have been banned in children’s products since 2008 but are still widely used in a wide range of vinyl products to make them flexible.
The announcement came after lengthy negotiations led by the Mind The Store Campaign, a grassroots effort supported by the Healthy Building Network’s (HBN) cutting-edge research on building products. Mind The Store is challenging the country’s largest retailers to restrict 100 hazardous chemicals in the products they sell. Also today, the Mind The Store campaign released a report identifying phthalates and other chemical hazards detected in vinyl flooring products.
HBN first addressed the issue of phthalate substitution in polyvinyl chloride (PVC or “vinyl”) flooring in our 2014 report, Phthalate-free Plasticizers in PVC. The HBN analysis was intended to help purchasers evaluate the claims of phthalate-free product lines in order to make informed choices about a wide array of materials including flooring, wall guards and coverings, wire and cabling, upholstery and membrane roofing. And it worked: the report helped to convince Home Depot that change was possible in short order. Now that Home Depot has acted, the whole industry will surely follow.
And what a relief it will be for people who live, work and play on vinyl floors. PVC sheet floors can contain over 20% phthalate plasticizers. These semi-volatile organic compounds readily migrate from flooring into dust and are inhaled by building occupants. Researchers are finding that exposures to phthalates occurs in the womb as well as after birth, and can impair the development of lungs and immune systems. This disruption in turn can lead to the development of asthma, as we first reported in 2004, and genital deformities in boys.
For over a decade now, leading green designers, architects and building owners have taken a precautionary approach, avoiding PVC building products in commercial buildings as evidence grew of the many toxic impacts associated with PVC and its additives. As a result, phthalate-free formulations of vinyl floor and wall coverings began appearing in this market a few years ago. Home Depot’s leadership marks a tipping point that will bring these products to everyone.
The incidence in the US population is 4 in 100,000.[1] This is the largest brain cancer cluster identified in a non-occupational setting. In epidemiological terms, the chance that this is a coincidence is something like your chance of winning the lottery. It’s far more likely that the 14 victims share some sort of common link. The evidence in this case points to the vinyl chloride in the groundwater flowing into their wells from a nearby factory that made vinyl food wrap.[2]
Aaron Freiwald is an attorney representing the cancer victims in a class action lawsuit against Rohm & Haas, which bought the suspect facility from the Morton Chemical Company in 1999. According to Freiwald, “By the time we are done with this case, the association between vinyl chloride and brain cancer is going to be much stronger. They are going to have to revise the way current textbooks discuss cancer risks associated with vinyl chloride.”
One critical factor in the case is the clear connection between the vinyl chloride and the cancers. It can be difficult to prove a specific chemical causes a specific cancer because so often people have multiple exposures to carcinogens. But, Lake McCollum is an isolated community. There are no other significant industrial sources of chemical contamination to which the 14 victims have been exposed. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), vinyl chloride is carcinogenic to humans and has been associated with brain cancer.
Improved methods of analyzing DNA allow scientists to compare cancer cells in ways not available in earlier cases – such as the case of vinyl chloride plant worker Dan Ross featured in the PBS documentary Trade Secrets, and HBO’s Blue Vinyl. This new DNA analysis shows that the damage to brain tissue among the Illinois victims is strikingly similar, and that this pattern is different from other types of brain cancers – further evidence of a common local cause.
Freiwald is most excited by what his investigation has uncovered about industry-sponsored studies of vinyl workers. These have been the backbone of the vinyl industry’s defense that there is at best a “weak statistical correlation” between vinyl chloride exposure and brain cancer. The industry studies have long been criticized for having diluted the surveyed worker population with employees unlikely to have been exposed to vinyl chloride. “Our questioning of industry experts under oath,” says Freiwald, “has brought to light evidence that is going to strike at the heart of the whole industry’s defense of vinyl chloride.”
In depositions taken as part of this case, Freiwald says that industry experts acknowledged that had just one more case of cancer been identified in the worker population that was studied, the conclusion would have changed from a “weak statistical correlation” at best to a “statistically significant” correlation.
The McCollum case reminds us that the many problems associated with chlorinated materials, such as PVC plastic, are likely under-estimated, masked by the limits of scientific investigations to date, and obscured by the intensive cigarette science campaigns of its manufacturers.
In Doubt Is Their Product, Dr. David Michaels, a former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health under President Clinton, exhaustively documents the rise of the “product defense industry” and its strategy of using scientific discipline to establish controversies (i.e., starting something that is intended to continue or be permanent[1]), rather than establish facts (i.e., investigating something to confirm its truth or validity[2]) as a means of frustrating efforts to address public health risks from asbestos, benzene, aspirin (Reye’s syndrome in children), global warming and, of course, vinyl.
“Doubt is our product,” wrote a Brown and Williamson[3] executive in 1969, three years after the iconic warning label first appeared on cigarette packs, “since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”[4]
Michaels concentrates his reporting on his considerable first-hand experiences where, he writes, “I had the opportunity to witness what is going on at close range.”[5] He bears witness for 256 pages and backs up his observations with an additional 119 pages of endnotes, many of these referencing original documents that can be accessed through his website, www.defendingscience.org.
One of his first-hand experiences involves polyvinyl chloride plastic, also known as PVC or vinyl. The story of the vinyl industry’s cover-up of rare cancers among its workers in the mid-1970’s has been well documented elsewhere[6], including the documentary Blue Vinyl and the PBS investigative report Trade Secrets. Michaels connects the dots, documenting how, in 1974, the same public relations firm that created the “selling doubt” strategy for the tobacco industry would “establish uncertainty” about the risks of vinyl chloride for the PVC industry. They’re still at it.
Doubt Is Their Product concludes with a chapter offering “a dozen ways to improve our regulatory system.” Many of these could be adapted by green building policy makers or by anyone interested in testing whether an industry stakeholder is interested in establishing the facts, or just establishing a perpetual controversy.[7]
“To protect the health of our state’s children,” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation on October 14, 2007 prohibiting the use of phthalates (pronounced “thall-eights”) in childcare products designed for babies and children under three years of age.
Phthalates are used as plasticizers to soften polyvinyl chloride plastic, also known as PVC or vinyl, including a wide range of building products such as vinyl flooring, wallcovering and upholstery.
Phthalate plasticizers are not chemically bound to PVC. They have been found to leach, migrate or evaporate into indoor air and atmosphere, foodstuff, IV solutions and other materials, etc. Consumer products containing phthalates can result in human exposure through direct contact and use, indirectly through leaching into other products, or general environmental contamination. Humans are exposed through ingestion, inhalation, and dermal exposure during their whole lifetime, starting in the womb. Phthalates come in many different formulas. Most haven’t been tested or examined at all for human health impacts. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has noted that one phthalate formula common to certain building materials — DINP [1] — is a mixture of up to 100 chemical variants, of which only five have been minimally studied [2]. Others have been found to pose a risk of serious negative health impacts at very low doses.
Phthalates have been shown to have negative effects on human health including interference with the natural functioning of the hormone system, and reproductive and genital defects. Phthalates may lower sperm count and are associated with the risk factors for testicular cancer, as well as early onset of puberty and premature birth.
In June 2005, HBN discussed recent research findings that the cumulative impact of different phthalates leads to an exponential increase in associated harm, and documented levels of phthalates found in humans at levels higher than levels shown to cause adverse health effects. A 2007 study concluded that the exposure of children to phthalates exceeds that in adults, warning, “Current human biomonitoring data prove that the tolerable intake of children is exceeded to a considerable degree, in some instances up to 20-fold” [3].
Phthalates have been found in high quantities in studies of household dust. Other studies have documented links between childhood asthma and phthalate exposure from vinyl flooring. Because phthalates are not a volatile organic compound (VOC), however, they are usually not accounted for by indoor air quality standards such as those used to certify green building materials.
California now joins the EU [4] in restricting the use of phthalates in the use of children’s products, and many other US states are expected to take up legislation similar to that signed by Governor Schwarzenegger [5].
Like the human carcinogens vinyl chloride and dioxin, phthalates are uniquely associated with PVC [6]. It is this triple threat from PVC that distinguishes it as the worst plastic for environmental health and green building. Regrettably, there are still few restrictions on the use of vinyl in green buildings.
A week after the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Technical Science Advisory Committee determined that PVC was one of the most unhealthy building materials in part due to occupational exposures to vinyl chloride, the federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB) found that a massive release of vinyl chloride led to the explosion that killed 5 workers at a PVC factory in Illiopolis, Illinois on April 23, 2004.
The CSB Investigation Report is made all the more relevant to green building professionals in light of the USGBC’s finding that PVC flooring ranked absolute worst in both human health and environmental factors compared to the alternatives reviewed. The destroyed factory, owned by Formosa Plastics, had been a major supplier of vinyl resin for Armstrong floors.
The CSB is the industrial equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency that rushes investigators to the scene of plane crashes, train derailments and the like. [1] The CSB’s March 6, 2007 report found among other things that the cause of this accident, “inadvertently draining a reactor, is a serious hazard in the PVC manufacturing process.” [2] Indeed just 60 days before the fatal explosion, workers at the same facility accidentally released an undisclosed amount of vinyl chloride. The report also notes that 8,000 pounds of vinyl chloride were released by accident in June 2003 at the company’s Baton Rouge, LA facility. [3] A year after the explosion, in May 2005, another 2,500 pounds of vinyl chloride were accidentally released from the company’s Delaware City, DE location. [4] Each release was caused by the same problems which led to the catastrophe at the Illiopolis facility in April 2004. Other PVC factories owned by Formosa have also suffered catastrophic explosions in the recent past. [5]
The chemical at issue, vinyl chloride, is a human carcinogen whose total danger is believed by many to be underestimated by the EPA. A 2005 study in the peer reviewed journal American Health Perspectives found that the EPA employed discredited scientific practices at the behest of the chemical industry in order to lower estimates of vinyl chloride’s cancer potency by tenfold. [6]
The USGBC’s study of PVC found it “consistently among the worst materials for human health impacts” based upon exceedingly conservative estimates of impact. To understand how conservative, consider that its evaluation of PVC only accounted for exposures from normal operations to workers in the factory and neighbors at the fenceline. The health impacts of the extraordinary accidental releases from Formosa’s facilities described above — and the deadly explosions that can follow as at Illiopolis — are beyond the reach of tools like LCA and risk analysis.
This CSB report further underscores the significance of the USGBC’s decision to be guided by the Precautionary Principle in its evaluation of green building materials and to fully consider the impacts of manufacturing processes on production workers. It is the essence of precaution to avoid hazards and risks that are avoidable. So remember this the next time you specify pipe, roofing membranes, wall coverings and especially flooring: the chemical that killed those 5 men in Illiopolis is essential and unique to only one material you are considering: PVC plastic, also known as vinyl. [7]
One morning ten years ago, I was at work on a book about environmental health when the phone rang. It was my Uncle Roy. He wanted me to know that a developer had come to town peddling a plan to construct a giant waste incinerator in the cornfield next to his own. What the man was planning to burn in it, he said, was old auto interiors, including a lot of PVC plastic. If the people of the township went along, the company would build the school a new library.
Now how did they know we needed a library, my uncle wondered. And what did I know about a chemical called dioxin? Funny he should ask. I was just drafting that chapter.
So I took leave of the Harvard Medical School Library and went back home to library-less central Illinois to throw my hat in the ring with my mother’s brother and a group of other farmers who had vowed to fight the incinerator.
And we won. Not only did Forrest, Illinois vote down the incinerator plan, it was defeated in six other small, impoverished farming communities where the same developer had dangled it. People looked out at their turkeys, hogs, and fields of corn and imagined what could happen if one semi-truck full of dioxin-laden incinerator ash overturned on a windy day. It just wasn’t worth the risk, they decided.
A decade later, central Illinoisians are confronted with a similar choice. This time it involves the manufacture of PVC rather than its destruction.
On April 23, 2004, the PVC plant in Illiopolis, Illinois exploded, spewing fireballs into the night sky, cutting power and water, and sending all of the village’s 900-something inhabitants into makeshift shelters in distant towns. Four workers were killed instantly. Three were hospitalized.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board conducted an investigation of the long-term environmental health effects of the explosion. Its chairwoman, Carolyn W. Merritt, called the explosion at Illiopolis among the most serious the agency has ever investigated. So far, no signs of air or water contamination have been uncovered. On the other hand, at this writing, investigators were not able to get closer than a quarter mile to the plant because of safety concerns.
But, let’s suppose that no chemical contamination from the plant’s destruction was found. Let’s imagine that thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate-which workers were mixing at the time of detonation-somehow all burned up without leaving behind any toxic residues in the community’s air or water or farm fields. It would still be a bad idea to rebuild this plant. Which is the current plan.
Each year, the Illiopolis PVC plant releases into the air more than 40,000 pounds of vinyl chloride, a recognized human carcinogen and reproductive toxicant. It releases another 40,000 pounds of vinyl acetate, a suspected carcinogen and neurotoxin. In other words, under normal operating conditions, this plant routinely discharges into the surrounding community more than 40 tons of toxic chemicals annually. That works out to 220 pounds of known and probable carcinogens every single day. The weight of a large man.
Such releases make this plant one of Illinois’ biggest polluters. But when you stack the Illiopolis facility next to all the other PVC plants in the United States, of which there are about 40, it pales in comparison. Its emissions are far from the worst. (Oxyvinyl in Pasadena, Texas releases more than 100,000 pounds of vinyl chloride annually.)
Even absent horrific accidents like the one in Illiopolis, which made headlines across the world, there seems to be no way of making PVC without contaminating somebody’s beloved hometown with cancer-causing substances. And that fact alone should be sufficient to compel us to seek out substitutes for PVC for all its various uses.
Here are the names of those who died in the Illiopolis explosion: Joseph Machalek, age 50; Larry Graves; age 47; Glenn Lyman, age 49; Linda Hancock, age 56.
What are the names of those who have died of cancer caused by the routine operation of this same plant over the years? Who have suffered miscarriages, birth defects, or neurological disorders due to their constant exposure to reproductive and neurological poisons? It is an unknown and unknowable number. But it may well exceed four. And it may be too high a price to pay for vinyl.
Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., grew up in Pekin, Illinois. She is a biologist and author of the book Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment. She is currently on the faculty of Ithaca College in New York.