Industry Executive Responds to Activist Claims about Vinyl in Letter to Editor
LEETSDALE, Pa., March 26, 2008 (VNS) – Environmental activists prefer to continue their “witch hunt” of vinyl/PVC, even though the facts supporting its use as a building product are readily available and should earn vinyl/PVC more serious consideration as a green building product, a vinyl industry executive said in a recent letter to a magazine for building materials dealers.
The letter from John Pace, president and chief operating officer of Wolfpac Technologies, a PVC building products manufacturer based in Leetsdale, Pa., to the editor of ProSales magazine, responded to an article that appeared in the publication’s January 2008 issue that outlined negative claims made about vinyl/PVC by activists.
Pace highlighted several facts about vinyl, including its recyclability, low landfill contributions, self-extinguishing properties in fires, and its low annual dioxin emission levels relative to forest fires, trash burning, fireplace fires and vehicle emissions. He also pointed out that a six-year European Commission life-cycle assessment study of vinyl/PVC and principal competing materials concluded that vinyl is “generally better for the environment than alternative materials.”
“There are more facts and figures supporting PVC and its use as a building product today and why it should get more serious consideration as a green product,” Pace said. “However, environmentalists would rather continue their witch hunt on a material that has been around for more than 60 years than listen to these facts.”
Pace also noted that 57 percent of the base component of vinyl/PVC is salt or chlorine, and once chlorine is processed into vinyl, “it is chemically locked into the product more tightly than it was in salt.”
Despite pointing out the negative claims made about vinyl, the ProSales article acknowledged that vinyl/PVC “wins praise for its low cost, low maintenance and durability, and it is found in many other places, such as soft toys and medical supplies.”
Read Pace’s letter in the March 2008 issue of ProSales.