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US begins review that could eventually lead to PVC ban
- dtagames 3y agoThere's a terrific documentary film called Blue Vinyl[0] about how vinyl and PVC products are made. While inert in its usable form, vinyl is one of the most toxic products on earth to manufacture and dispose of -- and it's in a lot of stuff! [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Vinyl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Vinyl
- ragnot 3y agoSo what are we going to use for Drain-Waste-Vent plumbing? Go back to cast iron with oakum and lead?
- airstrike 3y agoDuctile iron pipe and concrete? (Disclaimer: Not an expert at all, so could be totally wrong... but I remember those terms from many moons ago when I worked on an M&A deck for some American pipe company that hated competition from Chinese PVC pipe manufacturers. Not a fun project)
- systems_glitch 3y agoUgh, no screwpipe, that was a 1950s housing boom compromise that should never be repeated! First person to suggest Orangeburg gets to dig up 100 feet of collapsed lateral in winter.
- Sindisil 3y agoGiven the asbestos content, that's not really an option anyway, yeah?
- systems_glitch 3y agoThe real low quality stuff was just wood fibers and coal tar, IIRC!
- xyst 3y agoCould PEX (cross linked polyethylene) fill the gap? It’s already used in residential. Plus more flexible than PVC
- ars 3y agoFlexible is bad for drains, you get sagging leading to water pooling the pipe.
- jwagenet 3y agoMy impression is PEX is the standard for modern plumbing, but I don't know about drains specifically. Maybe we will find it also has issues, but it seems like every modern material has externalities.
- throwaway4aday 3y agoPex is used in water supply, not drain and vent.
- a_gnostic 3y agoProbably basalt-lined pipe.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- systems_glitch 3y agoSoldered DWV copper is also acceptable :P Doubt we'll be going back to wiped lead...
- throwaway4aday 3y agoIt's a 10ft drain pipe, Michael. What could it cost? $500?
- 14u2c 3y agoABS pipe?
- airstrike 3y agoIt seems like the title could benefit from the word "production" at the end for clarity > The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday announced a review that could eventually lead to the end of PVC plastic production There's a long way to go before PVC use is banned in the US
- pmontra 3y agoIf you can't produce it you won't be able to use it soon. A waterpipe breaks? You replace it with something else, not PVC, not lead. I have no idea what's a suitable material. Steel? Of course you might import all the PVC you need, but do you want to do that?
- hellotomyrars 3y agoI would say it is likely that importing it would be the most cost-effective option, so it’ll still be used heavily. I imagine it’ll only fall heavily in usage if its manufacturing is outlawed in the places where importing it from would be cheap. I think that is pretty unlikely. And if production is banned, industry is going to likely want to find something else to do with the input materials, which could easily be exporting it to where the production gets outsourced to.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- metadat 3y agoAny legislation stemming from this effort would (and should) ostensibly forbid the import of said material, otherwise the production will shift overseas while usage will not noticably change.
- nostrademons 3y agoIn many cases that's the point. You don't want your own citizens to suffer manufacturing it, but you want them to enjoy the benefits of using it, so you ban manufacture but still allow use and just import everything you need. It's like how all the asbestos and other hazardous waste that's removed from California homes gets dumped in Nevada and Arizona landfills. Or the subject of the documentary "Plastic China": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Kif9cugQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Kif9cugQ0
- xyst 3y agoPVC piping is heavily used in water and sewage applications. It replaced the previously aging cast iron plumbing. What’s going to replace PVC if production ban is in effect?
- sokoloff 3y agoIt’s also pretty heavily used in electrical conduit and flex. Underground and outdoor flex may not have ready substitutes listed/approved and added to NEC for a while.
- Supermancho 3y agoIn the northern part of the US, there's no good alternative for protecting buildings from the elements. You have brick, glass, wood, and vinyl...which is the nice one. It has to be plastic (for windows) to expand and contract, but be easy to replace. It has to be moisture/ice proof. It has to be durable to impact (due to wind and storm). Brick is fine, until it breaks down and is very poor for temperature control.
- Kirby64 3y agoThe north doesn’t use concrete based products like hardieboard? It’s better than wood siding and pretty much looks identical to wood siding. No issues with temp control, and essentially never rots besides needing a repaint every …. 10-15 years maybe. Also, I thought fiberglass windows are a reasonable alternative to vinyl windows?
- systems_glitch 3y agoCast iron :P Seriously, aside from requiring more skill to work with and not surviving well with large DC leakage currents (think: DC traction power from light rail), it's got a lot of advantages. Plastic piping in general is already disallowed in a lot of commercial construction. ABS is a valid alternative in some parts of the country, but is often already banned from being used in even residential construction in places where it gets very cold in the winter, as it shatters easily.
- mmcgaha 3y agoHope we don’t go back to iron. Stuff is rotting away in my mothers home and her gaskets get destroyed by the rust and have to be replaced every year. I would like copper but but it is expensive and there are people who complain about the lead.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoLead isn't used in new copper installations nor in bronze fittings for potable water.
- hedora 3y agoLead is still legal in hot water supply lines, which is why you can only get “hot water” fixtures for certain sizes of lines at Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-4-in-FIP-x-3-4-in-FIP-x-24-in-Stainless-Steel-Water-Heater-Supply-Line-EBBC-07-24a/206527409 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-3-4-in-FIP-x-3-4-in-FIP... This is the only choice for 3/4 FIP that I can find there. Such lines are used by our water filter and softener. The brass connectors are leaded, and it has a prop 65 warning. The end result of this loophole is that you probably have at least some leaded plumbing in your home. Edit: From the product manual. > Important Information Stainless Steel Water Heater Water Connectors > WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. > Lead Free: The wetted surface of this product contacted by consumable water contains less than one quarter of one percent (0.25%) of lead by weight. Note that the wetted surface standard is because this part is electroplated, and they test it with intact plating. The manual goes on to say you need to inspect it every 6 months, or more often if you have hard water. I’m guessing most people don’t disassemble and reassemble their home’s plumbing supply lines every few months to see if the brass has been exposed due to contact with water.
- huytersd 3y agoIt says lead free though. Are you sure it’s not actually lead free brass and not the free machining kind?
- oneplane 3y agoPEX everything!
- friend_and_foe 3y agoDoes PEX last 100 years even in full sun? PVC does.
- theturtle32 3y agoPVC most definitely does not. It is definitely UV susceptible. Edit to include reference: "Manufacturers suggest a thin coat of a latex based paint to protect pipe from discoloration and any other adverse effects that may occur. Choose a white or light colored paint and cover any areas that will be outdoors. This will shield that outer layer of plastic and keep your pipes functioning well for years." https://www.commercial-industrial-supply.com/resource-center/what-are-the-effects-of-sunlight-on-pvc/ https://www.commercial-industrial-supply.com/resource-center...
- ars 3y agoUse CPVC instead of PVC with UV exposure.
- hinkley 3y agoVinyl doesn’t last a year in full sun. If you can put up protectants in vinyl I’m sure you can put them in PEX or HDPE.
- pixl97 3y agoUh, unless it gets UV exposure, then it's PEX nothing.
- scotty79 3y agoEven better, pex-al-pex everything
- biglyburrito 3y agoDirect non-AMP link: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-pvc.html https://phys.org/news/2023-12-pvc.html
- crazygringo 3y agoSo if I understand correctly, all the risks come from manufacture and disposal. While the use of PVC piping, vinyl siding, playing LP's... these are perfectly fine. I obviously don't want workers to suffer, so if this needs to be banned for health reasons, so be it. It's good news nobody needs to replace existing pipes or anything, though. It would be crazy if LP's could no longer be pressed, now that they've become popular again. Would that all just be done in countries that didn't care as much about worker health? Or are there viable non-vinyl substitutes for LP's?
- gregwebs 3y agoit's toxic in use as well. AFAIK they are still contaminated with lead and cadmium in the US, which Europe has removed. There's lots of phthalates that leach out. Definitely not something you would want to drink water out of- which is why its used for drainage. The drainage chemicals are someone else's problem!
- amluto 3y agoI wonder if the industry could economically rearrange itself to produce and consume vinyl chloride in the same plant — go straight from the feedstock (ethylene and chlorine?) to PVC resin in the same plant. This could avoid needing to transport and store the stuff.
- reaperman 3y agoThe old Dow Chemical plant in Freeport, TX does this (now sold off in pieces and owned/operated by Olin and several other companies). They start from salt-water (for chlorine) and refined crude oil (for carbon and hydrogen), and process them through many units into a huge array of final products. Sadara in Saudi Arabia follows a similar highly integrated strategy as well. Most of East Houston (Deer Park, Bayport, Baytown, etc.) is technically lots of discrete independent refineries and chemical plants, but they have a highly integrated dense network of pipelines and tank farms through which they can each sell chemicals to their neighbors, so for many intents and purposes it's similar enough to what you're asking for, but there is an increased amount of rail transport because it can be difficult to install quite as many new pipelines through multiple other companies' land. This[0] is the unit (400 feet x 350 feet) inside the old Dow plant which combines chlorine gas and ethylene gas to make ethylene dichloride, which is later turned into vinyl chloride monomer and then polyvinyl chloride. If you zoom out, you'll notice three large chemical plants, each with many process units, stretching for about 8 miles. These three plants are all integrated with eachother in the manner you describe. As a byproduct it produces a decent amount of polychlorinated biphenyls[1] which is usually re-circulated to break it down and re-react it, but occasionally it leaks out of pumps and such and there's no "good" way to clean it up. It's a particularly carcinogenic pollutant which lasts a very, very long time in the environment. I believe burning PVC (for example, in a house fire) will also produce some amount of PCB's. 0: https://maps.app.goo.gl/q4hpLGQqmb2zcJyH6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/q4hpLGQqmb2zcJyH6 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_biphenyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_biphenyl
- pxeger1 3y agoIf just PVC production is banned, there’ll still be demand for it, shifting production overseas, where safety regulations may be worse than in the US. I’m not convinced this would really be a good thing.
- hobobaggins 3y agoUsually, there's a politically driven initiative to ban something without giving any real thought to the long-term unintended consequences. (This is essentially the story of the entire EPA's existence.) Often these initiatives are spearheaded by vocal groups with murky agendas.