The Problem: Vinyl

Polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as "PVC" or "vinyl," is one of the most common synthetic materials used to make plastic. The problem is that vinyl plastic, used extensively in building construction and packaging, creates global impacts from relentless toxic pollution that damages the health of all natural ecosystems.

Ultimately, vinyl is the worst plastic for human health and the environment. Why? The reason is that the production of vinyl is the largest contributor to dioxins and persistent bioaccumulative toxics. The chemicals in vinyl plastic are known to cause cancer, disrupt the body’s hormone systems, and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems of all living things.

Vinyl requires large quantities of chlorine and a multitude of other hazardous chemicals for production. Vinyl manufacturing has a long history of contaminating groundwater, polluting surrounding air sheds, and harming factory workers with highly toxic and carcinogenic vinyl chloride, PCB’s, dioxin, and other organo-chlorines.

Dioxin, a by-product of combusting vinyl, damages reproductive capabilities in developing fetuses, damages the nerve system, and causes sexual hormone imbalances and cancer. It concentrates in mammalian breast milk and breast fed infants receive doses of dioxin orders of magnitude greater than those of the average adult.
When its entire cycle of manufacture, use, and disposal are taken into account, vinyl creates more persistent toxic pollutants than any other known source. The toxic legacy of vinyl contaminates every inch of the planet and, even at low doses, contributes significantly to the disruption of ecosystems.