Saving water with plastics

California is parched.

Amidst the worst drought in the state's 164-year history, 38 million residents are two months into historic water conservation rules to reduce urban consumption by 25 percent compared to 2013.

The city of San Jose bans residents from washing their cars at home and filling new pools and hot tubs.  The Santa Clara County Water District issues rebates to convert lawns to drought-resistant plants. And, water wasters face more than fines as public reprimands mount under the hashtag #DroughtShame.

The goal is to safeguard California's remaining potable urban water supplies in preparation for a possible fifth year of drought.

However, Los Angeles-based pipe manufacturer JM Eagle — the top ranked company in Plastics News' new list of the largest North American pipe, profile and tubing manufactures — is pushing for what many in the industry say is a longer-term solution: Save water with plastic pipes.

More than 2 trillion gallons of treated water is lost every year in the United States due to pipe leaks and breaks, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates. That's about 16 percent of the nation's purified water — enough to put Manhattan under 300 feet of water by one account.

What's to blame? Old pipes in more 51,000 water systems in which the dominant pipe material has been metal that corrodes and fails.

Could concerns about water scarcity be the conduit in which plastic pipes, namely PVC and high density polyethylene, gain wider acceptance and overcome what some call the “habituation factor” of using “legacy” materials like ductile iron?

Piping up

With an estimated $2.5 billion of sales in 2014, JM Eagle kept its top spot. Sales are up $150 million from 2013. To appeal to more customers, the company launched a new educational program to raise awareness about the benefits of plastic pipe.

Initially targeting civil engineers and contractors in California and 10 other western states dealing with extreme drought, about 1,500 public sector employees have clicked on the training course since it went online in April and a “significant number” have taken it, according to Neal Gordon, JM's vice president of marketing.

Gordon said in a telephone interview he believes the program is the first free, accredited online course about plastic pipes that provides the continuing education credits engineers and contractors need to keep up their professional licenses.

“Every day we have conversations with cities across the country like Los Angeles encouraging them to switch to plastic,” Gordon said.

JM Eagle is promoting the benefits of plastic pipe with the course that covers the pros and cons of various pipe materials, installation methods, types of pipe failure, corrosion, joint leak prevention and cost comparisons. The course also says PVC and HDPE pipes meet industry standards for product leaching but not ductile iron pipe unless it is lined with another material.

“As the leader in the industry we feel it's our responsibility to expand the industry and encourage the shift from ductile iron and other materials to plastic pipe,” Gordon said. “Last year we took the message to the nation with a national advertising campaign — a 60-second commercial — that ran over 4,000 times on air. We overlaid the TV campaign with a digital campaign targeting engineers and contractors and we touched base with close to 100,000 of them across the country.”

Making the case

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) says more than 1 million miles of pipes in the U.S. are nearing the end of their useful life. The exact makeup of the buried water systems isn't known. The group has a distribution chart that shows cast iron pipes were used from 1870-1930; cement-lined cast iron from 1930-70; asbestos cement from 1950-70; ductile iron pipes from 1960 on; and PVC from 1970 on.

However, the Plastics Pipe Institute Inc. (PPI), a Dallas-based trade organization with 140 members, says ductile iron pipe was introduced in 1955 and use took off after the products were able to handle water pressure with a thinner wall. This group says use of PVC pipes dates back to the 1950s and PE to the 1960s.

“A lot of different products are used in water systems and it's a challenge to get the data,” PPI President Tony Radoszewski said in a telephone interview. “Ductile iron is No. 1. No question. It's been around the longest. It's in the ground the most.”

Of the two plastics, PVC is the dominant material. Radoszewski said he has seen market share numbers ranging around 40 percent but it might be as low as 35 percent. He puts PE in the mid- to high-single digits in market share.

“But if you look at new materials being installed then it changes some because PVC has really gained market share over the years,” he added. “For new installations it may be 60 percent or higher.

“The biggest advantage of plastic is that it doesn't rust and that's the No. 1 failure mode in water pipe,” he said.

At AWWA's Annual Conference and Expo 2015 in Anaheim, Calif., in June, JM Eagle showed slides that say 54 percent of the water main breaks in the U.S. and Canada involve ductile iron, cast iron and steel pipes compared to 3 percent for PVC. PVC pipes are designed to last more than 100 years while ductile iron fails in about 40 years, the same slide says.

Still a newcomer

Despite more than half a century of use, plastic pipes are the new kids under the block. Radoszewski describes the public sector's employees as “conservative in that they don't want to change.” He said they find something that works and they stick with it. He calls it a habituation factor.

“One of the things we struggle with is that ductile iron in water systems and concrete in storm water systems have been around forever,” Radoszewski said. “For plastics, PVC started coming in about 1950 and PE in about 1960. They're still newcomers. When will we no longer be a newcomer?”

In some areas, procurement policies prohibit plastic pipe materials from the bidding process. A state bill pending in Ohio would ensure “all proven and acceptable piping materials” are included in bids for water and wastewater utility services.

“There are a lot of places that don't allow for specification of plastic pipe,” Radoszewski said. “Ohio is typical. Virtually every state has some restrictions when it comes to plastic pipe.”

PPI is working with the American Chemistry Council to promote “equal opportunity.”

“If the product meets the engineering requirements for the application it should be allowed on the bid,” Radoszewski said. “If that happens typically plastics win because they are more competitive.”

Procurement progress

Ever since Advanced Drainage Systems went public last July, Chairman and CEO Joe Chlapaty has said repeatedly, most recently in a May earnings call, that “the ADS story at its core is one of our conversion, displacing alternative materials like concrete, metal and PVC pipe” with HDPE and polypropylene pipe.

Based in Hilliard, Ohio, ADS ranks No. 2 in Plastics News' updated listing with sales of $1.1 billion. Chlapaty said the company has long history of gaining market share via material conversion.

Last year ADS benefitted from the state of Florida's approval of its N-12 high performance PP pipe in 12- to 60-inch diameters for road and bridge construction. The pipe passed tests for use in side drain, cross drain and storm sewers.

Greg Bohn, ADS's director of national engineering, explained in a news release why contractors and local agencies might want to choose PP pipe for their storm drains. He said it “provides a superior sanitary-grade joint and can reduce the installed cost versus traditional pipe materials. In addition, the pipe is manufactured with impact modified copolymer PP resins, which provide increased pipe stiffness and excellent durability characteristics to achieve 100-year design service life performance.”

In some cases, the evolution of the pipeline infrastructure, particularly for storm and wastewater, involves the switch from one plastic to another. ADS came out with high performance PP pipe a few years ago for customers reluctant to use HDPE pipe, particularly in Texas.

“The HP product line has been a real game changer for us and has opened up opportunities for us kind of throughout the whole geography,” Chlapaty said.

No drop in the bucket

AWWA projects it will cost $1 trillion over the next 25 years to repair existing potable water systems that are reaching the end of their useful lives and to serve areas with growing populations. If the investment isn't made, the number of water main breaks and system failures will increase, the group says. That will threaten public health through compromised tap water quality and fire hydrant flows and public safety through flooding and sinkholes.

“These maladies weaken our economy and undermine our quality of life,” says an AWWA report called “Buried no longer: Confronting America's water infrastructure challenges.

PVC pipe is the material making a big splash in the market right now. In addition to JM Eagle, the major manufacturers are Diamond Plastics, which is based in Grand Island, Neb., and North American Specialty Products LLC, a subsidiary of North American Pipe Corp. based in Houston. North American Pipe Corp. is ranked No. 3, with sales of $930 million. Diamond Plastics is ranked No. 13, with $295 million in sales.

However, Radoszewski said PE pipe deserves more attention, too, with potable players including Performance Pipe of Plano, Texas, Dura-Line Corp. of Knoxville, Tenn., and W.L. Plastics of Fort Worth, Texas,

“The biggest problem for the most part, maybe until recently, is that municipalities didn't care that water leaked. They just didn't,” he said. “They may say they do but the facts belie that. If they said we want a zero-leak system they would probably go to a product that's fused like PE. It's a leak-free, fused-joint system. It adds a different step but that's the reason the gas industry uses it. If gas leaks, people have a tendency to die. If water leaks, nobody cares. The drought and greening of America have brought more attention to this so PE has seen some growth in market share.”