Vinyl industry makes headway in sustainability efforts

The vinyl industry has seen a breakthrough with wider acceptance, measurable company progress and real improvement on its sustainability journey, according to Jay Thomas, executive director of the Vinyl Sustainability Council, the group that oversees the +Vantage Vinyl program for the Washington, D.C.-based Vinyl Institute.

Twenty-six companies are now verified with +Vantage Vinyl, a 50 percent increase vs. 2021.

"+Vantage Vinyl is gaining recognition in the marketplace as a credible verification of company commitment to sustainability," Thomas said in an email. "As a result, membership and verification to the standard are growing. We have a growing set of data demonstrating continuous improvement of companies that are participating in verification."

VSC recently released its annual progress report called "Making Our Mark" to highlight manufacturing improvements for products it says play a critical role in health care, food, construction and United Nations goals for sustainable development.

"Critical infrastructure for electrification, delivering clean and safe water, protecting against infectious diseases, maintaining food safety and delivering lifesaving medical treatments all rely on vinyl products," said Thomas, who also is vice president of sustainability for the Vinyl Institute. "Reliably continuing to deliver these important products while reducing environmental impacts is the goal of the Vinyl Sustainability Council," he said.

Nine companies received first-year verification: Mannington Mills; Profusion Industries; Avery Dennison; Achilles USA; 3M; IB Roof Systems; Norac Additives; Deceuninck North America; and Omnova, a division of Surteco.

These companies join Aurora Plastics LLC, Baerlocher USA, Cornerstone Building Products, Eastman Chemical Co., HMTX Industries LLC, Tarkett North America and Teknor Apex Co., Azek Co., Formosa Plastics Corp. USA, Geon Performance Solutions, Lubrizol Corp., Occidental Chemical Corp., OXO Global business unit of ExxonMobil Product Solutions Co., Shintech Inc., Sika Corp., Westlake Corp. and Vestolit, which is a brand of Orbia Polymer Solutions.

Thomas said the 17 companies in their second year of participation reported a 20 percent improvement in compliance with the environmental stewardship pillar under the program's guiding principles.

"Recycling is a big focus and the industry is working to increase post-consumer vinyl recycled materials to 160 million pounds per year through a $3 million seed funding program and pilot-to-program initiatives," Thomas said.

The council reports industry progress across five pillars of sustainable performance. In addition to environmental stewardship, the other pillars are social diligence, economic soundness, collaboration and open communications.

Company verifications are performed by GreenCircle Certified LLC, an independent third-party auditor that has issued over 2,000 sustainability certifications since 2009.

The 2022 sustainability report devotes a few sections to the benefits of PVC pipe as part of meeting U.N. goals for sustainable cities and communities.

In some places, PVC pipes are facing tough competition from other materials and tough scrutiny from environmental groups.

However, the Vinyl Institute says PVC products have a well-documented lower carbon footprint when compared with other piping materials like iron, copper, cement and clay with a citation to the PVC Pipe Association environmental product declaration (EPD) at the website of Uni-Bell.

The EPD also says lightweight PVC pipe is easier to transport and install, which results in fewer GHG emissions, and the products are durable enough to provide 100-plus-year service lives so fewer replacements are needed, which the VSC says translates to less embodied carbon required to maintain the system.

In addition, PVC pipes have significantly lower total GHG emissions during production than other pipe materials, and, in sewer pipe applications, PVC's GHG emissions are about 45 percent lower than reinforced concrete pipes and 35 percent lower than ductile iron pipes, according to a citation from the July 2022 report called "Climate Impact of Plastics" by McKinsey and Co.

Opponents, however, keep pushing back. Beyond Plastics' Judith Enck had an op-ed column in the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 13 reiterating concerns about chemicals leaching from PVC and CPVC pipes and fittings as well as the multistep process of manufacturing PVC pipes threatening communities at every stage.

The Chicago newspaper also published an op-ed by Vinyl Institute CEO and President Ned Monroe that challenged Enck's opinion piece, which Thomas said made dubious claims about the safety of PVC water piping.

"There is a vocal minority that is opposed to PVC. This is not a new phenomena," Thomas said. "However, the truth is that PVC is a critical plastic to meet the U.N. goals for delivering safe drinking water and providing safe food, pharmaceuticals and health care."

Pipe buyers should heed NSF certifications as an important mark of material quality, Thomas added.

"All pipe materials, including PVC pipe, used for drinking water must meet NSF 61 standard certification requirements. PVC pipe is lead-free, noncorrosive and has a service life in excess of 100 years. Many municipalities benefit from these attributes," Thomas said.

The vinyl industry also commissioned a study to help companies understand the potential for certain decarbonizing programs and all four resin-producing members of the VI are currently implementing programs.

The goal is to reduce inputs, like the use of energy in production, to lower the embodied carbon of vinyl products.

The study, which was done with the research and consulting firm Global Efficiency Intelligence, demonstrates carbon reduction along four pathways: decarbonization of the energy grid, switching to cleaner fuels, converting production processes to electric energy usage, and improved energy efficiency.

Potential carbon savings by the year 2050 range from 21 percent to 75 percent as compared to the 2021 level despite an assumed 20 percent increase in PVC resin volume, the report says.

A second decarbonization study was conducted on the PVC value chain by researchers working through George Mason University. The team found that the vinyl industry may be able to achieve 80-90 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 in the United States using technologies approaching maturity today at a modest incremental cost.

The researchers screened technological options and explored decarbonization pathways related to carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and hydrogen fuel.

"Conversion of the electrical grid to renewables and electrification of furnaces and boilers are the largest opportunities for decarbonization," Thomas said. "Energy efficiency improvement, fuel switching to biofuels and hydrogen provide additional pathways to carbon reduction. Carbon capture is another technology being pursued by the industry to offset carbon emissions."

The process involves separating a pure stream of carbon dioxide from industrial sources, treating it and transporting it via pipelines or ships to a long-term storage site.

About 1.1 billion pounds of PVC materials are recycled annually in the U.S. and Canada with some 958 million pounds coming from pre-consumer streams and 142 million pounds from post-consumer sources.

The vinyl industry is trying to boost the post-consumer figure to 160 million pounds by 2025.

The VSC is calling on the entire vinyl value chain to address the challenge of post-consumer recycling with pilot programs and collaboration that create scalable approaches to growing the volume of recycled material.

The VSC's Viability program provides up to $1 million a year from PVC resin producers for participants to buy equipment or invest in processing, research, education or program management aimed at accelerating post-consumer PVC recycling.

To that end, VSC's partnership with the Vinyl Siding Institute collects used siding from homes in Northeast Ohio and beyond. This pilot program recycled 84,000 pounds of siding in 2022 and is expanding to more regions in the country.

In another partnership related to roofing, the Chemical Fabrics & Film Association collects and recycles vinyl roofs from commercial buildings when they are replaced after decades of use. In 2022, the industry recycled more than 1 million of end-of-life roofing membranes.

Also, a new medical device recycling program is getting underway in Rochester, N.Y. Nonhazardous medical devices such as saline bags, oxygen masks and tubing will be collected and recycled into new vinyl products.

Overall, Thomas said, VSC and the vinyl industry have made significant strides to advance sustainable practices in 2023. He pointed to $1.6 million of Viability recycling grants being awarded, promising decarbonization studies, and the introduction of a program called scoreWISE to integrate sustainability thinking into the product development process.

For 2024, Thomas hopes to see more big gains in participation of +Vantage Vinyl.

"We're excited about the momentum to build this ecosystem of likeminded companies in the industry and show improvement. Hopefully other companies join. The vinyl industry is pretty big. We estimate there's over 3,000 companies and we have 75 members. We want to see more participation to have more impact," he said.