The Environmental Protection Agency's tentative decision in mid-January not to regulate PVC as a hazardous substance has prompted a spirited back-and-forth over whether it was the right move.
Many vinyl and construction groups weighed in the week of Feb. 13, telling EPA in formal comments to stick to its decision and said the widespread use and disposal of PVC is safe.
Environmental and health groups, for their part, urged EPA to reverse course and took to social media to say the massive Feb. 3 train accident in Ohio involving railcar loads of vinyl chloride monomer adds to their case.
Industry groups said labeling PVC products broadly as hazardous waste under federal law — as environmentalists first petitioned EPA to do in 2014 — would raise costs across the economy and put the brakes on developing PVC recycling technology.
"Granting the petition would regulate as hazardous a material that has a record of safe use over decades [and] would cause significant disruptions to our industry, the U.S. economy, and recycling innovation," wrote Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division at the American Chemistry Council in Washington.
Building industry groups weighed in as well. The National Utility Contractors Association mounted a mass email campaign, according to EPA records, with its members arguing that designating PVC pipe as hazardous could slow efforts to replace lead water pipe service lines.
But environmental groups made their own push.
The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the initial petition to EPA in 2014, presented 4,500 emails from the public saying the agency should change its mind and declare PVC hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
And it gave EPA scientists 24 newer studies it said document problems like acute toxicity of leachate from the 7 billion pounds of PVC products discarded in the U.S. each year.
"The agency must, at a minimum, revise its solid waste management guidelines to reduce the significant threats to human health and the environment arising from the improper disposal of this plastic trash," CBD and 25 other groups, including the Plastic Pollution Coalition and Greenpeace USA, wrote to EPA.
Befitting a technical rulemaking like this, industry groups presented their own scientific assessments.
The Washington-based Vinyl Institute gave EPA a 123-page analysis of studies and said research presented by CBD doesn't support broadly declaring all PVC products a RCRA hazard when they're disposed of.
"Many of the studies CBD references focus on the hazards presented by direct phthalate exposure, as opposed to potential exposure or effects from discarded PVC," wrote VI President and CEO Ned Monroe.
On Feb. 13, the EPA closed the public comments period on its preliminary decision.
The case has had a tangled history, with CBD suing the agency in 2021 alleging unreasonable delays in deciding its petition, with the parties resolving the case last year after EPA agreed to quickly consider the 2014 petition.