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PVC packaging is “environmentally preferable.”
Applauds PVC for its environmental friendliness in packaging
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ARLINGTON, VA, August 15 – Studies have shown that PVC’s high energy efficiency makes PVC packaging environmentally preferable to many other forms of packaging and provides major benefits to consumers, the Vinyl Institute said today.
“PVC packaging provides superb protection for a whole range of products at less cost to consumers,” said Institute president Tim Burns. “From protecting critical medication to protecting food and fragile electronics, PVC packaging has proven over and over that it is virtually indispensable for the lives we live today,” Burns said.
“At the same time, it is a great environmental benefit. It saves trees, it saves energy, and it reduces greenhouse emissions”
Burns was responding to increasing reports of misinformation about PVC being spread by a number of activist groups. “The statements made by these well-funded groups seek to deliberately mislead the public. It is unfair to consumers and to retailers. The sad thing is, they know that what they are saying is untrue,” Burns said.
These groups – many of them offshoots of Greenpeace – specialize in supplying reporters with misinformation about plastics in general and PVC in particular, Burns said.
Such misinformation recently appeared in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which mistakenly linked PVC to a litany of health effects.
“It is outrageous to suggest that our industry would knowingly produce packaging that posed the kind of health risks your article listed,” Burns stated in a letter to the paper’s editor, noting that the reporter had relied almost completely on misleading statements by pressure groups rather than reliable government or industry sources.
The full text of the letter follows:
“It is regrettable that your story on “green” packaging (“Major retailers find good things come from greener packaging,” Aug. 6) contained so much misinformation about PVC, which could have been easily corrected if your reporter had bothered to call relevant industry or government sources instead of relying so completely on misleading statements by pressure groups.
“It is outrageous to suggest that our industry would knowingly produce packaging that posed the kind of health risks your article listed. All such charges by pressure campaigners have been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Food and Drug Administration and comparable health agencies in Europe – and have been found to be false and misleading.
“PVC packaging poses no known health risks to consumers or to manufacturer employees or communities. Studies also show that PVC’s high energy efficiency makes it environmentally preferable to most of the competition. We would be pleased to provide the facts to any reader who may have concerns as a result of your article.”
For more information, go to www.vinylnewsservice.com or www.vinylindesign.com.
Send an email to John Brown of Vinyl News Service
1-877-234-9749
Keywords:
PVC, environment, Greenpeace
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