Toxicity

Product Information

Craft vinyl appears harmless, and some schools of thought actually claim that it is harmless unless heated. This has given rise to a debate on whether it is toxic or not. Westlake Chemical released the most vinyl chloride, reporting 185,807 pounds of air discharges; followed by Formosa Plastics with 86,595 pounds and Occidental Chemical with 59,679 pounds. According to the report, these numbers may be an undercount of pollution caused by Occidental Chemical and Westlake Chemical, since both companies have failed to disclose their production volumes to the public, calling them “confidential business information.” Oxy Vinyls has a history of accidents and near misses. Only in January, a tornado moved through the heart of the petrochemical industry east of Houston, with Oxy Vinyls’ VCM plant being in the storm’s path as charted by the National Weather Service. Vinyl’s other major chemical components – EDC and VCM – have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. VCM is classified as a known human carcinogen, and EDC is a probable human carcinogen. Hazardous by-products are formed throughout the PVC life cycle. At numerous points in the vinyl life cycle, very large quantities of hazardous organochlorine by-products are formed accidentally and released into the environment.

Toxicity Album Review | Pitchfork System of a Down: Toxicity Album Review | Pitchfork

The report shows that 19 PVC factories in the U.S. released more than 400,000 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air in 2021. Five companies – Westlake Chemical, Formosa Plastics, Occidental Chemical, Shintech and Orbia (Mexichem) – were the worst offenders. Together, they and made up 97% of the total vinyl chloride air pollution that year. Fortunately, heat transfer vinyl differs from conventional craft vinyl in toxicity. Because heat transfer vinyl is designed for apparel, it is held to different standards than conventional craft vinyl. Clothing with vinyl that is intended to be worn close to the skin or for young children and infants must meet rigorous demands for safety, making it the safer and less toxic choice. Even though there’s currently no PVC-free vinyl, there is a brand of craft vinyl that is more eco-friendly. Stahls’ Heat Transfer VinylSecondly, the machine user risks exposure to chlorine gas discharged during the cutting process. This gas is poisonous and an irritant that can cause severe damage to both the upper and lower respiratory organs. For perspective, this was a gas used in World War I. Is rejecting physical media and embracing streaming the answer? This is the wrong way of framing the issue, as digital media is physical media, too. Although digital audio files seem virtual, they rely on infrastructures of data storage, processing and transmission that have potentially higher greenhouse gas emissions than the petrochemical plastics used in the production of more obviously physical formats such as LPs – to stream music is to burn coal, uranium and gas. Pressure from consumers could force businesses that sell PVC products, such as Home Depot, to phase out their sale of the material and transition to safer alternatives, said Schade. An occupational and environmental exposure history will greatly aid the treating clinician, but should not delay treatment of acute, life-threatening toxicity. A focused history should determine toxin exposure, dose, route, time of exposure, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) to include respiratory protection. In acute exposure, symptoms may vary by the degree of exposure ranging from dizziness, shortness of breath, and headaches to CNS depression, respiratory arrest, and death with severe exposure. [21] [22] Streaming services such as Spotify have started releasing information about their environmental impact. While the numbers they publish suggest that their carbon footprint is decreasing, they only provide information about their own data centres. However, Spotify has decommissioned most of their own streaming infrastructure and subcontracted that work to the Google Cloud. So the amounts must be significantly higher than what is reported. As more and more streaming services subcontract their data storage and processing needs to cloud corporations, they also subcontract responsibility for the energy requirements and carbon emissions of digital music. As one streaming engineer told me: “As long as we have an ozone layer, we live in the cloud.”

System of a Down - Toxicity - (CD, Vinyl LP) | Rough Trade

Remember those beautiful wine glasses with personalized messages you got as a gift? How about the dozen cute little onesies with hilarious quotes and memes, that’s all probably vinyl. One such community is Mossville, Louisiana — surrounded by 16 industrial facilities, according to Christine Bennett, a former resident of Mossville, including two Westlake vinyl chloride factories. In 2021, both factories released a combined 26,407 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air. Before crafters fell madly in love with cutting vinyl sheets in their fancy Cricut, Cameo, and Silhouette machines, vinyl was already here. It is literally everywhere: in water pipes, electric cables, flooring, food containers, upholstery, clothing, etc.Vinyl chloride toxicity occurs mainly through occupational exposure during the polymerization of VCM into PVC; however, community exposures secondary to industrial spills have occurred. [9] Additionally, there are reports of cases of significant chronic exposure related to aerosol propellant usage in the 1960s and early 1970s, although VCM is no longer utilized in this manner. [3] In the developed world, significant occupational exposures are now rare. However, in developing economies, hepatic angiosarcoma has been documented in workers exposed over the last 10 to 20 years, the typical latent period for HAS, suggesting that significant occupational exposures have continued in some settings. [10] [11] Eco-friendly craft vinyl is made to be friendly to the environment as well as to human health. It is food grade, safe on the skin, and does not contain harmful plasticizers such as phthalates, lead, and BPA. Even the dyes used are “green”.

Vinyl Chloride Toxicity - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf Vinyl Chloride Toxicity - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

Meanwhile, according to data from the Association for American Railroads, rail shipments of chemicals used in plastic production grew by about a third over the past decade. Chemicals have become a particularly important business for railways because one of their traditional mainstays, coal transportation, has fallen steeply with the decline in the mining and burning of coal. This is during a time where fears over rail safety have increased, with unions claiming more frequent disasters are likely while private rail companies continue to prioritise profit over safety. It's a novelty to have this album on vinyl, none of the vinyl pressings come close to delivering the goods like the CD. That's not a bad thing right? I mean the CD is easily the least expensive format to own this on. There is no safe way to dispose of vinyl plastic materials, according to Toxic-Free Future. In the research report ‘Vinyl chloride and toxic waste’, the non-profit found that vinyl chloride and PVC plastic plants sent more than 20 million pounds (9,000 tonnes) of chlorinated waste to incinerators in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas in 2021. The incineration of chlorinated chemicals and materials can lead to the formation and release of dioxins. Dioxins are also released during accidental building and landfill fires involving PVC plastic.

A Formosa Plastics Plant located between the Mississippi River and Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. The new report shows that 19 PVC factories in the U.S. — including Formosa — released more than 400,000 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air in 2021. Scientists have told E&T that it could be decades before long-term health impacts of the accident are fully understood. They are concerned about the release of carcinogenic chemicals into the atmosphere, as well as into the soil and potentially, the food chain.