Old Wounds

Schedule 40 PVC used for drinking water; Photo Credit: Amazon

Aloha,

Normally the author would leave his readers more time between challenges but recent ‘developments’ leave Pete no wiggle room. This “discussion” will honor (not that those past don’t, necessarily), the statement proclaiming this blog: “Keeping readers abreast of new developments in plumbing materials,​ products, tools and practices.”  In the author’s opinion this following ‘discussion’ is the most important and pressing topic he has ever posted to the Pipe.
 
Sump’n Has Come Up

A new-ish concern (of the plumbing realm) has just recently morphed into an immediate concern. The immediacy relates to human health. The author was once approached to act as an expert witness in a multi-million dollar court case involving a ‘failing’ plastic DWV pipe which caused much structural damage. Today, another plastic plumbing pipe is facing new scrutiny for another concern: adverse health risks. That pipe is Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC). (Along with sister CPVC). (The prefix C translates chlorinated.)

The recently ‘sofa re-ensconced’ author just had to deal with this. My apologies. For decades (forty or more years?) the plumbing ‘world’ has tussled (to put it mildly) with a safety concern involving PVC pipe for drinking water. For the last ten (or more) years the argument has more or less been sleeping. A report by Emily Le Coz of USA TODAY from April 18th 2023 recently helped peel the lid off the ‘bitter jam’, though. And, Brian Bienkowski, of the Environmental Health News also recently stated (regarding the EPA’s forthcoming reaction to latent published public warnings involving safety of PVC carrying drinking water):  “This is one of the most important chemical review processes ever undertaken by the EPA.”  (The bolding was mine.)
 
The Everywhere Plastic

PVC plastic has found ‘more than many’ applications in modern life. Plumbing pipe represents about half the market for use of the plastic. According to TheWorldCounts.com “…global production of PVC is 54 million pounds annually, or 7 kilos per every single person on the planet.”  It is found in everything from medical supplies to clothing to credit cards. The list is endless. The argument involving plumbing pipe (which, to date, has never really been settled) is that chemical components making up plumbers’ PVC pipe leach into the water that passes through it. (Opposed to concerns that in-ground contaminants passed through the wall of PB (Poly Butylene). (PB caused astronomical dollar and environmental turmoil, especially to municipalities who had many miles of the stuff buried under asphalt and concrete. The PB pipe, due mostly to the metal compression rings used in its joinery, blew apart, and necessitated its excavation. In a few other occasions there had also been pipe wall failure.

Me and you could be doing a PB piping project on your ¼ acre and find that pipe failures were going to cost us a week’s wages as we dug up the stuff and used improved metal crimping rings to replace the failed design. That’s horrific enough, but can you imagine the frowns on countless public agencies’ “managers” contemplating the extent of the agony they were about to have to deal with: $Engineers; $private civil engineering companies; $equipment storage, $waste disposal, the list goes on and on. What used up years to install, and then extend, the PB now needed to all be dug up. Then, roads and landscape replacement. How fat is our budget?

For PVC, there was enough concern with PVC in August of 1974 that The Consumer Product Safety Commission banned it from aerosols.  When the author was writing Plumbing A House, the published hazard of PVC pipe application (at that time) was health risks involved with using the powerful chemical agents (primer & cement). This coupled both breathing dangers and skin contact concerns. Now, this more modern concern with leaching adds a whole other twist.

Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) was accidentally synthesized in Germany in 1872 by chemist Eugen Baumann. But, it wasn’t  until 1926 when in the U.S. a very bright fellow by the name of Waldo Semon teamed up with the the B.F. Goodrich Company and created additives that made PVC more flexible, and easier to manufacture and the modified material quickly went world wide.
 
The Contest

“It seems like forever” there have been studies by ‘experts’ that support both the con and pro of this argument. Usually the con side publishes more damaging claims of chemical poisoning, and the pro side says they did similar to same studies and the results always showed no discernible harmful levels of said compounds. (But something tells the author that maybe this time that won’t be the case.). We now have been served with too many new studies continuing the con’s argument for health hazards involving use of PVC pipe for freshwater to not want a definitive answer.  Will the latest warning articles prevail?  Only time will tell.

A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council was recently quoted: “…PVC used for delivering drinking water is certified by NSF Foundation to conform to EPA safety regulations.”  Dominique Joseph, EPA spokeswoman, told Emily Coz of USA Today: “…the agency has no requirements for plumbing materials except that they be free of lead.”  Where does this leave us?  We are about to see if a U.S. Government agency established to protect the health of the Nation ‘passes the buck’ and leaves our future health in question by doing nothing.
 
Looking Back

The author was once approached by a party, in a multi-million dollar court case, to act as an expert witness. This case also involved a type of plumbing pipe, a pipe used for drainage. The issue was not a public health one, but rather property damage. Pete was also once contacted by attorneys representing pipe manufacturers, letting him know that they were keenly interested how their clients’ were going to be portrayed in the author’s soon to be published “Plumbing A House”.
 
No Pockets, Let Alone Deep Ones

Pete, Pete the Plumber, the author, yours truly, Dr. Waterheater wished to raise this question of PVC remaining a prominent ‘force’ in our drinking water plumbing because he wanted to reiterate: This question of the published health dangers of PVC pipe for drinking water will be the EPA’s biggest test of their accountability in their history.  And because the author feels that the topic of this Pipe is more ‘newsworthy’ than any other in the collection (especially involving your health and safety) he wanted to provide the reader with the following list of resources from which he consulted for this article and recommends your further reading.
 
 
The Goods

New report warns against using PVC pipes in drinking water systems: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/04/18/new-report-warns-against-using-pvc-pipes-drinking-water-systems/11688737002/
 
Is PVC Toxic?: https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/toxic-exposures/use-of-chemicals/is-pvc-toxic
 
EPA begins review of PVC ingredient vinyl chloride, which could lead to restrictions or ban: https://www.ehn.org/vinyl-chloride-pvc-ban-2666602999.html
 
PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride): http://avemwater.com/variations/pvc-polyvinyl-chloride/
 
Overall View of PVC Viability: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00407-8.pdf