In 1987, the town of Reveilletown, Louisiana became so contaminated that all 106 residents were relocated and every structure torn down, even the church. Management of the nearby Dow Chemical factory followed suit soon after, buying out the entire town of Morrisonville, Louisiana. By cutting PVC use, you are striking a blow for environmental justice, and supporting the life and death struggle being waged today by local residents on the front lines of the grassroots toxics movement. Because PVC on its own is almost useless, it must be combined with a number of additives in order to give it the properties desired in the final product. Because these additives are not chemically bound to the PVC, the PVC product itself can be immediately dangerous to the consumer.
Additives can wash out, pass into other materials or be lost to air.
Examples of potential human exposure are as numerous as the PVC products themselves. Children teethe on vinyl toys which contain toxic additives. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning in 1996 when it discovered that PVC miniblinds were giving off lead dust, which can have brain-damaging effects on children. Increasing scientific evidence suggests that many of these chemicals are disrupting the hormone systems of wildlife, leading to birth defects, infertility, reproductive difficulties and developmental problems in offspring. There is increasing evidence that the same trends are being observed in humans world-wide, including decreased sperm counts, rising rates of certain cancers, deformities of the reproductive organs, mental problems such as attention deficit disorder, and weakened immune systems.