ENVIRONMENT/PVC: MEPS WANT INDUSTRY TO PAY.

The "Green Paper on Environmental Issues relating to PVC" aimed to launch a public debate to help the Commission decide what attitude to take to PVC waste. It makes a scientific assessment of the impact of PVC on the environment throughout its lifecycle and considers a number of options to reduce the most serious effects. The report looks at PVC products, the use of additives and waste management.Highlighting the problems caused by incinerating PVC, the Environment Committee wants the European Commission to put forward legislation requiring PVC products to be collected separately from other waste. The report also calls for research in the field of incineration, to include ways of recovering harmful hydrogen chloride. Hard and soft PVC should be separated, says the report, with hard PVC being landfilled because of its high chlorine content and soft PVC being incinerated as otherwise there is a risk that phthalates will be released.Additives often used in PVC, such as cadmium and lead, are toxic. The Committee regards the undertakings given by the PVC industry in this area as insufficient and therefore wants Community legislation to phase out cadmium and lead-based stabilisers and to ban imports of them from third countries. On the subject of phthalates, which are often used as plasticisers (for manufacturing flexible PVC...