Document baR10Yk48Oby6wR3X6MjLbwgD

Modern Plastics, March 1974 Questions on PVC meat-wrap film persist, but the answers are coming If you remember your childhood poems, there's one that dwells on the cumulative impact of "little drops of water, little grains of sand ...By this time, producers and users of polyvinyl chloride must feel that the "little drops of wa ter" represented by isolated reports of consumer/worker health hazard are beginning to show signs of developing into the mighty ocean of the same verse. The danger, of course, is that the health-safety issue could become an emotional one. If it does, it wouldn't be the first time that industry has been put into a restrictive box by regulations stampeded into the lawbooks under the banner of consumer or worker protection, without a full evaluation of the situation. Remember the urgency of the 1971 New York city tax penalizing plastic containers? It needn't work out that way, though. As noted in our last issue (Feb. MP, p. 18), well-publicized concern about the potential toxicity of pvc--first for liquor bottles, through residual monomer migration; then for meat-wrap film, through thermal degradation in hot-wire cutoff--indi cate that it is time for industry to make an all-out effort to help resolve the issue. pvc film has for years been in wide and unquestioned use as a supermarket-level meat wrap. But a nation butcher-workmen union's petition to the Occupation Safety & Health Administration, calling for a ban or sha, control on the material in retail packaging operations, r suited directly from a recent (November 1973) article the Journal of the American Medical Assn., suggesting causal relationship in the fact that three female worke had developed respiratory symptoms after exposure to tl fumes developed from plasticized pvc film cut with a hi wire on sealing equipment. However tenuous the evidence of suspected health ha ard may be, such publicity can be harmful to mdusti growth unless effectively countered. This is particularly v in light of the paucity of historical documentation on tl actual health effects of long-term exposure to vcm ar many other materials. It's the root of the problem. Meantime, OSha has taken no direct action on the umc petition to ban pvc film from retail meat-wrap operation And film manufacturers reiterate that normal workphu controls--including adequate ventilation and maintenant of hot-wire cutoff temperature at manufacturer-rccon mended levels--are all that's needed to eliminate the "ha ard." It should be noted that allegations of health haza in thermal decomposition of pvc film were investigated 1 public-health authorities in 1969, again in 1970. In both i stances, findings were that there is no problem und proper use conditions. Nor. reportedly, has there ever bet a question about the health safety of pvc film in produ wrapping, for example. And, going a decade or so furth back in lime, similar questions, with similar results, we raised about the health safety of thermal decomposition cellophane and rubber hydrochloride film. HYDE group of ICI paints division has prepared for a big growth in the' use of pvc sheet for roofing and cladding, following favourable changes in the Building Regulations, by increasing its rang . Three new corrugated profiles have been added to its Sintilon range -- now claimed to be the widest of any pvc sheet. Said John Thompson, building products manager. Our range of profiles is now capable of meeting the great majority of industries' trans parent roofing requirement' / As well as flat sheet, the Sintilon range consists of seven profiles, six which - match leading asbestos, corrugated iron and alumi nium shapes, and the seventh which is a special box profile. The three latest -- Monad, Double Six and Major Tile -- are designed for low pitched roofs. Information is available in vie first ever Sintilon spea ker's manual which in 28 pages gives product data, de sign information and installa tion methods, says the firm. For details: circle 131. Plastics ^ Rubber Weekly, June 14, 1974 TOKYO -- Plastics `bam boo' is to be made by a technique developed by Dc.oki Kagaku Kogvo Co Ltd, together with Maruhachl Kasei Kogvo, hv ex trusion with a complete, continuously moulded tube-joint combination. Th product, which is claimed to be much stronger than existing plastics tubing and is to be marketed under the name Guntbal llake, will replarc natural bamboo, widely used in agriculture, fish ing, architecture and de coration. Problems have been encountered with the natural version tending to rot or crack. Moulded from a special ly formulated pvc, the new product Is claimed to be especially remarkable for Its continuous extrusion of joint and lube where the tube between any two joints can be hermetically scaled, giving great buoyancy and good flexu ral strength. OLI 7518