Vinyl is an excellent material for packaging because it is safe, sturdy, economical, easily manufactured and environmentally responsible. In rigid or flexible form, vinyl is used to package a wide range of products, including:
Documents, Signs, Consumer Products Electronic Media, Household Goods,
Personal Care Products, Toys
Medicine, Food,
Health Care Devices, Liquids and more!
Vinyl packaging has major benefits including:
- Energy Efficiency - Vinyl uses at least 20 percent less energy than
common alternatives.1
- Low Use of Fossil Fuel - Fifty-seven percent of the PVC molecule is
derived from salt and only 43 percent from natural gas or crude oil, while 100
percent of traditional alternatives come from fossil fuel.
- Safety - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the use of
vinyl in packaging, provided residual vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) levels are
below 10 parts per billion (PPB) in rigid PVC and five ppb in plasticized,
flexible PVC.
- Environmentally responsible - Life cycle analyses done by the
European Commission and Plastics Europe indicate that vinyl often is the best
environmental choice for packaging.2
- Low dioxin source - Vinyl manufacturing accounts for less than half
of one percent of dioxin emissions, according to U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency data.3
- Safe manufacturing - Government data show that vinyl workers' injury
and illness rates are less than the average for all manufacturing.
Vinyl is truly one material with infinite uses! Ask us for more
information.
Credits:
1 Plastics Europe Eco Profiles
http://www.plasticseurope.org/content/default.asp?PageID=392
2 Life Cycle Assessment of PVC and of Principal Competing
Materials, commissioned by the European Commission, July 2004.
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/chemicals/sustdev/pvc-final_report_lca.pdf
3 U.S. EPA Inventory of Sources of Dioxin in the United States
including poorly quantified sources
http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=159286
The information above was taken from The
Vinyl Institute. Visit www.vinylinfo.org
for more information.
