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Once
the PVC products have been used they can be disposed of safely by
recycling, incineration or burial methods.
- Recycling
can be carried out in two ways; either by sorting the waste plastics
by hand or more recently automatically, this is known as Mechanical
recycling. Alternatively the polymer can be decomposed at high
temperatures and then the chemical components can be recovered
and recycled. This second method is known as Feedstock recycling.
- Incineration
reduces the amount of PVC waste going to landfill. Burning of
PVC does produce toxic gases such as hydrogen chloride but none
are any more toxic than carbon monoxide and PVC produces no more
deadly dioxins than say the burning of wood. However, the incinerators
are equipped with pollution control equipment to minimize the
release of emissions to the environment.
- Landfill
is carried out for the PVC plastics that can not be recycled.
Controlled landfill does not cause significant risk to the environment.
To
summarise: PVC depletes fossil reserves, and releases toxic gases
and dioxins when manufacture and incineration processes. However,
PVC can be recycled, it is cheap, is not very flammable and has
many uses some of which have helped save lives. These later pros
for PVC plastic outweigh the few cons by far.
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