There is no questioning the popularity of PVC. It is a hugely successful material. Why? Because it is tough, durable, and it is easy to work with and you can print onto it easily. It isn’t a difficult material to manufacture so therefore, it is easily standardised. What you see is what you get! However, the main benefit of PVC is economic: It’s cheap and widely available. But, it really doesn’t have to be this way.

The problem is that in environmental terms, PVC is one of the worst offenders for polluting our planet, and in a world, with growing concerns of climate change and the impact of consumerism on the planet this is a concerning fact.

According to Eco-Watch, PVC is bad because PVC, polyvinyl chloride, or vinyl, is found in a range of products, from children’s toys to building materials to food packaging. Vinyl chloride, the chemical used to make PVC, has been described as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. PVC, because of its high chlorine content, creates toxic pollution in the form of dioxins and furans, which accumulate in animals’ fat and up through the food chain and the contamination of farmland. Exposure to PVC often includes potential contact with phthalates, which also have serious health effects. Besides health problems, there are a number of negative environmental impacts from the production and use of this material, such as problems in disposing of PVC, which is often very difficult (and not financially viable) to recycle. The recycling process itself has other environmental consequences you might not have even thought about.

According to Statista, of 29.1 million tonnes of plastic waste produced in the EU, only 4.72 million tonnes is recycled in the EU. A further 4.72 million tonnes is shipped outside of the EU to be recycled, although there is growing evidence significant amounts of this material is actually dumped into landfill or incinerated. 12.41 million tonnes are put into Energy Recovery while 7.24 million tonnes make it into Landfill.

We believes that recycling isn’t the answer. Maybe using PVC free banner coatings in the first place is a better option. So, seeing a future that has to be more responsible in terms of material usage, We have invested in developing a range of really cool, eco-friendly and sustainable PVC free banner that can be safely disposed of in any of Europe’s waste to energy plants.

This article comes from futureprint edit released