|
||||||||
| ||||||||
|
||||||||
| ||||||||
 | ||||||||
 Life cycle analysis of PVC medical tubing
 PVC shows good environmental performance in Swedish LCA-study 26-08-2008 In a report published by the European Commission in 2004, “Life Cycle Assessment of PVC and Principal Competing Materials,” it is mentioned that no comparative studies have been undertaken so far to compare PVC with possible competing materials within the medical sector. That report considered this to be a significant information gap. In 2008, the first steps have been taken to fill this gap. The Swedish Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) expert, Håkan Stripple, of the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, tries in an article to compare catheters manufactured in PVC, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and in a newly developed polyolefin based elastomer. From a PVC point of view, some interesting conclusions are drawn. The evaluation of the LCA results showed that the newly developed polyolefin based elastomer catheter had in general low environmental impact. Important in this respect in relation to PVC, his article says that, “the impact is significantly lower than the TPU catheter material and in the same level as the existing PVC bulk plastic material.” Later on in the article, it is reported that “compared with the PVC plastic material the new polyolefin based elastomer showed an almost equivalent environmental performance.” For the first time, there is now an LCA analysis that compares examples of PVC medical devices with alternatives and shows that PVC is actually among the most favourable with regard to environmental performance. If you have questions or if you want to comment on this article please fill in the below form: Questions / Comments |
||||||||
 | ||||||||
 | ||||||||
|
||||||||
| ||||||||
|
PVC PLASTICISERS
MEDIA
CONTACT