CAMPAIGN INTEGRATION ON PVC/DIOXIN/PBT-FREE POLICY /INCINERATION
Summary
History: In 1995 the Dioxin Campaign was formed at a Roundtable in Virginia with 40 community leaders. The first campaign effort was the publication of Dying from Dioxin. In the spring of 1996, 650 environmental health and justice activists met in Louisiana for the 3rd Citizens Conference on Dioxin and Other Synthetic Hormone Disrupters. One of the strategic conference outcomes was a commitment to ensure that the Dioxin Reassessment was finalized without being subverted by industry manipulation of the science. To this end, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice and the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign played a central in tracking the Reassessment process and maintaining a network of activists to weigh in on crucial moments during the process and keep the pressure on the EPA. The results of CHEJÕs commitment is that the science on health impacts is very strong in the Dioxin Reassessment and gives environmental health advocates strong backing in advocating for policies to defend the publicÕs health from dioxin exposure. Unfortunately, while the science in the Reassessment is strong, the Bush Administration has been successful in burying the final report in the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture bureaucracies, so the final report is still not finalized.
Another strategic conference outcome was the recognition that eliminating the production and use of PVC plastics was a key goal in order to eliminate the continued chemical trespass of dioxin into the global community. Conference participants also decided that eliminating PVC from the health care industry was a strategic target for the campaign, since medical waste incinerators were one of the top two sources of dioxin air emissions and physicians take an oath to Òdo no harmÓ. Six months later, 23 organizations gathered in California to launch Health Care Without Harm.
One of the founding goals of HCWH was clear in its strategic understanding of the PVC issue: Òto phase out PVC plastics and persistent toxic chemicals in healthcare and build momentum for a broader PVC phase out campaign.Ó
When HCWH was founded, Greenpeace was the lead organization advocating for a PVC phase out. At the time, several progressive European firms had committed to go PVC-free, but in the U.S. the issue was seen as radical and marginal.
In the six years since the founding of HCWH:
Three years ago, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Greenpeace and HCWH organized a PVC strategy meeting in Washington, D.C. thirty activists attended the meeting. One of the key outcomes of the meeting was recognition that there was momentum to campaign on PVC in the building/construction industry, which accounts for about 80% of all PVC use in the United States. A year later, 25 organizations gathered in California to launch the Healthy Building Network.
HBN is working with architects, designers, builders and manufacturers to phase out PVC use in pipes, flooring, wall covering, roofing and other building applications. In the past year, HBN has forced a confrontation in the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize PVC as material to be avoided by ÒgreenÓ architects and planners.
HBN is also working with HCWH to win PVC-free construction policies for hospitals nationwide, since both coalitions understand the importance of the healthcare industry to lead the general stampede away from PVC. Both groups have worked with the American Society for Hospital Engineers (ASHE) to develop guidelines for hospital renovation that specifically mention avoiding PVC as a building material. The nationally recognized architect Bill McDonough is the keynote speaker at HCWHÕs Clean Med conference in October in Chicago. HBN and HCWH are also working to leverage a relationship between the US Green Building Council and HCWH member hospitals that would pressure the USGBC to develop an environmental health framework for its green building standards, especially as they relate to healthcare institutions.
While HCWH and HBN have been gaining strength and mainstreaming the PVC issue, Greenpeace, both in Europe and the U.S., has continued pressuring a variety of companies to phase out their use of PVC in product manufacturing and packaging. In the past five years, a broad set of companies in a variety of sectors have agreed to phase out PVC. These include Mattel, General Motors (car interiors), Ford Motors, Timberland, Nike, IKEA (furniture maker) and Sony. Most recently, Greenpeace worked with CHEJ and the producers of Blue Vinyl to convince VictoriaÕs Secrets and Bath and Body Works to stop using PVC packaging. A full list of companies is on the Greenpeace website.
As all these market initiatives were moving forward, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, and a broad array of environmental justice organizations and networks fought a major campaign to stop a major PVC expansion fight against the Shintech Corporation in St. James Parish in Louisiana. This high visibility struggle, which forced Shintech to abandon their plans in St. James Parish and relocate to Plaquemine in a scaled back plan, helped create an atmosphere both in the state and nationally that PVC is a dangerous and unwanted product.
Environmental justice advocates and Greenpeace have also been instrumental in raising up the dioxin Òbody burdenÓ of residents in Mossville/Lake Charles, Louisiana, who live in a community surrounded by vinyl manufacturing facilities (as highlighted in Blue Vinyl). Pressure from environmental justice advocates were successful in getting the attention of both the EPAÕs National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) and the Agency of Toxics Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to investigation the high dioxin levels in the Lake Charles area.
Another example of the benefits of collaboration is seen in HBNÕs successful campaign to eliminate arsenic and cadmium from pressure treated wood. Using established environmental health principles and network, HBN was able to focus various public policy initiatives and grassroots activism into clear market signals to the national pressure treated wood market, resulting in a voluntary concession from chemical manufacturers which in turn allowed EPA to restrict arsenic and cadmium use without objection from the chemical industry.
So in the past five years, environmental health advocates have put significant pressure on PVC markets in healthcare and consumer products, while environmental justice advocates have waged significant battles in PVC production communities in Louisiana and raised the negative profile of PVC in the chemical industryÕs key home state.
Background: It is clear that in the last five years the PVC phase out strategy has moved from the political margins to the corporate mainstream. In that same period, the scientific validation of the public health dangers of both dioxin and phthalates (used to soften PVC) has matured and there is now a broad global consensus, enshrined in the Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants, to eliminate dioxin from the global environment. The campaign to win the Stockholm Treaty was won by a coalition of groups that included Pesticide Action Network, the International POPs Elimination Network, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (which grew out of the POPs negotiating sessions), Greenpeace, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, and other allies.
The purpose of this memo is to lay out a framework and strategic focus to build greater synergy between these interlocking campaigns as well as join these efforts to related campaigns happening across the United States on healthy schools, clean computers, clean cars, dioxin policy, procurement policies focused on persistent and/or bio-accumulative toxins and incineration. In this way we can exercise the power of our movement to win a much larger victory against the chemical industry and set ourselves up to fundamentally challenge industryÕs continued chemical trespass into our environment, our communities, our food and our bodies.
This synergy could be accomplished with all groups having plenty of space to conduct work in their own names, claim credit for their own work and seek funding for their own piece of the puzzle. This level of collaboration, however, requires a new level of coordination between the campaigns and initiatives described below.
Premise: the basic proposal is that we focus on the PVC lifecycle as a strategic focus for our campaigning efforts and commit to eliminating the market for PVC in the United States and support groups in Europe and the global south to extend this elimination strategy worldwide. Given the tremendous work going on in the US and elsewhere already focused on PVC and incineration, it would be smart to build off this work and expand it to win on a suite of issues related to PVC production, use and disposal. The issues related to the PVC lifecycle that we can win on include the following:
As discussed above, we already have many pieces of this campaign in some stage of development, while other components are well into maturity.
Market Campaigns
Healthy Building Network: The vast majority of PVC is used in building materials. PVC pipes alone account for more than 50% of all PVC manufactured in the US. Recent developments in the field of "green building" present unprecedented strategic opportunities for our campaign. The most obvious development is that "green building" has gone mainstream. Renowned green architect William McDonough has been the subject of a 2 page story in TIME magazine, has authored a briskly selling book entitled "Cradle to Cradle," and been the subject of a documentary film - all within the last year. More importantly, the mainstreaming of the green building concept has produced a market for a "green building code" of sorts which is being developed by a membership based NGO known as the US Green Building Council. The USGBC has developed a green building code of sorts that is called LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design); LEED in turn is being adopted by many companies, institutions and political jurisdictions as their own green building code. The evidence suggests that the Federal Government may someday soon adopt LEED for federal facilities.
The Healthy Building Network has forced the USGBC to consider an amendment to the LEED program that would effectively disqualify PVC as a green building material. The stakes for the movement are obvious. If PVC is disqualified, as a green building material, our appeals to build PVC-free will catch the wave of the up and coming green building trend and our job will be much easier. If PVC is not disqualified, the green building trend will work against us because PVC-free buildings will not be recognized as anything special in the field of green building.
HBN is also working with HCWH on eliminating PVC from hospital buildings, engaged in a model hospital reconstruction in San Francisco to make it PVC-free, and is trying to influence the Green Building Ordinance in San Francisco to avoid PVC plastics in city construction projects.
Greenpeace: Greenpeace has a long standing interest in PVC in both Europe and the US and has been active in supporting PVC production communities in Louisiana and focusing on getting PVC out of a broad range of consumer products. Greenpeace has a good activist network that can stimulate letters and faxes on a number of target companies for PVC free policies. Additionally, Greenpeace remains active in the European Union to push for continent wide policies against PVC. Greenpeace has a large outreach capacity and can use its media muscle to target average consumers to pressure manufacturers to eliminate PVC from their products and packaging.
Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign: The campaign is collaborating with Greenpeace to take the marketing campaigns to the street level and create a ground swell of educated consumers.
Health Care Without Harm: HCWH is working with hospital systems, Group Purchasing Organizations, nurses and physicians to move the market away from PVC medical products. Kaiser Permanente and several Catholic healthcare systems are already moving down this road. The US National Toxicology Program, the US Food and Drug Administration, and Health Canada have all published risk assessments of DEHP (the phthalate used in PVC medical products and other PVC applications) in the last year stating that DEHP is a reproductive toxin and that it is especially toxic to the male reproductive system. The market for PVC medical products is clearly moving, so HCWH has expanded its focus to include PVC-free hospital construction and renovation.
Computer Take Back Campaign: The Computer TakeBack Campaign is less than a year old but has gained ground in educating the media, policy makers and segments of the general public about the potential human health impacts of improper electronics disposal because of the hazards contained in them, including PVC plastic, and promoting extender producer responsibility in the computer industry. The campaign has released a groundbreaking report and video, ÒExporting Harm,Ó which documents the horrific conditions under which electronic wastes are ÒprocessedÓ in areas of China. This processing includes the open burning of plastics and PVC coated wires. As has also been documented recently, air pollution from China and other Asian nations makes its way to North America in a weekÕs time, or less. Electronics brand owners and electronics recyclers are now scrambling to show that they donÕt export e-waste to Asia, and the report may help reduce PVC and dioxin pollution resulting from US e-waste exports. In the coming year, the Campaign hopes to have passed legislation in at least three states requiring producer takeback for discarded consumer electronics (starting with CRTs and computer equipment), as well as enacting or clarifying e-waste landfill and incineration bans in an additional 5-10 states.
Clean Car Campaign: Modeled after their successful mercury car campaign, the Clean Car Campaign (coordinated by six environmental groups) in the US and Europe has led to all major auto manufacturers starting limited phase outs of PVC use in auto interiors. The most significant public announcement was made by GM in late 1999, committing to phase out the use of PVC for interior panels by 2004. GM's 2000 Bonneville is the first vehicle available in North America that uses a full soft non-PVC instrument panel, which is 100% recyclable. The successful completion of the GM phase out would eliminate 28 million pounds of PVC from GM vehicles. Other manufacturers have also installed PVC free instrument panels in select models. The key driver to date has been superior product performance of non-PVC alternatives. Politically, the ongoing implementation of the European Union End-of-Life Vehicle Directive remains a key driver for the industry globally. An upcoming white paper will target key PVC automotive applications in terms of environmental impact and available alternatives. This would include, for example, an expansion of GM's announced phase out for interior panels to include PCV cabling and undercoating.
Policy Initiatives
Policy Initiatives on Persistent and/or Bio-accumulative Toxins (P&BTs): through the Coming Clean collaboration and the Dioxin Campaign, much work has been done to develop some policy options for winning initiatives at the state and local level on the phase out of P&BTs. In the coming years, some version of these policies will be introduced in the following states at a minimum: California, Washington State and Maine. In at least Maine and Washington State, dioxin will be one of the P&BTs targeted for early elimination and some action against PVC will be on the regulatory and green procurement agenda. In this way, we can use the P&BT policy initiatives will push the anti-PVC agenda at the state policy level. San Francisco and Seattle are two cities where this agenda will also be developed.
Green procurement is an effort to address environmental health issues and build markets for healthier materials by incorporating environmental and health policy goals into institutional procurement specifications. Green procurement specifications can be private (e.g. corporate procurement policies) or public policy making enterprises (e.g. Governmental policies for state or local government, schools, hospitals and other institutions.) One important distinction between public and private efforts is that public policies such as low bid and minimum competitive bidding requirements may unintentionally make it more difficult to introduce green products (which may have only a few manufacturers and cost more.)
Green procurement policies typically contain a number of similar strategies including: encouraging purchase of recycled materials; avoiding toxic hazards (typically by reference to lists of substances to be avoided gleaned from EPA lists.) Environmental health activists are increasingly targeting procurement policies as a means of achieving specific public policy goals. These initiatives can be overtly linked to environmental health campaigns, e.g. where a municipal procurement policy is akin to "implementing legislation" following on to an anti-dioxin resolution. They can also be fashioned as more mainstream stand-alone "good government" initiatives.
One appealing aspect of the procurement policy strategy is that it can be less contentious than compulsory environmental or health legislation. Procurement policies are typically under control of the executive branch of government, which can expedite good policy making by progressive public officials. Even with less sympathetic officials, these policies can gain substantial support because they are competitive, not compulsory, and because they can be difficult to oppose publicly (e.g. how does one oppose a policy which gives a preference to non-carcinogenic materials over a carcinogenic material, all else being equal). There may also be multiple ways of targeting strategic products for phase-out, e.g. by targeting recycled content, chemicals in the product, by-products of production. INFORM has been working with state and local officials across the country on PBT-free procurement strategies.
Based on significant advancements, there exists new momentum for statewide policy achievements on PVC and Dioxin in Maine, Washington State, and California and for municipal policy achievements in Seattle and San Francisco, among other areas. Through the leadership of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the state hospital association and department of environmental protection have agreed to a plan to help hospitals eliminate mercury and PVC from all 39 state hospitals. This first in the nation wholesale state commitment provides momentum for legislating PVC as a hazardous waste. Washington State is a national leader in its commitment to phase out P&BTs by 2020. This provides explicit opportunities, under the leadership of the Washington Toxics Coalition, to advance anti-PVC/Dioxin policies. WTC will launch a P&BT-free Seattle campaign to push prohibitions on PVC purchasing and disposal by the city and public utilities. Already, San Francisco County has adopted a Green Building ordinance that will impact materials selection for future developments, while San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland have passed comprehensive dioxin resolutions. The Center for Environmental Health is drafting PVC procurement legislation for the city of San Francisco while a broad coalition of groups is collaborating on plans for statewide policy action.
Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign: this campaign, facilitated by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), has been focused on winning the release of the EPAÕs Dioxin Reassessment so that we can all build policy and market campaigns based on its science. CHEJ did a great job of ensuring the science was not high jacked by the chemical industry during the reassessment process, but the Bush Administration has nevertheless been successful in burying the dioxin report in the bowels of the EPA, FDA and the USDA. As a result, the campaign has re-oriented the activism on dioxin issues to implementation policies on the local, state and institutional level. The four initiatives campaign partners have agreed to focus on the four are:
To do this successfully, the Dioxin Campaign will need to work with a broad coalition of organizations and institutions. For example, linking up with the Childproofing Our Communities Campaign/Healthy Schools efforts and establish similar procurement policies within school districts, linking up with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment to win similar policies in churches and synagogues nationwide, and link with local and state P&BT campaigns to use dioxin as a poster child and a target chemical for umbrella P&BT policy initiatives.
Waste End Strategies
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/ Grassroots Recycling Network -
Incinerator/Solid Waste Campaigns: HCWH has been successful in creating a political climate where medical waste incinerators are being shut down around the country. Since 1994, the number of incinerators nationwide has dropped from approximately 5,000 to 760 in 2001. It is important to note that this drop has happened without a final Dioxin Reassessment. It was enough to use the science and source inventory in the draft Dioxin Reassessment to target medical waste incinerators and to push for safer waste treatment options. The Global Alliance Against Incineration (GAIA), Grassroots Recycling Network (GRN) and the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign are quite excited to build model campaigns against solid waste incinerators (the largest identified dioxin sources) in some locations where they could demonstrate the efficacy of Òzero waste materials strategies.Ó These local campaigns against incinerators and in support of zero waste could also be wrapped in this larger campaign on P&BT/dioxin and against PVC. It would create another front on incinerators (since there are some local campaigns to close them down) and create greater opportunities to advance both recycling efforts and a safe materials policy in some core locations.
Recycling Campaigns: The fact that PVC cannot be effectively recycled should be a major asset to efforts to stigmatize PVC. As a movement, we have not developed this strategy effectively to date. Consider, for example, that it is axiomatic in "green" purchasing or procurement guidelines that consumers should prioritize purchases of materials with high "recycled content" and with a high potential to be recycled. It may be possible to exclude PVC purchases on these grounds alone, even without debating the toxicity of PVC production, use and disposal.
PVC packaging is effectively banned from municipal recycling programs, but it is rarely portrayed that way to the public. Instead, recyclers are simply told that some plastics are accepted for recycling while others arenÕt. But PVC NEVER is. PVC has been declared officially a "contaminant" to municipal plastics recycling by the American Society of Plastics Recyclers.
Industrial/commercial PVC recycling programs fall into 2 categories.
1) Fig leafs: where a tiny bit of actual downcycling or recycling (which often masks additional usage of virgin resins anyway) is used as a fig leaf to hide the overall failure of PVC recycling efforts. (e.g. carpet backing, window frames)
2) Complete Greenwash: Sham programs that are nothing more than subsidized public relations programs;
An authoritative report that makes this case and "officially" declares PVC un-recyclable would greatly aid our collective efforts to ostracize PVC. Additionally, a campaign orchestrated by the Grassroots Recycling Network and the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign to influence local and state recycling programs to treat PVC as a hazardous waste would have an enormous market impact that would raise all other campaigning efforts.
Chemical Production Campaigns
Strategic Focus on Dow Chemical: a component of a larger dioxin/PVC/P&BT campaign is a focus on a major chemical producer that is intimately implicated in this whole set of issues. Dow Chemical provides the perfect corporate target for this campaign. There are several reasons to target Dow:
A larger initiative on Dow would allow a strategic focus on their contribution to dioxin contamination, PVC production and general P&BT production issues. In more specific terms, we think it would be important to develop a global demand on Dow for the phase out production of products and processes that create dioxin. Such a campaign has the potential of not only uniting groups working on this suite of issues in the United States, but could link to a number of global organizations and networks working on dioxin/POPs/clean production and incineration issues. Some likely partners include GAIA, International POPs Elimination Network, Pesticide Action Network, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign.
There are many components that could be folded into this campaign, including work in some targeted PVC production communities where Dow is a major polluter (Plaquemine (LA) Midland (MI)).
Highlighting the Burden on Other PVC Production Communities: In addition to Dow production sites, there are many other communities in Louisville (KY), Lake Charles (LA), Calvert City (KY), etc, where the PVC industry has created a public health and environmental nightmare. African American residents in Lake Charles have been shown to have elevated levels of dioxin in their blood. An additional campaign component that would be targeted to supporting local campaigns against PVC manufacturers would both put a human face on the chemical holocaust caused by the chemical industry and build strategic alliances with important environmental justice struggles happening around the country. There is already ongoing work in some of these communities, but it needs to be expanded and brought into the market and policy campaigns in a more direct way. As a public education tool, Blue Vinyl did a tremendous job in this regard and needs to be further built upon throughout the campaign.
The recent relocation victory against Shell in Norco, Louisiana provides a recent example of how local environmental health and justice groups can work together with state and national environmental allies to win a victory against a major corporation in support of local demands. There are some important lessons to learn here, as well as using this victory to create leverage for other local campaigns against vinyl manufacturers and other polluters in Louisiana.
Science Component: due to the efforts of CHEJ, Natural Resources Defense Council, Science and Environmental Health Network, HCWH, Greenpeace and others, the scientific case on both dioxin and phthalates is strong and getting stronger. There is clearly enough evidence to suggest a precautionary approach to the continued use of both PVC and phthalates.
The chemical industryÕs principal intellectual front group against this precautionary position is the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. HCRAÕs director John Graham was a key reviewer on the EPAÕs Dioxin Reassessment and was the chief apologist for the chemical industry, essentially arguing for normalizing general dioxin contamination in the American people. Graham has since gone on to bring his comparative risk methodology to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and is currently the official hatchet man for the Bush administration on all regulations related to health and the environment.
In the past year, a coalition of groups, including Public Citizen, NRDC, Center for the Science for the Public Interest, the Dioxin Campaign and HCWH have targeted both Graham and the Harvard Center for their conflict of interests in providing political cover for the chemical industry. HCRA accepts significant funding from the Chlorine Chemistry Council (CCC), as well as many chemical manufacturers and other dioxin producers. More recently, HCRA has developed an alliance with a CCC front group of nine nurses called the Nursing Leadership Council to counter the influence of HCWHÕs many nursing member organizations. This has led to the engagement of 22 national and state nursing organizations, including the American Nurses Association, to target the HCRA. This effort may have a strong impact on highlighting the take over of science in the university and regulatory system by the chemical industry.
There is also some momentum to use the Bush blockade of the Dioxin Reassessment as an opportunity to create a scandal about the Bush Administration being in bed with the chemical industry to defend their continued poisoning instead of defending public health. The Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign has already done some work on this front with the release of Behind Closed Doors in April of 2001. The Campaign has done some preliminary work on a similar project targeting the food industry.
Media Component: In the past year, two documentaries were produced and aired that provided tremendous momentum for the PVC campaign. The first was Bill MoyersÕ PBS Special, Trade Secrets, which exposed the chemical industryÕs collective cover-up of the dangers of vinyl chloride and for the first time told the story of chemical body burdens to the American public. Coming Clean, a collaboration that grew out of the Trade Secrets Special, organized over 110 public events around the country in support of the documentary.
Blue Vinyl, produced by Judith Helfand and Dan Gold, continues where Trade Secrets left off and tells the story of the public health tragedy associated with PVC production and the connection with consumer use of PVC for construction. Blue Vinyl won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and provides a tremendous organizing tool for the broader PVC phase out campaign. Coming Clean also organized approximately 100 screening events around the country in support of Blue VinylÕs airing on HBO in May, 2002.
Another recently completed documentary, entitled Off the Books, offers another opportunity for organizing around the PVC lifecycle. Produced by Sanford Lewis, Off the Books tells the story of Enron and other companies hiding public health, environmental and financial liabilities from their shareholders. One of the case studies highlighted in the documentary is Abbott Labs, which produces PVC medical products and is infusing patients with a known reproductive toxin (DEHP) without the patients knowledge or consent.
Shareholder Component: the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and Walden Assets have been playing a major role in bringing shareholder resolutions to companies producing PVC medical products. In the past three years, ICCR has introduced PVC phase out resolutions to Baxter, Abbott, Tyco/Kendall, Kimberly Clark, Tenet Healthcare and Universal Health Systems. There is enough interest in the socially responsible investment community now to justify the creation of a special working group on PVC within ICCR, and to trigger the interest of the Calvert Social Investment Fund, which is examining its portfolios to identify where PVC interests might be addressed.. In the coming year, we can work with these allies to develop PVC phase out resolutions for major building materials companies (e.g. Armstrong Flooring), as well as a dioxin phase out resolution to Dow Chemical.
International Campaigning
Since PVC is a global problem and the major PVC manufacturers and users are global corporations, it is imperative that victories on PVC in one market or region leverage victories on PVC elsewhere.
HCWH and Greenpeace are global organizations campaigning against PVC. In Europe, Greenpeace is working to influence European Union policies that may place some restrictions on PVC use and disposal in the European market. HCWH is beginning to work with European hospitals to replicate the market strategy for PVC phase out that has been successful in the U.S.
The International POPs Elimination Network and the Global Alliance Against Incineration are two additional sister networks that also have a stake in PVC phase out. Working together over the next several years, these global organizations and networks will join forces with consumer, nursing, physician and public health organizations to campaign for the global phase out of PVC. The International Council of Nurses and International Society of Doctors for the Environment are already HCWH member organizations. The World Federation of Public Health Associations was an important intervener in the POPs negotiations with IPEN. GAIA is linking grassroots struggles against incinerators and in favor of Òzero wasteÓ and Òclean productionÓ in over 50 countries. The International Plastics Task Force is also active in building support against PVC plastics in several countries and linking organizations in this effort. The infrastructure is already being developed to have the capacity to wage a global campaign. In Southern India, groups have targeted a proposed PVC factory in much the same way that groups in Louisiana opposed the Shintech PVC expansion. These opposition campaigns can be spread to other countries to keep the PVC industry in check.
Summary