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No Vinyl Covers
As you decide which product to buy, you can feel reassured that BBQcovers.com does not sell PVC or Vinyl coated furniture covers. Vinyl (or PVC) is used in most covers because it is cheap and gives water-resistance to polyester covers. Unfortunately, vinyl also promotes the growth of mold and mildew and also presents a host of environmental issues in the manufacturing, use and destruction of the material.
Our covers are made of Dupont Tyvek®. The production of Tyvek® uses post-consumer recycled (PCR) content from milk and water bottles. After their useful life, our furniture covers can be recycled because they are made of environmentally friendly high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Recycled HDPE is commonly used to make plastic furniture, pipes, and trash cans.
KEEP READING IF THIS INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT TO YOU!
To the many people who own outdoor furniture covers made with vinyl, this page contains a plethora of information that will demonstrate its danger to you and your furniture. Our research on their durability, safety and quality may come as a dissatisfying surprise. Did you know that the use of vinyl allows for the growth of infectious and stain-causing fungi that consumes the underside of your cover and that the susceptibility for degradation by the natural environment is extremely high? Well, it is all true! In turn, this degradation of vinyl covers will only increase the risk of emitting corrosive hydrogen chloride that can destroy furniture.
Environmental Issues
Here is an excerpt from the May 2004 MIT Technology Review that discusses some of the hazards associated with vinyl (PVC) coatings.
"The main components of PVC, vinyl chloride monomer and ethylene dichloride are, respectively a known carcinogen and a probable carcinogen. Vinyl Chloride which is made almost exclusively for the PVC industry, shows up prominently on the EPA's list of hazardous waste sites. Both are listed on the EPA's Toxic Release Index...Recent EPA data show that PVC production does produce dioxin...Dioxin is the short name for a group of chemicals that have been found to be highly persistent, toxic, and carcinogenic."
There are dozens of sites across the U.S. that used to make PVC, however, they are all shut down because of the environmental hazards. Even today there are Superfund sites in California and other states that remain contaminated due to their use of and/or manufacturing of PVC. There are numerous websites that discuss the environmental and health impacts related to vinyl. Here are a few links that further discuss these issues:
http://www.oehha.ca.gov/air/toxic_contaminants/html/Vinyl%20Chloride.htm
http://www.healthybuilding.net/pvc/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/campaigns/intro?campaign_id=3988
Health Issues
Polyvinyl and polypropylene are materials that act as breeding grounds for the growth of several types of fungi. These fungi can cause skin disease and pulmonary illness when the body comes into contact with it. Fungi thrive on finding nutritive places to grow including human skin, soil, or spores from furniture. Spores allow fungi to continuously live and grow in an environment, especially if the nutritive sources (such as water) are present. If one keeps his/her vinyl furniture covers down in the basement during the winter and summer months, this could cause the humidity and moisture to attract the fungi even more.
Many people suffer from mold allergies. Allergic reactions can occur from contact with a variety of different kinds of fungi spores. Cladosporium hormodendrum and Alternaria are fungi that thrive on outdoor furniture under a vinyl cover soaked with moisture. Cladosporium sp. is the most commonly found outdoor fungus and similarly, a common allergen (DEHS Home Page 3). It is found on dead plants, woody plants, food, straw, soil, paint and textiles.
Aside from the threat of illness, fungi act in other negative and more apparent ways. Many of the fungi that grow in dark shade are capable of staining furniture cushions, leaving behind dark (nearly black) patches that cannot be cleaned easily, if at all.
Quality Issues
Microbes, including some of the fungi mentioned earlier, degrade vinyl covers and the furniture itself as well as some paints used on the furniture. Vinyl covers can and do degrade. Some degrade faster than others, but visible signs, such as cracking, stiffening etc., appear within weeks of being outdoors. UV rays from the sun are the main cause of the degradation. They attack the polyvinyl chloride and the plasticizers added to the PVC to make it into a flexible vinyl furniture cover. Microbes (bacteria and fungi) also play a role in the degradation of vinyl. As vinyl degrades, it gives off hydrogen chloride gas, which corrodes metals that may be used to make outdoor casual furniture.
Polyvinyl chloride is an organic polymer that is among the most vulnerable to UV rays. Although some thermal stabilizers used in PVC improve its UV stability, other stabilizers have the opposite affect, making the polymer increasingly vulnerable to sunlight (Salamone 7043). The atmosphere absorbs much of the radiation from outer space before it reaches the earth's surface, causing many organic polymers to become yellow and brittle, including PVC (Seymour 273). In addition to PVC being able to absorb UV radiation through its normal structure, structural irregularities or associated impurities are UV absorbers, as well.
UV radiation that originates from sunlight or artificial light sources can result in substantial degradation of many commercial polymeric substrates. Degradation manifested as discoloration, embrittlement, cracking, and loss of physical properties seriously reduce the useful life and potential application of polymeric materials.
The outdoor weathering of polymers, such as PVC, is a complex process that leads to the failure of many polymers. The level of protection that can be provided would greatly restrict outdoor applications (Hawkins 18). "If PVC were to be discovered today, its commercialization would be unlikely because of the extreme sensitivity of the polymer to both heat- and -light induced degradation" (Kroschwitz 250).
Plasticizers that are added to PVC to make vinyl covers may also be to blame for the degradation of the covers. Different plasticizers perform differently under drastic temperatures. Some plasticizers have poor low-temperature properties, while others have poor heat or light stability (Ness 853). The instability of plasticizers under certain conditions can cause vinyl covers to embrittle and crack.
Mold and mildew growth can not only destroy the appearance of vinyl by discoloring, but may cause embrittlement, shrinkage and splitting. (Ventron brochure 3). Finally, microbial degradation of PVC may cause malodor formation (Lasman 832).
Paints and coatings, particularly latex formulations, may be susceptible to contamination which can initiate microbial attack. This microbial attack will cause the product to deteriorate, become unstable, change its viscosity, generate gas, change colors, petrify, and have a putrid odor (Ventron brochure 3). Paint which acts as a nutritive base for microbial growth allows for the destruction of furniture.
Finally, as PVC products degrade by way of UV rays and microbes, there is the possibility of HCl being released. Because of the concentration under a vinyl cover with no ability to breathe, corrosive gas, if released, would be most detrimental to the furniture. Hydrogen chloride gas corrodes metals that may be used to make outdoor furniture including, aluminum, brass, bronze, steel, tin, and zinc (metalogic.be 1). Water can intensify the corrosion of these metals and since water is often trapped underneath vinyl covers, a large risk of furniture corrosion exists quite often.
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