Interview: ECHA’s Simone Doyle on the investigation on PVC and its additives

ECHA's ongoing investigation into PVC has given rise to a number of misunderstandings, which are cleared up in this interview with Simone Doyle, who is responsible for the chemicals agency's risk assessments.

Some have interpreted it as meaning that the EU Commission's intention to ask the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to investigate PVC means that a PVC ban is on the way. That is by no means the case.

In order to clarify the purpose of ECHA's PVC investigation, the PVC Information Council and VinylPlus interviewed Simone Doyle, who is responsible for ECHA's risk assessments. She says in the interview that the PVC study aims, among other things, to evaluate whether there is a future need for possible restrictions on certain product types of PVC. "What we're doing is investigating substances and their use in PVC, and whether or not there's a chance of risk associated with those" affirmed Doyle, "(...) so you can really see this investigation report not as a restriction proposal, but actually as a research report, a project report (...) a state of play of what the situation is currently in the European market".

The purpose of the study is thus to strengthen the EU's safety measures towards the environment and people by identifying areas where intervention may be needed.

The goal for ECHA is therefore to identify any risks and then establish appropriate regulations to minimize them. It is expected that ECHA will submit its PVC study to the EU Commission later this year, after which the Commission will decide what to do with the results of the study.

See the full interview: