PVC leaches toxins

[keith_r]

ha.. again?
you're right.. i was in a hurry and didn't get out what i meant..
been busy at work, did a "day trip" to dearborn mi (right outside detroit) - for a "depressed" area, there sure was lots of activity

[urbanfarmer]

[badflash]

UF, I think you believe anything you read. This whole thing is a bunch of hoowee. Put up or shut up with real results. Don't give me stuff just designed to tear down the 1st world. Don't give me crap like took tetracycline off the market. Nobody soaks babies in 100 time the normal dose 24 hours a day. Tell me what the effect is for normal water usage is.

I get so tired of reports from crackpots that say everything is dangerous. Give me some real proof!

If you dunk someone under water for just 5 minutes they die. Let's ban water!

[Madmax478]

Well if PVC isn't what we should use in our systems. What kinda of pipe do you suggest as and alt?

[urbanfarmer]

Well if PVC isn't what we should use in our systems. What kinda of pipe do you suggest as and alt?

To be honest, we're not quite to the point of concluding PVC is bad. You see, we live in a world where we're surrounded by toxins and pollutants on a daily basis. Our governments establish safe guidelines for poisoning us, which is called risk assessment. In other words, a review of the composition of PVC and a literature review of available research on the toxins in questions would yield an answer. It is possible to produce plastics/PVC without the toxins in question; so, it is up to us to find out what's in our PVC (if anything).

Some folks at the aquaponics conference did use alternatives to PVC. They said it was not cost effective though.

Back in the 60's some hippies built aquaponic systems without plastic or concrete. They built them naturally in the ground (so am I told). I aspire to one day mimic this design.

[rfeiller]

i was warned almost 30 yrs ago that pvc leached toxins into water the more dionized the water the greater the leaching problem. this was by the an engineer that supervised the processing of ultra purified water for the mfg of computer chips. no mattter how you rationalize it closed systems are not healthy, my systems are not closed and the veggies do just fine, there is a 40% water change each week.

[ButtonLife]

This kind of worries me a bit. Was planning on using PVC in my new AP system. Should I look more towards aquarium tubing? (have 20+ ft already).

[keith_r]

i'm going to continue to use pvc..
but it's probably a personal decision

[badflash]

The whole thing is a scare tactic. Oxygen is more toxic than PVC. Gonna stop breathing? The crackpots that are trying to scare us about PVC claim that even though the chemicals that leach out are in concentrations too small to measure, they are causing huge amounts of unrecognized damage. Sounds like th boogey man to me.

I've used it for years. Hundreds of generations of tilapia and no issues.

[cedarswamp]

How long have we been wrapping our food and meats in flexible pvc(Saran wrap)?

Much ado about nothing IMHO Ya wanna live forever?