Dangers Of Vinyl Flooring

The known dangers of vinyl flooring during the spring of 2015 60 minutes did a thorough report showing just how unsafe laminate flooring sold by lumber liquidators was.

Dangers of vinyl flooring.

Many consumers are opting for vinyl or linoleum flooring because they are durable versatile and economical options. Vinyl flooring is manmade and contains pvc which releases many different phthalates specifically dehp diethyelhexyl phthalate a particularly troubling compound. Phthalates are used to soften plastic and vinyl and make them more flexible. However the act of recycling vinyl to be re used in flooring uses a lot of energy and also means you are running the risks of introducing contaminants into your flooring.

While vinyl flooring continues to grow in popularity there are several serious environmental concerns about this resilient surface material. Most vinyl flooring contains chemicals called phthalates many of which have been banned from children s products over concerns of negative health effects. Flooring samples sold by five major home improvement stores were tested and of the 65 vinyl flooring tiles tested 58 contained phthalates. From manufacture through installation and use and even after it s life cycle is over vinyl has the potential to cause harm to both the broad and your environment in many ways.

Vinyl flooring phthalates. But they re believed to be toxic and have been linked to a laundry list of ailments. The pvc will create a large number of toxic chemicals like dioxins and phthalates that are released into the air and can produce toxic fumes into the. The investigation went undercover to find that chinese suppliers were lying about the levels of formaldehyde in the products.

In april 2015 a study was released about vinyl flooring and toxic phthalates. The flooring industry has come a long way in addressing the potential dangers of vinyl flooring by offering phthalate free vinyl flooring which while more expensive won t expose your. Most often used in construction pvc is a plastic composed of three elements. Carbon hydrogen and chlorine.

Polyvinyl chloride is more often referred to by its less technical names pvc and vinyl. Vinyl and linoleum flooring. The flooring giant lumber liquidators was accused of selling illegally sourced laminate wood with high levels of formaldehyde a known carcinogen.