PVC piping?

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daisylynn

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2009
Messages
444
Location
Maine
So, i'm thinking of using single pieces of PVC piping in my rat cage as something for the boys to play with.
Anyone have thoughts on this?yay or nay? If nay, is there a reason why?
Anyway, thanks for the input.
 
when i first looked into it, i didn't look too far... because at our local hardware store that sold the pvc pipes, it was like 6-8$ sometimes 10$ (for like corner connecters). just like a piece that wasn't even that long. i figured i could make more use out of buying fleece, using old jeans, ect. but if you can find it at a good price it might be something fun to make trails. even switching them when you clean the cages so that way it's always something new.
 
I use plumbing pipe in my cage. The ratties love running through it, you can add on to it if you want and best of all, its so easy to clean.
I say "go for it" you'll never look back.
 
One of the first toys I bought for my first girls was a T-shaped piece of PCV pipe and all of my guys have gotten lots of use out of it. They sleep in it, hide in it (especially when eating), chase each other through it, and climb on it. It's simple and not their most interesting toy but they do like it and it was cheap ($6 at Home Hardware,) durable, and so easy to clean.
 
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I try to avoid using all PVC, so I would never put PVC products in my rats' cages. I use large (about the same size as PVC tubing) cardboard poster tubes cut into smaller pieces. Why don't I use PVC?
[spoiler:25v4zge0]Phthalate plasticizers

Many vinyl products contain additional chemicals to change the chemical consistency of the product. Some of these additional chemicals called additives can leach out of vinyl products. Plasticizers that must be added to make PVC flexible have been additives of particular concern.

Because soft PVC toys have been made for babies for years, there are concerns that these additives leach out of soft toys into the mouths of the children chewing on them. Phthalates mimic human hormones and also affect various life forms including fish and invertebrates adversely. Additionally, adult sex toys have been demonstrated to contain high concentrations of the additives.[15] In January 2006, the European Union placed a ban on six types of phthalate softeners, including DEHP (diethylhexyl phthalate), used in toys.[16] In the U.S. most companies have voluntarily stopped manufacturing PVC toys with DEHP and in 2003 the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) denied a petition for a ban on PVC toys made with an alternative plasticizer, DINP (diisononyl phthalate).[17] In April 2006, the European Chemicals Bureau of the European Commission published an assessment of DINP which found risk "unlikely" for children and newborns.[18]

Vinyl IV bags used in neo-natal intensive care units have also been shown to leach DEHP. In a draft guidance paper published in September 2002, the US FDA recognizes that many medical devices with PVC containing DEHP are not used in ways that result in significant human exposure to the chemical.[19] The FDA, however, suggests that manufacturers consider eliminating DEHP in certain devices that can result in high aggregate exposures for sensitive patient populations such as neonates.

Other vinyl products including car interiors, shower curtains, and flooring initially release chemical gases into the air. Some studies indicate that this outgassing of additives may contribute to health complications, and have resulted in a call for banning the use of DEHP on shower curtains, among other uses.[20] The Japanese car companies Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have eliminated PVC in their car interiors starting in 2007.

In 2004 a joint Swedish-Danish research team found a statistical association between allergies in children and indoor air levels of DEHP and BBzP (butyl benzyl phthalate), which is used in vinyl flooring.[21] In December 2006, the European Chemicals Bureau of the European Commission released a final draft risk assessment of BBzP which found "no concern" for consumer exposure including exposure to children.[22]

In November, 2005 one of the largest hospital networks in the U.S., Catholic Healthcare West, signed a contract with B.Braun for vinyl-free intravenous bags and tubing.[23] According to the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in Falls Church, VA,[24] which helps to coordinate a "precautionary" PVC Campaign,[25] several major corporations including Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Kaiser Permanente announced efforts to eliminate PVC] from products and packaging in 2005.[26] Target is reducing its sale of items with PVC.[27]

The FDA Paper titled "Safety Assessment of Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP)Released from PVC Medical Devices" states that [3.2.1.3] Critically ill or injured patients may be at increased risk of developing adverse health effects from DEHP, not only by virtue of increased exposure, relative to the general population, but also because of the physiological and pharmacodynamic changes that occur in these patients, compared to healthy individuals.[28]

In 2008 the European Union's Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) reviewed the safety of DEHP in medical devices. The SCENIHR report states that certain medical procedures used in high risk patients result in a significant exposure to DEHP and concludes there is still a reason for having some concerns about the exposure of prematurely born male babies to medical devices containing DEHP.[29] The Committee said there are some alternative plasticizers available for which there is sufficient toxicological data to indicate a lower hazard compared to DEHP but added that the functionality of these plasticizers should be assessed before they can be used as an alternative for DEHP in PVC medical devices.

Vinyl chloride monomer

In the early 1970s, Dr. John Creech and Dr. Maurice Johnson were the first to clearly link and recognize the carcinogenicity of vinyl chloride monomer to humans when workers in the polyvinyl chloride polymerization section of a B.F. Goodrich plant near Louisville, Kentucky, were diagnosed with liver angiosarcoma also known as hemangiosarcoma, a rare disease.[30] Since that time, studies of PVC workers in Australia, Italy, Germany, and the UK have all associated certain types of occupational cancers with exposure to vinyl chloride. The link between angiosarcoma of the liver and long-term exposure to vinyl chloride is the only one that has been confirmed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. All the cases of angiosarcoma developed from exposure to vinyl chloride monomer were in workers who were exposed to very high VCM levels, routinely, for many years. These workers cleaned accretions in reactors, a practice that has now been replaced by automated high-pressure water jets.

A 1997 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report concluded that the development and acceptance by the PVC industry of a closed loop polymerization process in the late 1970s "almost completely eliminated worker exposures" and that "new cases of hepatic angiosarcoma in vinyl chloride polymerization workers have been virtually eliminated."[31]

According to the EPA, "vinyl chloride emissions from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ethylene dichloride (EDC), and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plants cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating reversible illness. Vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen that causes a rare cancer of the liver."[32] EPA's 2001 updated Toxicological Profile and Summary Health Assessment for VCM in its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database lowers EPA's previous risk factor estimate by a factor of 20 and concludes that "because of the consistent evidence for liver cancer in all the studies...and the weaker association for other sites, it is concluded that the liver is the most sensitive site, and protection against liver cancer will protect against possible cancer induction in other tissues."[33]

A 1998 front-page series in the Houston Chronicle claimed the vinyl industry has manipulated vinyl chloride studies to avoid liability for worker exposure and to hide extensive and severe chemical spills into local communities.[34] Retesting of community residents in 2001 by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) found dioxin levels similar to those in a comparison community in Louisiana and to the U.S. population.[35] Cancer rates in the community were similar to Louisiana and US averages.[36]

Dioxins

Main article: Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins
The environmentalist group Greenpeace has advocated the global phase-out of PVC because they claim dioxin is produced as a byproduct of vinyl chloride manufacture and from incineration of waste PVC in domestic garbage.[37]


PVC produces HCl upon combustion almost quantitatively related to its chlorine content. Extensive studies in Europe indicate that the chlorine found in emitted dioxins is not derived from HCl in the flue gases. Instead, most dioxins arise in the condensed solid phase by the reaction of inorganic chlorides with graphitic structures in char-containing ash particles. Copper acts as a catalyst for these reactions.[38]

According to a 1994 report by the British firm, ICI Chemicals & Polymers Ltd., "It has been known since the publication of a paper in 1989 that these oxychlorination reactions [used to make vinyl chloride and some chlorinated solvents] generate polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs). The reactions include all of the ingredients and conditions necessary to form PCDD/PCDFs.... It is difficult to see how any of these conditions could be modified so as to prevent PCDD/PCDF formation without seriously impairing the reaction for which the process is designed." In other words, dioxins are an undesirable byproduct of producing vinyl chloride and eliminating the production of dioxins while maintaining the oxychlorination reaction may be difficult. Dioxins created by vinyl chloride production are released by on-site incinerators, flares, boilers, wastewater treatment systems and even in trace quantities in vinyl resins.[39] The US EPA estimate of dioxin releases from the PVC industry was 13 grams TEQ in 1995, or less than 0.5% of the total dioxin emissions in the US; by 2002, PVC industry dioxin emissions had been further reduced by 23%.[40]

Studies of household waste burning indicate consistent increases in dioxin generation with increasing PVC concentrations.[41] According to the EPA dioxin inventory, landfill fires are likely to represent an even larger source of dioxin to the environment. A survey of international studies consistently identifies high dioxin concentrations in areas affected by open waste burning and a study that looked at the homologue pattern found the sample with the highest dioxin concentration was "typical for the pyrolysis of PVC". Other EU studies indicate that PVC likely "accounts for the overwhelming majority of chlorine that is available for dioxin formation during landfill fires."[41]

The next largest sources of dioxin in the EPA inventory are medical and municipal waste incinerators.[42] Various studies have been conducted that reach contradictory results. For instance a study of commercial-scale incinerators showed no relationship between the PVC content of the waste and dioxin emissions.[43][44] Other studies have shown a clear correlation between dioxin formation and chloride content and indicate that PVC is a significant contributor to the formation of both dioxin and PCB in incinerators.[45]

In February 2007, the Technical and Scientific Advisory Committee of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) released its report on a PVC avoidance related materials credit for the LEED Green Building Rating system. The report concludes that "no single material shows up as the best across all the human health and environmental impact categories, nor as the worst" but that the "risk of dioxin emissions puts PVC consistently among the worst materials for human health impacts."[46]

Bans

The State of California is currently considering a bill that would ban the use of PVC in consumer packaging due to the threats it poses to human and environmental health and its effect on the recycling stream.[47] Specifically, the language of the bill analysis[48] stipulates that EPA has listed PVC as a carcinogen. It also further cites that there are concerns about the leaching of phthalates and lead from the PVC packaging.[/spoiler:25v4zge0]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyviny ... ected=true
ETA: i know it is PVC with added plasticizers that are considered the danger, but like I said...paranoid.
 
If you use pvc pipe, I would suggest that you use 4 inch diameter drainage pipe cut into 12 to 18 inch lengths. Hardware stores will often cut them for you at a minimal cost.
The drainage pipe has two rows of holes that run its length. This allows some light and also some air circulation.
The 12 to 18 inch pieces of drainage pipe are a good length for cleaning.
I would suggest connecting the pieces with elbow and T-shaped 4 inch diameter pipe connectors.
I prefer the T-shape because if only two pipes are attached it allows rats to enter and exit when they choose.
I find that Canadian Tire has the best prices for the connectors.
 
Yeah, the 4" drainage pipe (it's white) is great! You can also cut it with a hand saw and sand any sharp edges easily with sandpaper. It comes in 8' lengths if I remember correctly and is inexpensive at approx $12 a pipe. My kids love the pipe. The connectors are a bit more expensive. I bought a few and made a little maze that sits on the bottom shelf of my critter nation.
 
blytherue, I think that article is talking more about the concerns with additives added to make it flexible as opposed to PCV. The PCV pipe I have are not at all flexible and they're so hard my guys gave up chewing on it a long time ago.
 
I'm aware that the carcinogenic effects only seem to be present in plasticized PVC and during the production of PVC, but like I said, I'm paranoid and I don't want anything to do with it...for now. It took me years to get over my qualms about silicon as well, but now 80% of my cooking utensils are silicon! I know, I'm ridiculous... :giggle:
 
blytherue said:
I'm aware that the carcinogenic effects only seem to be present in plasticized PVC and during the production of PVC, but like I said, I'm paranoid and I don't want anything to do with it...for now. It took me years to get over my qualms about silicon as well, but now 80% of my cooking utensils are silicon! I know, I'm ridiculous... :giggle:

lol
 
Mine love them. One thing I would say is check the inside for sharp edges. Poor Baxter cut his eyebrow because I didn't check a new one. I use a metal file to get rid of any sharp bits.

baxter_and_hector-1.jpg
 
I bought the PVC piping and I will be posting pictures tomorrow. We tried the piping out on my friend's couch and ben wouldn't come out...Not even for a yogie bite! Gimli is always up for an adventure and LOVES to explore, so the pipes are pretty thrilling for him too. I think Ben just likes the idea that he has somewhere new to hide and take a nap... I had to take down the hanging basket that I had up but I think I'm going to get inventive with the zip ties BorealHiker's son left for me. I still plan on adding a shelf near the bottom of the cage, if I can ever get to the dollar store and see what they have... :D By the time I'm done with this cage, it's going to be a rat heaven.
3/1/10
I promised pics, Here they are:
Before:
IMG_4055.resized.JPG

After:
IMG_0037.JPG

I hope to incorporate the hanging basket again..But I'm running out of deaf air space.. :wink:
 
I've always been hesitant to use PVC pipe. I almost bought some ages ago when I had the girls in the FN, now I've got the boys in a martin's r-695, and their poor cage is SO bare.

I think I might rethink not using PVC and try it out....and just watch them like a hawk, lol
 
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