When I bought a car this past spring, I’d cringingly smile when folks got in and excitedly proclaimed, “Oh, it’s got that new car smell!” I knew that smell wasn’t a lovely organic scent from the new-car flower, that the car wasn’t constructed from all natural fibers or hewn from cedar. If it smelled, it was from the plastic dash and foam seats.
And now the non-profit Ecology Center, based in Michigan, and the LA Times’ Ralph Vartabedian are delving into the fumes. The Ecology Center has released its second “Automotive Plastics Report” grading the country’s eight top car manufacturers on “their plastics policies and practices.”
The overall scores:
General Motors D
My car’s a Toyota, so I feel kinda sorta better, though I can’t say I’ve ever boasted about a C+, (though that is a better grade than I earned in P-Chem ages ago).
The scores were based on: 1) use of sustainably sourced bio-based materials; 2) improving interior air quality; and 3) reducing the use of the plastic called polyvinyl chloride or PVC.
An explanation of the risk from Ecology Report:
Many of these plastics are made with harmful chemical additives, such as phthalates in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). These additives off-gas and leach from plastic parts contaminating the air and dust inside vehicles, putting drivers and passengers at risk.
Vartabedian wrote about the report and included a response from the plastic industry folks:
But outgassed phthalate is not a human health risk and environmental groups are wrongly maligning PVC, said Allen Blakey, a spokesman at the Vinyl Institute. “We have seen no evidence that the public has lost its appreciation for PVC, though some sectors of the industry are under attack,” he said.
However, there are health concerns surrounding phthalates. From the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR):
In laboratory animals, studies show that eating large amounts of di-n-butyl phthalate can affect their ability to reproduce. Sperm production can decrease, but returns to near normal levels when exposure stops.
Find info on diethyl phthalate here.