Emerging buffeted from the confrontation with environmental lobby groups over the use of phthalate plasticizers in PVC (see High Performance Plastics, January 2000), the PVC industry claims a small but possibly significant victory over advertisements for credit cards. The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found in its favour regarding claims made by Cooperative Bank and Greenpeace in publicizing a non-PVC credit card. In one of the longest cases its has heard, the ASA considered independent evidence from organizations such as the Environment Agency, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and concluded that the advertisers had "denigrated PVC" in an attempt to promote their own product.
In three advertisements, it was claimed that the Greenpeace Credit Card was welcomed worldwide by banks, educational establishments and fast food outlets, because "certain industrial chemicals" can disrupt the working of human hormones, "dioxin is released during manufacture and disposal of PVC" and "PVC is the mother of plastic pollutants". The British Plastics Federation challenged the advertisers to prove their allegations.
The ASA upheld four out of six complaints, finding that the division of scientific opinion on hormonal effects had been ignored, manufacture and disposal of PVC made little contribution to dioxins and the advertisements used language that was alarmist and shocking. Rejecting two complaints, the Authority found that general claims made in the advertisements regarding the effect of environmental dioxins on learning and behavioural characteristics of children, and on levels of dioxins in breast milk were not excessive. British Plastics Federation, 6 Bath Place, Rivington Street, London EC2A 3JE, UK; tel: +44-171 457 5000; fax: +44-171 457 5045
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