The plasticiser DEHP has been banned in PVC flooring in Switzerland since 2020. | Photo: Udo Herrmann / Keystone

PVC is a popular plastic material that’s used on floors and elsewhere. It’s also easy to recycle. It’s shredded to produce a granulate that’s put to various uses, such as making the middle layers of new PVC flooring. But there’s a problem with this: it means that harmful substances from previous PVC production remain in circulation.

The PVC flooring currently sold in Switzerland still contains the plasticiser DEHP, which has actually been banned since 2020. And it’s present in quantities above the permitted limits, according to a recent analysis by ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa). They have published models showing that this will remain the case for decades to come if recycling continues as at present. “A good solution would be to test PVC for such substances before it’s recycled”, says co-author Zhanyun Wang.

M. Klotz et al.: Increasing the Recycling of PVC Flooring Requires Phthalate Removal for Ensuring Consumers’ Safety: A Cross-Checked Substance Flow Analysis of Plasticizers for Switzerland. Environmental Science & Technology (2024)