Almost 7.000 people from the Czech Republic signed the petition “For PVC substitution of products for children, medical devices and food packages”, by the end of 2007. The petition is an activity from the campaign “Don’t play with PVC”, which has been led by Arnika since April 2007.
The main goal of the campaign is to reduce usage of polyvinylchloride (PVC) in all cases for which safer alternatives are available. The campaign focuses mainly on the reduction of PVC usage in toys and children products, as well as in medical devices and food packaging.
For the purposes of the campaign, Arnika is co-operating with some of the Czech hospitals, maternity centers and nurseries, motivating and helping them to substitute the PVC products.
Already, there are some successful substitutions of medical devices made from PVC, such as in the neonatology units in hospital in Olomouc and in the hospital in Ceske Budejovice. More than 90% of PVC products containing toxic phthalate DEHP was substituted in these two hospitals. Also, there are some activities for PVC/DEHP substitution in the hospitals in Louny and Havlickuv Brod. For the substitution of PVC packaging, meetings with some of the food producers and supermarkets were organized.
One success that could be mentioned is the co-operation between Arnika and the one of the biggest bakeries in The Czech Republic. As a result of the co-operation, the bakery is not using the PVC food package anymore. Also, Ahold, the company which
manages the network of two supermarkets (Albert and Hypernova) is working on PVC food packaging substitution in their supermarkets. The education on PVC topic is the part of campaigns’ activities. In addition, Arnika has prepared informative materials and has organized lectures on PVC.
