PVC is NOT Bird Safe?

[BrandonK]

I've been reading lots of stuff like this lately from all kinds of bird sources. I know many of you here have PVC play gyms. Please do some research and consider discontinuing using them. I know that Comet likes to chew on soft plastic in particular which means my PVC ceiling savers are going to be wrapped in Co-Flex (vet wrap) before he even leaves his cage this morning.

PVC Tubes: Available at your local home improvement store. Many pet owners build play gyms or foraging toys out of them. PVC is one of the biggest contributors to the flood of toxic substances that can cause severe problems for human health and the environment. Vinyl chloride is a known carcinogen. PVC is an environmental poison because of its high chlorine content and chemical additives. PVC bio-accumulates and becomes stored in body fat of animals and humans. With cumulative exposure, they are potential carcinogens and may cause reproductive or developmental health problems. Potentially harmful chemicals called phthalates are added to PVC to make it soft, for example for use in infant toys and can leach out of toys that are chewed and sucked. Phthalates are known to cause liver and kidney damage, endocrine disruption, reproductive system damage and cancer.

Just to be clear this is the semi flexible soft PVC pipe. The hard plastic end caps are apparently safe.

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By all means, this is OPEN for discussion. I have not done all the research that can be done.

EDIT:
Here is a great article. To sum up the part that I read a concerned father wants to know if his pvc water supply pipes in his home are safe. She says that those are "hard" pvc pipes.

I have to disagree with her just from having worked with the piping. It is indeed softened with all the pthalates or whatever is used... for the purpose of being easier to cut with a PVC cutter.

No wonder they say not to cut with a motorized saw. Dangerous stuff.

This stuff is in baby toys too. WTF?

[Emery]

Hm, that's interesting Brandon. I wouldn't have thought they would be unsafe. I think it needs more research and maybe emails to the companies that produce the pipes?

[Little Cricket]

I've known that soft PVC is dangerous for a while, but I didn't know that the chemical making them dangerous is/might be in water supply lines...

[Barb]

I have heard this too. guess I felt like PVC should be safe on play gyms if it is just sitting there and wrapped in vet wrap. If the bird chews on it then it might be an issue, but otherwise I don't know.

[BrandonK]

The pipes are softened, not truly rigid like the end caps. Rigid, unsoftened PVC polishes to a shine. However they are not softened nearly as much as other products. But if it gets chewed on its probably comparable in toxicity level of a galvanized quick link. It takes time to build up a toxicity, I'm not saying that a bird will give it one lick and drop from the perch.

[di_dee1]

As you said though Brandon, when I was talking about the dangers of injested threads causing deaths from impaction....all toys would probably be in some way dangerous to our birds.

I think we all just do the best we can as safely as we can and we keep an eyes on things and hope for the best. Warnings are great as we can then make informed decisions what we will and won't supply for our fids.

[BrandonK]

That's the sum of how I feel about it, Di. We just have to know the dangers and make informed decisions using our best judgement.

[maxollie]

Here is a thread I found here on the forum concerning PVC for birds.

[Kichitai]

Interesting... I don't use it but know many that do