The Home Depot: Vinyl chloride polluted my community in Ohio. Stop selling this poison plastic.
Vinyl chloride is a cancer-causing chemical used to make building materials that is devastating communities across the country. As the largest home improvement retailer in the world, The Home Depot must be a leader in transitioning away from building products made with vinyl chloride.
My name is Daren Gamble and I’m a lifetime resident of East Palestine, OH. On February 3, 2023, a train carrying vinyl chloride derailed and caught fire less than two miles from my home, leading to an environmental disaster and health crisis for our community and the surrounding area that we are still suffering from today.
I live in my grandfather’s house about a mile from the derailment, a house that has been in our family for generations. After the derailment we were evacuated and still worry whether or not it is safe to live in our home, and whether it’s safe to breathe the air. My neighbors and I are concerned about the long-term health effects from being exposed to this cancer-causing chemical. Family members and neighbors of mine have suffered from nose bleeds and other health problems that only started after the toxic disaster.
Vinyl chloride is the basic building block for making polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a widely-used plastic that harms health and the environment during production, use, and disposal. Vinyl chloride is also a known human carcinogen associated with liver cancer, brain and lung cancers, and cancers of the blood.
It’s a nightmare that never ends. As we fight for justice for our community, we want to work to make sure that no other family has to go through what we went through.
Despite the well-documented harms from vinyl chloride, companies continue to produce the chemical and use it to make PVC pipes, packaging materials, cars, children’s toys, and building materials like wall and floor coverings.
In fact, more than ten billion pounds of this dangerous chemical are produced in the U.S. every year by giant chemical corporations.
The largest use of PVC is in building materials and the largest retailer of PVC building materials is The Home Depot. PVC has become pervasive in our homes and in packaging. People use products made of or packed in PVC everyday, and what happened in East Palestine is evidence about why we need to take action now.
In fact, before vinyl chloride derailed near our home, it was on its way to a PVC plastics factory in New Jersey, which turns vinyl chloride into PVC plastic for building materials like flooring that is sold at The Home Depot. Make no mistake: retailers like The Home Depot are profiting off the sale of a plastic that is poisoning communities like mine. Enough is enough!
I have worked in the construction industry for more than 35 years, and I know that there are plenty of alternatives out there to this poison plastic. The Home Depot needs to help lead by both banning the sale of PVC from their shelves and by investing in and transitioning to safer materials, like linoleum flooring.
But I need your help. The Home Depot can take action but they need to hear from all of us. We need to raise our voices together to ensure that what happened in East Palestine, OH doesn’t happen again.
Will you join me in calling on the Home Depot to lead the industry away from using this dangerous chemical and plastic?
We know change is possible because in recent years, The Home Depot has taken action on other toxic chemicals such as PFAS. In fact, the company has recently made progress in reducing PVC in the packaging it sells. But much more action is needed.
Tell The Home Depot: Build a Safer Future, Ban this Poison Plastic!
Photo credit: The Natural History Museum