Ponyvinyl Chloride · 9:26pm Aug 2nd, 2017
What are ponies made of? The other day, I picked up a brushable Pinkie Pie doll sitting on my desk, and, being a curious person, decided to investigate. It’s actually difficult to answer this with 100% confidence. Plastics can be impossible to distinguish unless you have access to an x-ray fluorescence analyser, or mass spectrometer, or something similar.
A first guess would be PVC – polyvinyl chloride, one of the most widely used plastics in our age, used for everything from window frames and drain pipes, credit cards, packaging and toys. Take a hard disk and you can preserve an audio record as a spiral groove. Add enough plasticiser and it becomes soft and flexible, and can be used to insulate the wires on your headphones.
Yet its use in toys is an interesting story. There has for a while been a fear that PVC can ‘leach’ potentially harmful substances. The plasticiser or pigment additives used to give the desired colour and make it soft and flexible may leak out into the environment. The amount is small, toxicity low, and of minimal concern for most applications. But when combined with the sight of a three-year-old happily sucking Pinkie Pie’s ear and chewing Fluttershy’s leg off, it does cause a bit of anxiety for concerned parents.
This is a valid concern. However a quick scan of the scientific literature doesn’t reveal much evidence that this is causing children harm. PVC has been around for so long that if it was a big problem, you would expect it would be obvious by now. But just try googling ‘PVC toys’ or similar and you find plenty of stories from parents determined to rid their child’s nursery of all things vinyl. Members of this group routinely ask toy manufacturers if PVC is used in toys and report the answers. Hasbro’s response:
“We believe based on scientific evidence that PVC in toys presents no health risk to children. Hasbro's toys are designed to be compliant with all current laws around the world, including those relating to PVC. Please be advised My Little Pony figures do contain PVC.”
There’s no date attached to that. While that partly answers my original question, it doesn’t actually tell us if all ponies bodies are all PVC, or if these are just a few small components. The statement on the Hasbro website is full of reassuring statements, but doesn’t give details. This is understandable. As well as the complexity of publishing a full material audit of all their toys, they could get into trouble if they suggest their products are free of a material and this is later found to be present.
Searching further - there’s an interesting article in The Atlantic from 2015, which doesn’t mention ponies, but the reporter says she, “talked online with a customer-service representative from Hasbro who told me that Hasbro products don’t contain PVC”. Material analysis of the doll she was worried about confirmed there was no PVC. Hasbro do proudly report that since 2013 they have eliminated PVC in packaging, without mentioning the products being packaged.
Even if the safety risks associated with PVC are not significant, there is an environmental case for reducing use. It will produce hydrochloric acid when burnt, contributing to acid rain (You weren’t planning to give your ponies a funeral pyre were you?) and PVC manufacture also has a greater environmental impact than alternatives. It is also a sensible business move. Squeaky clean is the preferred brand image for a toy company. Suppose further news stories were to suggest further risks associated with PVC... Whether they are right or wrong, it’s far preferable to be able to say your products are PVC-free, than to have to keep repeating that there is no scientific evidence it presents a risk... [Of course it’s different if you are marketing to collectors, in which case you proudly label the figures as vinyl, because that sounds much more collectible. The health risks are not relevant as collectors never take their toys out of the packaging anyway.]
It seems quite plausible that, while ponies were made from PVC in the past, Hasbro has now quietly switched to alternative materials. So I still don’t know exactly what my Pinkie Pie is made from.
The only problem with avoiding certain materials based on popular belief—rather than scientific evidence—is that the replacement material may be more harmful/expensive/wasteful/environmentally-unfriendly than the original!
4621781 And every year, whatever got used to make the plastics is discovered (again) to be more dangerous than TNT and more toxic than DDT (chemists know what I did there). It was bisphenol-A, but now a new evil chemical of the day has been discovered.
" Traces of BPA were found in 90 percent of urine samples taken from a group representative of the American population." (Which sounds good until you look up what a 'trace' means, which I will leave to Pinata)
They could always go for purely natural alternatives. Red and White Lead, and Arsenic Green, Chromium Yellow, Cadmium Blue,
New for your aquarium. My Little Cone Shell.
Marshmallows are nontoxic.
img09.deviantart.net/5a34/i/2013/230/7/e/natgiii__day_3__rarity_is_best_marshmallow_by_maikeruto-d6irzdt.png
Just sayin'
4621796
Dose makes toxicity. Did you know there is an LD50 for bread?
4621814
Heck, water has an LD50 of 90 ml/kg. (Six liters for someone of average weight.)
… Granted, we all know that it's among the most dangerous chemicals on the planet.
4621944
The deadly DHMO!
Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that PVC generally release a small amount of vinyl chloride that was not polymerized during manufacturing. Even if the amount is small, I would think it would be best to minimize exposure to it, it is a known carcinogen after all.
Perhaps each toy should be packaged with a SDS
Nobody knows what Pinkie Pie is made from
4621796
I actually wrote my thesis on PVC plasticizers.
What used to be the most common one was pretty conclusively proven to cause slight mental retardation in children :-\
(dioctyl phthalate, DOP)
So....
4621781
That can be a problem. Although it seems there is a good case for replacing PVC used in toys, even if some reported health risks are exaggerated.
4621803
Apparently that was the case for G1 ponies.
4622003
Most articles I read were about phthalates, but it seems to similar issues.
4622807
We have an expert! Can you give us a quick summary of the state of the field?
4622276
I found a recent publication that talks about this.
4622952
Well, the best, most performing one is DUP: which is basically like the "bad one", DEHP, except the lateral carbon chains have 11 carbons and are not branched, meaning it moves around in other substrates a lot less and thus is safer.
(Hilariously, the way we tested for this was by spreading butter on a thin slice of PVC and measuring the weight loss after a week: in some cases, so much plasticizer is leached out that it leaves it very brittle. So don't spread butter on your ponies, guys!!)
Problem is, DUP is expensive. Best performance, great, safe, but expensive.
So yeah, what we can learn from this is that capitalism doesn't actually set out to hurt and poison people directly, but almost always as an unwanted byproduct :-\:-(
There's a surprising amount of different plasticizers from renewable sources, including from soybean oil!!
Unfortunately, their performance is...not crap, not exactly, but there's lots of better options around for material performance. Mind you, they're not the worst either. Aggressively mediocre, I'd say.
Also, they give off a fairly strong odor, so there's that. Surprisingly resistant to heat, too, but not to fire.
Trimellitates are the best plasticizers around, but again, expensive. But they're the best, in every way.
Benzoates are utter, utter crap.
4625339
Thanks for the details. I'll remember the butter trick if I ever need to measure plasticizer leaching, but not for ponies - except maybe Cheese Sandwich.
PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) is a man-made plastic polymer that is commonly used for a wide variety of applications. It is strong, lightweight, and durable, making it an ideal material for many industries. PVC is also resistant to corrosion, making it a popular choice for piping and plumbing. PVC is often used in the construction of windows and doors, as well as for electrical wiring. It can also be used for furniture, medical equipment, and even toys. PVC is an extremely versatile and cost-effective material, and its use continues to grow in many areas Get more information from https://yttarps.com.