Everyone knows about PVC, right? At least one person doesn’t think so.

Lou Musante is on a mission, and he’s turning his attention to Central Florida.

The founder of Echo Strategies, a 25-year-old firm that specializes in marketing research, with offices in Pittsburgh, Toronto and Orlando, has a background in chemistry and information science. These days, he’s combining those disciplines to focus on the distribution of water and wastewater in cities across America. Specifically, working with the Clean Water Pipe Council, a national organization, and using data from the National Resources Defense Council, Musante is targeting the use of polyvinyl chloride in pipes.Yes, PVC.

Durable and flexible PVC is, of course, popularly used in a wide variety of applications, from electrical conduit and signs to ceiling tiles and pipes. His contention: Regarding municipal water-pipe use, PVC, although often less expensive to purchase than alternatives, particularly in smaller pipe sizes, ultimately is inefficient and potentially toxic to the environment.

At the very least, he’s intent on making PVC a point of discussion.

“We’re trying to build awareness,” he says.

Most recently, he’s worked with city water officials in Austin, Texas; Madison, Wis.; and Portland, Ore., to introduce his research findings and successfully spur discussion. Now, Orlando.

Talking in terms of carbon footprint and sustainability, he comes armed with a litany of facts and figures. For starters, the collection, distribution and treatment of drinking water and wastewater nationwide, not only consumes vast amounts of energy, they also release approximately 116 billion pounds of carbon dioxide each year — equivalent to the global warming caused annually by 10 million cars, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

In terms of dollars, Musante points out that for every five miles of pipe — a relative drop in the bucket for municipal water distribution — a typical utility could save $17,000 a year by not using PVC plus reduce atmospheric carbon emissions by 200 metric tons. In addition, with most PVC pipe being sold with 50- to 100-year lifecycles, that five-mile stretch could cost the utility roughly an extra $1 million over 50 years in electricity-pumping charges and save putting 100,000 tons of carbon into the air.

He also cites that providing households with safe drinking water and wastewater disposal accounts for about 4 percent of the nation’s entire power generation.

Then there’s the corporate social-responsibility side. Most notably, PVC manufacturing is dangerous to plant workers and harsh on the environment, and PVC products are virtually unrecyclable due to their high number of chemical additives, he offers.

The challenge, Musante says, isn’t finding research data to support his position. It’s getting people to pause, comprehend and, in turn, act accordingly. He laments that while debates involving what he calls the “invisible infrastructure” — such as energy, solar, thermal, wind and transportation — are commonplace in company boardrooms and legislative halls near and far, the topic of water is typically absent.

“There’s much less discussion about water,” he says.

“We need to get people to think about the invisible infrastructure and the decisions the city councils and the water utilities are making on something as mundane as a water-pipe material.”

At stake is a huge market. Roughly half of the world's PVC resin manufactured annually is used for producing pipes for municipal and industrial applications. In Orange County, for example, where a much-publicized green effort has taken hold, PVC is used in both water- and sewer-related applications.

According to Jason Herrick, who manages the capital improvement program for Orange County Utilities, county officials haven’t completed a recent analysis of PVC’s possible negative environmental impacts but would be open to such a review. Any changes would depend on the magnitude of those findings. He also said that PVC “isn’t as durable as once thought” and that problems sometimes exist with “improper installation and manufacturer anomalies.”

At the same time, he noted that full PVC replacement would be “difficult,” costing hundreds of millions of dollars. His conclusion: “It’s a viable product.”

Musante presents a counter view. “I think 90 percent of the plastics out there are essential to our society,” he comments. “People talk about a world without plastics; those are just radicals. But PVC, because it has chlorine in it, is a bad material.”

In a nutshell, according to the Clean Water Pipe Council, rigid PVC water pipes can catalyze bacterial and coliform contamination in potable water systems due to large voids created inside pipe joints. Those effects could worsen in hotter regions like Florida, the council contends, adding that PVC pressure pipe used for water distribution is weaker than alternative green materials and has thicker pipe walls and smaller inside diameter. As a result, more energy is required to pump water through a PVC system, leading to higher electricity costs, the council contends.

Also, utilities that use PVC water pipe along with chloramines as an alternative to chlorine to disinfect their water run the risk of lead leaching. That occurred in Washington, D.C., and officials are still dealing with a messy situation.

In the long run, Musante asserts, alternatives to PVC simply make more environmental and fiscal sense.

Locally and statewide, his initial goal is to make PVC use a part of the conversation, a consideration, among decision makers. The ultimate goal is help generate legislation that would mandate an analysis of lifecycle costing before a utility’s purchase of pipe for water distribution.

“What we’re doing is taking a scientific approach to helping people look at alternative materials,” he says.

And so, in Orlando and with a clear message, Musante is plotting his approach. A watershed moment for PVC alternatives?