Piping - to PVC or not to PVC? That is the question...

[Sylvia Bernstein]

I use PVC, and I'm assuming that most of you do as well, but there are rumblings out there about it leaching carcinogenic nasties into the water.  My understanding is that this happens mainly when the pipe is heated, but that is exactly what we have in  the summer.  

 

Is anyone using an alternative in a bigger system? We've used some flexible vinyl tubing...but I sure prefer PVC.  Thoughts?

[kevin swords]

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/which-plastics-are-safe.html#13662...

[TCLynx]

There is a difference between the rigid PVC pipes and the flexible PVC which many people call vinyl However PVC stands for polyvinylchloride it is all pvc or vinyl.  It is the flexible stuff that contains the questionable plasticizers.  Be cautious of the flexible PVC or vinyl and do your extra research there since some of the flexible vinyl has lots of extra stuff added (like some of those pool liners even have algicide in them that is meant to leach out and help keep the pool from turning green, that kind of stuff would be really bad to use for aquaponics.)

[Tim Radcliff]

Is there any metal pipe that is safe? Aluminum? I was thinking about running water through a radiator positioned over a stove to heat the water. Or running PEX through some sort of geothermal mass heater. Does anybody have any experience with these?