Plastics Soil Waste and Drainage Systems

In view of the thousands of tons of plastics pipes and fittings which are now used in the Building Industry in these applications it is difficult to believe that none of these products was available before 1960. Initially, rigid PVC rainwater goods were marketing in 1961, and these were such a success that PVC soilpipes and fittings soon followed. Waste systems were first offered in 1964/65 and PVC underground drainage systems made their appearance about 2 years ago. There is no doubt that unplasticised PVC is the material used on the largest scale in these applications and is now used almost universally for plastics rainwater and soi I goods as well as underground drainage systems The latter development also includes the use of UPVC man-holes of novel designs such as the Marscar Bowl and these are receiving ready acceptance by the specifying authorities. 

For waste systems, however, a number of materials are offered, each of which have their own individual advantages, and include polypropylene, ABS, high density polythene and chlorinated PVC. 

The conventional materials used for soil and rainwater goods are primarily cast iron and asbestos cement pipes and fittings although small quantities of pitch fibre pipes, have been used for stack work and aluminium rainwater goods are available. For underground drainage the bulk of the market is held by clay pipes and fittings which have been used since the Roman times, although about 10% of the market has been captured by pitch fibre. In the case of both these traditional materials, however, plastics still play their part and flexible joints for clay pipes usually use adapted spigots, sockets and double couplers, based on polyesters and polythene. Polypropylene branches, swept bends, etc. are used on a large scale in conjunction with pitch fibre pipes for underground drainage work.