A batch of large national and international employers -- including Bay Area giants such as Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft and Catholic Healthcare West -- are phasing out PVC plastics from their operations, according to a statement Wednesday by several intertwined health and environmental groups.

PVC -- polyvinyl chloride or vinyl -- is clogging the state's landfills and posing significant long-term health threats, "due to the leaching of toxic additives into groundwater, dioxin-forming landfill fires and the release of toxic emissions in landfill gases," the groups said Dec. 7.

Studies show links between the chemicals created and used during the PVC "lifecycle" and cancer, reproductive and immune system damage, and asthma, they said.

As a result, a number of huge companies are "joining the fast-growing ranks" of corporations taking this step, for environmental and health-related reasons, according to the Falls Church, Va.-based Center for Health, Environment and Justice; the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health and Boston-based Health Care Without Harm. All are opposed to the use of PVC in packaging, building materials and other commercial uses.

"We have eliminated PVC from all Microsoft packaging effective Dec. 31, 2005," Pamela Passman, a Microsoft spokeswoman, said in the statement, noting that the software giant has eliminated an estimated 361,000 pounds of PVC packaging since July of this year.

Microsoft and the other companies are working with a coalition of 60 organizations coordinated by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice in this effort.

"We are seeing a major new trend: Major corporations are phasing out PVC and switching to safer and healthier consumer products," said Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, part of the coalition.

Other members have also taken significant steps to eliminate or minimize use of PVC. Among them:

• Kaiser Permanente is phasing out PVC "wherever possible" in its billions of dollars worth of new hospital construction in the next decade, much of which will take place in California.

• San Francisco-based CHW, a 40-hospital system with operations in California, Arizona and Nevada, has awarded a five-year, $70 million contract for PVC-free IV equipment.

• Hewlett-Packard said last month it will eliminate remaining uses of PVC "as safer alternatives are available." It's already removed the plastic from all external case parts.

Other large corporations making similar moves include Crabtree & Evelyn, Wal-Mart, Firestone Building Products Co., Shaw Industries, and Johnson & Johnson, according to the environmental groups.

"We're trying to get all of them to phase out PVCs," Los Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the coalition, told the Business Times.