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Narrative
A hot copper wire is touched to a polyethylene terephthalate bottle and inserted into the flame of a burner. No color is observed. When the hot copper wire is touched to a polyvinyl chloride bottle then placed in the flame, a green color appears. This is a positive test for organic chlorides.

Discussion
Bottles made from poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) are shown. A hot copper wire is touched to the PET bottle and inserted into the flame of a burner. No color is observed. When the hot wire is touched to the PVC bottle then placed in the flame, a green color appears. This is a test for organic halides.

The halogen atoms react with the hot copper wire in a flame to form volatile copper species which emit a characteristic green light.