The PVC industry has invested millions of pounds to develop a sophisticated recycling service, bringing thousands of tonnes of ‘waste’ material back into use in a new generation of advanced energy efficient and sustainable products. Because of its structure and composition, PVC can be easily, mechanically recycled in order to obtain good quality recycling material. Careful and proper sorting is of crucial importance for the optimal recycling of PVC materials.
Importantly, this includes a capacity to recycle not just production off-cuts but also old PVC products, for example doors and PVC-U windows that have reached the natural end of their life cycle – closing the loop on the recycling process.
Old windows are far more complex to recycle than factory off-cuts because they inevitably contain building debris, for example steel, concrete and sealants which need to be removed before re-processing
The primary aim of recycling is to elicit a net environmental benefit through reducing the use of primary resources and/or diverting resources from landfill. The European PVC industry has most definitely achieved real successes in this regard, using the RecoVinyl scheme to co-ordinate the collection and recycling of post consumer PVC building products. It has long been common practice to recover and recycle factory wastes and/or off-cuts after the window has been fabricated. These materials are then incorporated with virgin polymer to produce further long life products including window profiles.
The RecoVinyl Scheme is a European wide initiative to collect and recycle post consumer PVC building products to support the Vinyl 2010 Voluntary Commitment. Consistently, since inception of the scheme the UK has led the way in the volume of PVC collected and recycled in Europe.
The scheme, which is independently audited, produces regular Progress Reports on all of the measureable schemes. These Progress Reports are freely available on the above Vinyl 2010 link (which will take you to www.vinyl2010.org where the reports can be downloaded).
Regardless of the materials involved, a potential barrier to cost-effective recycling of post use products is the ability to retrieve, economically, meaningful quantities of used products to supply a recycling scheme with its feedstock. In Germany, PVC-U windows were commercially introduced some twenty years before they were in the UK. Hence, German companies developed technologies to recycle post-use PVC products, which may arise as demolition wastes, for example. Tonnages are seeing significant growth, not only in the UK, but right across Europe.
As tonnages of post consumer PVC products inevitably increase, the European industry is seeing the development of the technology and infrastructure to recycle them in commercially viable and environmentally beneficial schemes.
Please click here for further information on UK RecoVinyl recyclers. Regular Newsletters are also available from Axion Recycling, who facilitate the Recovinyl Scheme in the UK. Please sign up to these via info@axionrecycling.com. These are also available from BPF Windows Group Technical Executive Paul Jervis' website; www.pauljervis.net
A significant report has been written by Hydro Polymers, detailing the effects of PVC recycling on performance criteria, which can be downloaded here. The study confirms that "...PVC-U form can be successfully recycled (100%) several times without significant loss in physical properties."
Please keep your eye on the "news" section of this website, where the latest developments re PVC recycling will be recorded. The BPF run several seminars throughout the year, several of which will focus on plastics recycling, with the Vinyl's Group Seminar, held each November, focuses specifically on PVC, around topics such as recycling and REACH. Details of all BPF seminars can be found via www.bpf.co.uk.
In 2006, the UK saw over 16,800 tonnes of post-consumer PVC product recycled. The 2007 figures – released at the PVC 2008 conference, Brighton – show that the UK recycled a total of 42,162 tonnes, showing an outstanding year-on-year increase. The UK leads the field under Recovinyl, in Europe. The indications are that the UK will continue the upward trend in post-consumer PVC recycling from 2008 and beyond, with over 50,000 tonnes expected in 2008 alone.
There are several resources available on recycling, which are now available as downloads:
The European PVC industry has made a Voluntary Committement to the European Commission, which looks at improving manufacturing efficiencies and also to increase post-consumer recycling rates across Europe. This document can be read here:
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The mid-term review of the above document,
which details progress to date, Click Here
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The 2008 Progress Report on PVC reycling
across the EU is now available CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD:
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To understand more fully why we should be recycling PVC,
please CLICK HERE produced by Recovinyl:
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