MARKETS | PVC
Recycling PVC from cooling towers
BM Technology Tech has created something of a niche for itself with recovery, cleaning, chopping and mill- ing of rigid PVC parts from refur- bished and decommissioned power station cooling towers in the UK. Each cooling tower can contain as much as 400 tonnes of recyclable PVC, in the form of honeycomb sheets, which until now has been going to landfill. By the end of their first useful lives, the honeycombs are heavily contami- nated, typically with limescale and silt from the cooling water. The honey- comb sheets are much lighter than compact sheet, and so more expensive to transport to any recycling facility. For this reason, BM Technology Tech has developed a mobile compactor that enables it to carry out preliminary size reduction on-site. “We are saving transport costs and carbon emissions with this innovation,” says Business Manager James Morley, brother of
Left: BM Technology Tech in the UK recovers, cleans and chops rigid PVC
company founder Ben Morley. The company sells the regrind for
recompounding into pellets which can be processed into products such as gutters, window frames and pipes. BM Technology Tech also has a
growing business in recovery of uPVC from when cooling towers or water treatment plants are refurbished;
Below: The UK’s Recofloor scheme has diverted more than 6,000 tonnes of waste vinyl flooring from landfill since 2009
Recofloor, has diverted more than 6,000 tonnes of waste vinyl flooring from landfill. The material is recycled back into new flooring, as well as traffic calming products. Latest data for 2021 shows that a total of 578 tonnes of waste vinyl flooring was collected through Recofloor. Carla Eslava, Manager of the scheme, says the construction industry is the UK’s biggest consumer of natural resources. Government statistics indicate around 65 million tonnes of non-hazardous construction and demolition waste has been
elements need replacing after 10 to 20 years, depending on local condi- tions. A 15 m radius trickle filter bed with 3.6 m depth of filter media contains around 2,500 m3
of plastic,
weighing close to 65 tonnes. “We are continually finding more places where honeycomb PVC has been used and is in need of recycling,” Morley says.
produced annually in the UK in recent years. Recovery rates are well over 90%, but nearly 5m tonnes is landfilled. “While many materials, such as PVC and metals,
are recyclable, the construction sector is a chal- lenging diverse environment for waste manage- ment and requires a heavy reliance on engaging with contractors to collect these recoverable resources.” More work will be needed in the future to establish effective recycling techniques for end-of- life material, and end markets for the recyclates, Eslava says. For installation waste, he says, Recofloor is a
great example of “circular construction,” offering a sustainable collection service for commercial waste vinyl flooring generated from refurbishment and new build projects, including live project sites. The scheme accepts both installation offcuts and uplifted smooth and loose lay vinyl, as well as Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVTs) and safety offcuts and roll-ends.
Moving towards circular construction principles
still presents many challenges, such as the collec- tion of materials on a busy site with lots of different contractors, transportation, a lack of sorting
22 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | January/February 2022
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: RECOFLOOR
IMAGE: BM TECH
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