NEWS
VinylPlus: PVC recycling rose by 12% last year to 640,000 tonnes
PVC recycling in Europe rose by 12% last year, to reach almost 640,000 tonnes. VinylPlus, the PVC
industry’s programme to boost sustainability, said this puts it 80% of the way towards its target of recycling 800,000 tonnes/ year of PVC by 2020. The figures were revealed in the VinylPlus 2018 progress report, which reports on 2017 activities. The main contributor to
the total, with more than 633,000 tonnes, was Recovinyl – the organisation that facilitates PVC recycling under the VinylPlus scheme. The rest was through sectoral organisations for specific types of product such as pipes, profiles and roofing membranes. Recovinyl recorded
increased recycling volumes in France and Italy last year, and steady levels in Ger- many, said VinylPlus. Recyclers also reported a
shortage of post-consumer window profiles – a major source of recycled PVC – in the UK. The UK is a major centre for PVC window frame recycling, contribut- ing 30% to the total. Germany contributes 40%, with the rest of Europe accounting for the remain- ing 30%. The total volume of recycled window profiles in 2017 was around 303,000 tonnes, a rise of nearly 18%. VinylPlus will also continue its Hybrid Project,
www.pipeandprofile.com
identify PVC products and solutions that better contribute to sustainable development. Six EPPA members have applied for the label, and certification audits began in late 2017, and four of them – Epwin Window Systems, Rehau, Schüco and Veka – have since received certification.
Dero: “Voluntary commitment does more than contribute to the circular economy”
which classifies the recycla- bility of PVC hybrid window profiles: while post-industri- al hybrid waste is relatively easy to recognise, it says that post-consumer waste is more difficult to assess. For this reason, the project will focus on post-consumer waste in 2018, to find new ways to identify and design hybrid PVC profiles. In 2017, the window
profile sector implemented the VinylPlus Product Label, a sustainability labelling scheme for PVC products developed with BRE Global (Building Research Estab- lishment) and the Natural Step (TNS), with support from the European PVC Window Profile and Related Building Products Associa- tion (EPPA).
It focuses on PVC
applications for the building and construction sector, and aims to help specifiers, consumers and procure- ment decision makers to
“Our voluntary commit- ment does more than contribute to the circular economy,” said Brigitte Dero, general manager of VinylPlus. “It also tackles other sustainable develop- ment themes, including energy and climate change, and responsible use of addi- tives. All of these have been integrated into the label.” There was also a large
leap – of around 42% – in the recycling of PVC pipes and fittings. In 2017, levels rose to nearly 81,000
tonnes. The European Plastic Pipes and Fittings Association (Teppfa) reported that its members used more recycled PVC in 2017 than they did in the previous year, according to a report from Vito, the Flemish Institute for Techno- logical Research. “Nevertheless, reaching the sector target will depend on the regulatory environ- ment for legacy additives,” said the progress report. A report from German consultancy Conversion, commissioned by VinylPlus, estimated a total of 2.5m tonnes of PVC waste available in Europe in 2016 – meaning that the industry has managed to recycled around 25% of this. Cumulatively, 4.2 million tonnes of PVC have been recycled since 2000, said VinylPlus. �
www.vinylplus.eu
Recycled PVC is used in the manufacture of new window profiles June 2018 | PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION 5
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