UK leads the field in PVC recycling
12th May 2015

The UK has once again proved itself to be the ‘star performer’ in Europe’s PVC recycling, contributing just over 20% - or 95,525 tonnes – to the total recycled through the industry’s Recovinyl scheme in 2014.

Some 474,411 tonnes of waste PVC was recycled through Recovinyl last year across its 16 European member countries in the Recovinyl network of 160 companies.

Waste PVC-U profiles comprised just over half of the UK’s recycling achievement in 2014, with pipes, rigid and flexible PVC films and cables making up the rest.

“The UK’s achievement is testament to both ongoing commitment from the sector and sustained investment in recycling infrastructure across the country,” said Project Manager Jane Gardner of Axion Consulting, Recovinyl’s UK agents.

“Good quality recycled material can be reused sustainably in so many diverse new products, from construction products such as windows, to flooring and electrical components. Demand from manufacturers is continuing to grow.”
Having already established significant volumes of PVC recycling with Vinyl 2010, Recovinyl’s strategy continues with consolidating and increasing the steady supply of PVC waste being recycled in Europe by creating demand – a ‘pull-market’ for recycled PVC material - from the converting industry.

Recovinyl is an operational arm of VinylPlus, the ten-year Voluntary Commitment of the European PVC industry, which is tackling the sustainability challenges for PVC and delivery of current recycling targets to 2020. One of the objectives of the VinylPlus Voluntary Commitment is to recycle 800,000 tonnes of PVC waste per year by 2020, including 100,000 tonnes of difficult-to-recycle PVC through innovative recycling technologies.

www.recovinyl.com