GPEC 2006: PVC Recycling More Than a Pipe Dream

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has a reputation as a problem for recyclers, but the material can and is being recycled, according to presenters at the recent 2006 Global Plastics Environmental Conference (GPEC).

Two manufacturers of PVC pipe have found that reclaiming and recycling trimmings and other forms of their own scrap product can be a cost-effective way to obtain feedstock or to enter the recycling business.

Royal Group Technologies Ltd., Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, has been using a closed-loop recycling system designed by Italian equipment maker AMUT for several years to re-grind not only its own in-house scrap, but also scrap collected from Royal Group customers.

The company makes PVC pipe and fittings as well as commercial doors and residential windows, doors, siding, fencing, decking and roofing.

According to AMUT North America VP of Sales & Marketing Anthony Georges, the process has helped boost the growth of the Royal Group in the past three decades. He says the company is now a “huge consumer” of PVC scrap, the procurement of which at a low cost gives it a tremendous competitive advantage. “They only use the scrap internally—it’s too valuable to sell off,” says Georges.

Royal Group and AMUT have worked together to create advances in PVC recycling that have gone largely unnoticed outside of the Royal Group. But, “with the correct compounding, almost all PVC products can use recycled PVC,” says Georges.

Another manufacturer recycling PVC scrap is Specified Fittings Inc., Bellingham, Wash., according to presenter Frank Borrelli, who is Technical Director of the Uni-Bell PVC Pipe Association.

According to Borrelli, the company grinds up its own scrap and scrap procured from its customers and then sells the resulting R-PVC through a broker based in Idaho.

Borrelli says Specified Fittings has recycled some 3.5 to 4 million pounds of PVC since purchasing its grinder, and the company “believes it has been economical for them.”

The trade group executive remarked that ensuring a reliable and high-volume source of supply could be the greatest barrier to PVC pipe makers engaging in more recycling, since PVC piping will stay in use for decades before becoming obsolete.

The GPEC 2006 event, organized by the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), took place in Atlanta in late February and early March.