PVC-U Windows and the Environment

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 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. 

VinylPlus and Recovinyl

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 waste 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-U building products to support VinylPlus, The European PVC industry’s ten-year Voluntary Commitment to sustainable development. Consistently, since inception of the scheme the UK has led the way in the volume of PVC-U collected and recycled in Europe.  The scheme, which is independently audited, produces regular Progress Reports on all of the measurable schemes. These Progress Reports are freely available on the VinylPlus website.

UK is one the leading contributors of Recovinyl programme in Europe. The UK's 2022 figures were subsequently analysed by application, showing window profiles to be the largest contributor to UK PVC-U recycling.  Of the 810.240t collected by the scheme in total, the origin of recycled pvc waste from window profiles accounted for 408.151t (50%).  The UK continued to be the second largest contributor to the scheme.  Other materials collected and recycled through the Recovinyl programme included pipes and fittings, cables, flexible PVC and rigid PVC films.

Keeping Energy Efficiency Simple with PVC-U

PVC-U Windows Recycling Process

The following video shows the journey of a PVC-U window in the recycling process to be transformed into a newly recycled product and fitted into a family home

A significant report has been written by Hydro Polymers, detailing the effects of PVC-U recycling on performance criteria, which can be downloaded here. The study confirms that "...PVC-U can be successfully recycled several times without significant loss in physical properties."

Please keep your eye on the "news" section of this website, where the latest developments about PVC-U recycling will be recorded. The BPF run several seminars throughout the year, several of which will focus on plastics recycling, with VinylPlus UK running a seminar, held each November, focusing specifically on PVC, around topics such as recycling and REACH. Details of all BPF seminars can be found via www.bpf.co.uk.