Going the extra mile

With public awareness of recycling and plastic waste in the environment at an all-time high, Eurocell is urging more its customers to take advantage of the company’s PVCU trade waste and post-consumer waste collection service.

These customers could be anyone from fabricators handling their own waste or builders returning old frames to one of Eurocell’s participating branches.

The free scheme represents a considerable benefit to all partakers – not to mention the green upside of putting plastic scrap to good use, and reducing the amount going to landfill.

In the case of fabricators, a magnum, cage or bin is left with the customer who fills it with old frames (suitably deglazed) and/or fabrication waste, such as offcuts and damaged profiles. Once full, Eurocell collects it.

At a pure commercial level, this means customers don’t have to worry about the logistics of PVCU waste disposal, and also avoid the fees associated with licensed removal.

At Merritt’s, the plastic then becomes part of the ‘closed loop recycling process’, which refers to taking waste or by-product from one process and using it to make new products in another – in Eurocell’s case, taking old PVCU windows and using them to make new ones. At its best, ‘closed loop’ can mean that no new raw materials are required.

Eurocell stops around one million window frames and doors going to landfill every year. The recycled post-consumer waste is used produce a variety of new products, from thermal inserts to the Modus window system.

Unlike most plastics, which are ‘downcycled’ into to lesser products, Eurocell said PVCU recycling is an example of ‘upcycling’. Re-processing PVCU imbues it with additional structural strength and, post-extrusion, results in recycled product being superior to those made from virgin material, because the process creates better dispersion of material elements.

Head of marketing Chris Coxon said: “We need to do it in partnership with the trade – which is why we want more customers to take up the opportunities presented by our free collection scheme: to close the loop and create a virtuous circle. It may not save the resources of the world – it may be a drop in the ocean – yet it can and, with your help, make a difference.”