Framing the future
Based in Runcorn, UK, PVCR is a subsidiary of the REHAU Group that specialises in the recycling of PVC profiles. Martin Hitchin, CEO, REHAU UK, shares why he thinks the company is important to its parent group, and the planet.
The whole thing about PVCR is that recycling old PVC window frames is the right thing to do. Sustainability is one of our core values as an organisation. Previously, we were seeing a whole load of first-generation PVC window frames pulled out and put into landfill. This way we are reusing them – and not just as a cheap product but as a core, high-value product.
Window frames that have been in houses for 20 or 30 years are brought to our facility in Runcorn, and within a matter of hours we produce a product that’s shipped straight to our Blenau plant in Wales to produce brand-new windows. We produce around 500 tonnes of material for Blenau every month, which is forecasted to increase to around 2,000 tonnes of material a month – that’s an awful lot of material that we don't have to mine and that PVCR doesn’t have to purchase.
Approximately 55 per cent of the product goes to our Blenau operation, and 20 per cent of those window frames will be made into a ferrous or non-ferrous metal product. 15 per cent of the coloured PVC is of a standard that's not good enough for REHAU but we’ll still find buyers who will use that product in school playgrounds, for instance, or it may go into other non-white PVC products.
The key reason for investing in the PVCR site is because it represents our values. Sustainability is one of the key parts of REHAU. It’s part of our DNA. We were finding that we were supplying windows into a marketplace where the old windows were just put straight into landfill, so this gives us access to it. Traditionally, recycled or post-consumer material has been used for low-grade applications, but we’re using it in our core, high-value, high-quality product, and we've developed a process, in which we’ve invested very heavily, that allows us to achieve high-value.
PVCR is very important in the REHAU Group. The family have made it very clear that they want to develop the REHAU Group in a very sustainable way, and one of the pillars for that has been the development of recycling facilities – not just in PVCR in Runcorn, but in Germany and Poland so that we can access this valuable material and the old window frames that would otherwise end up in landfill. Then we can convert them into high-grade material for use in our production plants.
PVCR is also very important to the REHAU Group because we supply PVC products that don’t have to be mined from the earth’s natural resources, and what impresses me about REHAU is that they put sustainability before profit, so it's not all about the commercial aspect.
The key thing is that we want to future-proof ourselves. We want to make sure that we can effectively use as much of the material that we're getting from old windows in our core processes. Part of the future idea for the site is expansion. We want to increase the amount of material as much as we can and also make sure that we can really get hold of the materials and find the most effective supply chain to deliver them into PVCR. So, what we're trying to do is increase the capacity by investing very heavily in some very advanced technology to improve the material and the purity of the material we get so that there is a seamless supply from PVCR into our manufacturing plant in Blenau.
Improving sustainability is all about co-operation and making sure that the supply chain co-operates effectively so that we achieve our aims. It’s about communication and ensuring that the sustainability message reaches the entire value chain, from fabricators to installers, even to consumers so that they understand, appreciate and even ask for products produced with the willingness to secure quality.
Finally, it's about scalability and making sure that we dramatically increase the amount of recycled content in our products. We want to make sure that no PVC waste goes to landfill - not anymore.