This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Press Room
Statement on Recycling
February 16, 2024 – Over 1.1 billion pounds of PVC are recycled annually in the United States and Canada, and the Vinyl Institute (VI) is committed to increasing that figure. To that end, the VI launched the VIABILITY recycling grant program, which has awarded over $1.67 million to projects researching and making innovations in post-consumer PVC recycling. Thanks to generous contributions from four PVC resin producers – Formosa, Oxy, Shintech, and Westlake – the VI will grant $3 million total to innovative projects. We also provide a vinyl recycling directory as a resource to help connect folks with vinyl recyclers around the country.
Unlike many other consumer products, vinyl materials are durable products that are in service for decades. As such, most of the vinyl material diverted from waste streams is considered “pre-consumer” or “post-industrial”, which consists primarily of scrap material generated during manufacturing and installation of vinyl products. There are over 100 companies involved in vinyl recycling in the US and Canada, and many have demonstrated success in working with construction and demolition recyclers to collect vinyl coming from those “post-consumer” streams as well. A great example of how the VIABILITY recycling grant program is improving access to recycling is the recent launch of the Revinylize Recycling Collaborative by the Vinyl Siding Institute. Additionally, we would call to your attention that the REMADE Institute, funded by the US Department of Energy, recently published a book titled “Technical Innovation for the Circular Economy”, which included a section on the current state of recycling in the vinyl industry.
Our industry has made significant improvements in worker safety and sustainable practices in the past five decades, and mechanical recycling in the vinyl industry has gotten stronger over those years as well. Equating the state of recycling in the 1980s to today does not give an accurate picture of the advancements being pioneered, and the VI will continue to look to the horizon for new ways to increase our industry’s circularity and reduce plastic waste.
###
Press Contact
Gil Connolly