PVC Plastic: a Looming Waste Crisis

PVC Recycling - Solving a Problem or Selling a Poison?

PVC has been under severe pressure since the 1980s, on environmental grounds. In order to maintain its market position, the PVC industry has had to react against this pressure, and it therefore launched a public campaign to "green" PVC, with recycling at its centre.

The role of recycling in "greening" the PVC industry is best illustrated by the leaked minutes of a Solvay meeting held in Brussels in 1990. The minutes state: "After, M. Brouillot, a trade union representative remarked that this project (PVC recycling) is not economically viable. It is necessary, however, for its publicity and educational value". M. Bonny, a senior manager, added that the PVC recycling operation is ‘for enhancing the public profile of PVC which is now under frequent attack’ (Solvay 1990). Another leaked Solvay document, dated April 1992, outlines a strategy for a proposed public relations campaign to restore the image of PVC. This strategic plan includes recycling demonstrations, reports, workshops, conferences and a "media attack on journals read by opinion leaders" as a key strategy (Solvay 1992).

This strategy, as outlined by Europe’s market leader in PVC, Solvay, seems to be a guiding principle for the industry world-wide. The industry is involved in all major PVC recycling schemes, and claims that they demonstrate PVC can be, and is being, recycled: " The steadily increasing number of PVC recycling projects around Europe, however, provide a very adequate demonstration that PVC can be recycled as safely and as readily as the other commodity plastics" (Norsk Hydro 1995). "PVC can readily be recycled, and can also be separated from mixed plastic wastes" (PACIA 1996). "Demand for recycled vinyl far outstrips supply" (Vinyl Institute 1993).

This recycling "strategy" seems to be paying off for the PVC industry. Governments, local authorities, PVC product manufacturers and consumers are now involved in recycling projects; in the countries which have the most advanced policies on PVC, like Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, recycling is the centrepiece of these policies. The key role of PVC recycling for decision-makers is illustrated in the Dutch EPA’s position on PVC (Zoeteman 1993): "The main feature of this policy is that PVC applications for which no feasible system of recycling and re-use can be established, the use of more environmental-sound alternative material is to be preferred." The Dutch government recently reconfirmed this policy in a PVC position paper (VROM 1997)

But does PVC recycling solve an environmental problem, or is it an empty claim which merely prevents or postpones the adoption of more stringent measures?

This report examines the latest advances in PVC recycling, and analyses the looming PVC waste crisis.