Progress in Poly(vinyl chloride) Recycling - ACS Symposium Series

Chapter 9

Progress in Poly(vinyl chloride) Recycling

Downloaded by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on January 10, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: May 5, 1995 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1995-0609.ch009

Robert H. Burnett Vinyl Institute, 65 Madison Avenue, Morristown, NJ 07960

This paper discusses the progress that has been made to integrate vinyl plastics into the solid waste management infrastructure. It includes an update on those systems designed to separate vinyl from other post-consumer plastic packaging and describes where they currently are in commerical use. It references some of the efforts underway to develop auxiliary technologies, which couldresultin even purer plastic recyclate. It describes the vinyl industry's work to encourage the commercialization of new products made from recycled vinyl and describes those products already being produced. Levels of activity among companies recycling vinyl and producing recycled content products are discussed. Details of prototype recycling programs for non-packaging applications are provided and an update of key regulatory developments related to vinyl recycling in the U.S. and Europe is presented. Trends in use of vinyl packaging for various applications - film, sheet and bottles -- are included. The subject of PVCrecyclingmay be an unfamiliar one to many people, but there is plenty to say about it. Indeed, many individuals believe that PVC - or, preferably vinyl, cannot berecycled,or is not beingrecycled.That is certainly not the case, and the purpose of this paper is to provide evidence to the contrary, as well as give an indication of where vinyl recycling is headed in the future. Profile of the Vinyl Market Vinyl is one of the most established plastic materials on the market today. The first applications for vinyl were commercialized over 75 years ago, and the first widespread use occurred over 50 years ago, when vinyl was substituted for rubber wire insulation on World War II battle ships. Today, vinyl is the world's second largest selling plastic material, exceeded in volume only by low density polyethylene.

0097H3156/95/0609-0097$12.00/0 © 1995 American Chemical Society In Plastics, Rubber, and Paper Recycling; Rader, Charles P., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1995.


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PLASTICS, RUBBER, AND PAPER RECYCLING

Last year, over 10 billion pounds were produced in the United States, and over 30 billion pounds worldwide. By far, the largest market for vinyl is the construction industry, which accounts for about 60 percent of all vinyl resin sales, while the largest use for the other major plastics tends to be packaging. This distinction certainly sets it apart from the other resins, and has, as a result, earned it areputationas the "infrastructure plastic." In construction, vinyl's broad range of formulating possibilities allows it to be used in everything from large diameter water distribution pipe to flexible baseboard moldings. In addition to packaging, other major markets for vinyl include electrical and electronic uses, transportation (primarily, automotive applications), furniture and furnishings, and consumer goods. Within the packaging market, major uses for vinyl includerigid,blow-molded bottles, which currendy consume just under 200 million pounds ofresina year in the U.S. These bottles largely are found in what is called the "custom market," which essentially consists of any type of plastic bottle other than soda bottles or milk jugs. Vinyl is used to package a variety of products, ranging from cooking oil to shampoo. In Europe, a very large market is in bottled water. In the U.S., vinyl is particularly popular with smaller,regionalbrands, because the economics in these cases favor vinyl over the competitive polymer, polyethylene terephthlate, or PET. The other major use for vinyl packaging is in film applications. This includes rigid film, used in pharmaceutical packaging, as well as many other types of so-called "blister packaging" and flexible film, including wrap for bothfruitsand vegetables, as well as meat. Other uses forflexiblefilm rangefrompallet wrap to tamper-evident seals for over-the-counter drugs. Together, rigid andflexiblefilm applications also consume about 200 million pounds of vinylresinper year. Vinyl in the Waste Stream Given therelativelysmall amount of vinyl that goes into the packaging market, it's also not surprising to find out that it's arelativelyinconsequential part of the total packaging found in the municipal waste stream. This has tended to present both advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of overall waste management In the case of either landfilling or incineration, it's an advantage, because the relatively small volume of vinyl involved does not present significant obstacles to the process. Like other plastics, vinyl is extremely stable in landfills, does not break down or leach chemicals into groundwater. In fact, vinyl is often used to make landfill liners because of its excellentresistanceto the chemicals that are sometimes found in these facilities. In incinerators, vinyl does generate hydrogen chloride, which must be neutralized as part of the process, but it is not unique in this regard. Moreover, recentresearchhas found that this can be done atrelativelylittle cost - about one percent of overall incineration costs. As to dioxin formation in incinerators, which is one of the issues currently being studied by the EPA as part of its dioxin reassessment, the most authoritative work in this area - the work conducted by the New York Energy Research and Development Authority in 1987 - indicates that the presence or absence of vinyl has no impact on the generation of dioxins. It is, instead,

In Plastics, Rubber, and Paper Recycling; Rader, Charles P., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1995.


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controlled by incinerator operating conditions, especially, temperature. These results have recently been confirmed by the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe. But what about the third common waste management technique, recycling? Here, industry has faced its greatest waste management challenges, for two reasons. First, vinyl is a relatively small amount of the process, which means that the economics of collecting and processing it are different than they are for the two commonly recycled materials, PET soda botdes and HDPE milk jugs. Second, visually, PET and vinyl are similar. Since both materials are commonly used in the custom bottle market, this complicates the plastics sorting process. However, the vinyl industry has done a significant amount of work to address these challenges, and has some very positive advances to report as a result. Vinyl Recycling Advances As is the case for all other materials retrieved from the waste stream, vinyl recycling involves four basic steps: collecting the material, separating different materials from each other, processing the resulting streams into a useable form ~ in the case of vinyl, a dried flake, -- and converting the reclaimed, reprocessed material into a second generation product. Large-scale plastics recycling really took off in the mid-80s, fueled by growing concerns over the perceived decline in landfill space, as well as the rejuvenated environmental movement In fact, it was the infamous "Long Island garbage barge," that really sharpened the focus on plastics recycling. The first plastics recycling ventures were extremely labor-intensive, and far from economic. In the earliest days, the approach was simply to visually separate out the milk jugs and soda bottles, and scrap everything else. As a result, recyclers were landfilling a lot of potentially valuable material. The vinyl industry knew, for instance, from a study conducted by the University of Toledo in 1989, that there were over a hundred potential uses for recycled vinyl. More important, the demand for the material was estimated to be over twice as large as the potential supply, indicating that pricing would also be good. The addition of the SPI resin identification code was the first step in opening up the recycling market for the other plastics, like vinyl. Those codes enabled consumers to sort their plastics for curbside pickup or drop them off at central locations according to the individual resin. In other cases, it greatly enhanced the separation process within recycling plants. But most of that separation work was still being done by hand, making it a high-cost process. And, even under the best of circumstances, it was subject to either consumer or worker error - meaning that bales of "custom" PET botdes frequently contained one or more stray vinyl botdes. Those who know anything about the melt temperatures of these two polymers will quickly appreciate the problems this presented: recycled PET polymer with charred bits of vinyl. It was for these reasons that the vinyl industry took the lead in sponsoring the development of automated separation technology ~ one of which is the technology developed by National Recovery Technologies, of Nashville, Tennessee. Essentially, this technology, and similar systems developed by other companies, relies on the



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chlorine content of the vinyl bottle to separate it from PET. The Vinyl Institute provided significant funding to commercialize the NRT system, and also provided funding to another company, Magnetic Separation Systems, also of Nashville. Industry also provided funding for pilot program testing and demonstration sites, where refinements for the NRT and MSS systems were identified and integrated. Tests run on these systems indicate that both can achieve nearly 100 percent purity in their PET/vinyl streams under proper operating conditions. Not only has this technology helped build a market for vinyl recycling, but it has proven to be a tremendous boon to custom PET recycling as well. Today, both companies market a variety of equipment that is designed to serve processing facilities of various sizes, and have systems in place throughout the United States and in Europe. In the future, other companies are expected to enter this market, which should help bring further price competition into play, making the equipment more affordable for more processors, and thus increasing die volume of vinyl reclaimed from the waste stream. It is also likely to spur development of auxiliary technologies, which should result in an even purer stream of recycled material. Both of these factors are likely to encourage even broader use of recycled vinyl in various end-uses. Further Recycling Support At the same time that the vinyl industry has been working to overcome the obstacles associated with the separation process, it has also established a number of other efforts to support the recycling industry in general, and the development of endmarket uses in particular. One of these is the Vinyl Environmental Resource Center, or VERCE, as it is commonly known, which was established in 1991. Operated by the Vinyl Institute, VERCE is a national information clearinghouse that serves as a networking resource for the recycling industry. Through VERCE, the VI operates a toll-free "hot-line," accessible throughout the U.S. and Canada, maintains a computerized database of environmental and recycling contacts, conducts media and environmental monitoring work, and maintains a centralized file of industry research related to environmental topics. A large amount of the work VERCE does involves networking within the recycling industry - matching people with material to sell with those who need it, and otherwise facilitating the process of vinyl recycling. VERCE also publishes two directories: The "Directory of Companies Involved in the Recycling of Vinyl (PVC) Plastics' "and the "Directory of Companies Manufacturing Products from Recycled Vinyl" Finally, VERCE also administers something called the "Tool Pool" program, a nationwide effort designed to encourage the commercialization of new products made out of recycled vinyl. The program uses a request-for-proposal process to identify and provide limited tooling support to qualifying companies in exchange for modest royalties on the finished product. Commercial product is already on the market as a result of this program. VERCE has been a highly successful undertaking. Even though the Center is over three years old, use of the hotline remains very high, and now averages over 150 1


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calls per month — most of them from recyclers. As an additional indication of success, The Directory of Recycled Products, which listed 43 companies in the first edition, lists 57 in the second. More impressive, the Directory of Companies Involved in Vinyl Recycling, has grown from 47 listings in the first edition, to 170 companies in the third edition published in May 1994.


Trends in Vinyl Recycling Research conducted for the American Plastics Council tells us that currently, about 6 million pounds of post-consumer vinyl packaging is being recycled in the United States. Another 6 million pounds of post-consumer vinyl is being recycled from nonpackaging applications. Clearly, this amount pales in comparison to the levels being reported for PET and HDPE, but it is 12 million pounds of material that otherwise would have been landfilled. The gap between vinyl and PET and HDPE is expected to remain somewhat constant as long as recycling continues to focus primarily on packaging. First, because current activity is largely driven by states with deposit laws for beverage bottles, which has provided a tremendous boost to PET soda bottle recycling. Second, because until automated sorting becomes more widely used, economics for plastics recycling tend to favor the "ones" and "twos." If one looks beyond the packaging market however, there is enormous potential for vinyl recycling - especially in the construction market, which generates tremendous amounts of scrap each year from new product installation as well as replacement work. In fact, there has been a sharp increase in environmental awareness in the building industry in just the last eighteen months or so, with builders and suppliers alike now touting the "greenness" of their projects and products. The Europeans are far ahead of the U.S. in the area of so-called "durables" recycling, which is not surprising given the fact that there has been much more interest in Europe to date among architects and specifiers about "building green." The vinyl industry in Europe, represented by the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers, has responded to this interest by establishing several prototype recycling programs for construction and demolition scrap. These include a successful program in France to use post-consumer reclaim in pipe, and another program in Germany torecovervinyl flooring. Given therelativeshortage of landfill space in Europe, the high "green" consciousness there, and the somewhat simpler logistics that the compressed geography offers, there should be more of these programs in the future. Encouraging Further Growth The U.S. vinyl industry has just begun to look at what it might do to encourage these types of efforts here. Preliminary thinking on this indicates that the highest likelihood for success probably will involve working with large-volume materials users or scrap generators who can collect sizeable amounts of scrap in a contained geographic area. But it also, conceivably, could involve wholesalers, or even the major do-it-yourself retailers. In fact, the Vinyl Siding Institute recently launched a pilot program for



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recycling scrap vinyl siding in North Carolina, which it hopes can be duplicated throughout the country. That program, which involves six collection sites in a 200hundred mile radius, generated 50,000 pounds of scrap in its first three weeks of operation. The construction market is really just the tip of the iceberg as far as nonpackaging recycling is concerned. Hie automotive market, for instance, now routinelyrefersto "designing for disassembly," and there is similar growing interest in recycling among appliance manufacturers, in the wire and cable business, and among computer makers, who are beginning to talk about the "green machine" - the new environmentallyfriendlypersonal computer. Is there a future for vinyl recycling in these applications? Absolutely. Will it take time to establish an infrastructure that can make these ambitious goals areality?Even more absolutely. But it can be done, given the right technology, the right programs, and most important, the right economics. The Hidden Recycling Market This paper would be incomplete if it did not address one more aspect of the vinyl recycling story: the millions of pounds of "pre-consumer" scrap generated every year by American industry - everything from trim scrap to off-grade resin. Many recycling purists tend to dismiss pre-consumer material as something that shouldn't really be counted in the recycling mix. But those who embrace the true spirit of recycling - landfill avoidance and maximum use of materials andresources- realize how significant pre-consumer recycling is to the country's long-term objectives of reducing dependence on landfills for waste management It's difficult to say how much pre-consumer vinyl is recycled each year, but it is clear that large quantities of this material arefindingtheir way into the marketplace each year, in a surprising range of products that have a great deal of utility to all of us. What are some of the end uses for recycled vinyl - both pre-consumer and post-consumer? Not surprisingly, given the fact that most applications for virgin vinyl are outside the packaging market, most uses forrecycledvinyl also, currendy, are in other types of applications. Some of it's going into durables applications, such as pipe with arecycledvinyl core sandwiched between two layers of virgin vinyl, or into other uses in the construction market, such as non-structural lumber or the substrate for vinyl siding. Still more is being used to make a variety of industrial and consumer products such as floor tiles and mats, garden hoses, notebook covers, pond liners and traffic cones. There are also a number of companies that are producing bottles with significant levels of post-consumer vinyl, some that produce rigid sheet for blister packaging containing post-consumer vinyl, and several that produce clamshells, trays and other custom packaging. It is particularly heartening to see this type of activity on the increase because of the growing interest at the state level in imposing regulations that require certain amounts of post-consumer content in various types of packaging in order to encourage recycling.


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Predictions for the Future As it becomes clearer and clearer that post-consumer vinyl can and is being recycled, industry expects to see a decline in the move away from it as a packaging material. In the U.S., the amount of vinyl used in bottles has declined, but appears to be leveling off at roughly 200 million pounds a year. Some of this decrease may be due to the trend toward source reduction - or "downsizing" of the package itself. In film and sheet packaging, however, the use of vinyl is actually growing. This is very significant, because the packaging market has always been at the forefront of change vis k vis environmental policy development, and decisions on material use made there tend to influence material selection in other markets. It's also clear that society is becoming more and more committed to the concept of resource conservation and environmental preservation. Obviously, recycling is one of the most efficient ways to achieve those goals. Products that can be easily processed for recycling, and have ready use in second-generation applications, will thrive under these conditions. The work industry has done to make vinyl recyclable, and the work it's still doing to encourage the use of recycled-content end products, means that there will continue to be a place for vinyl in the new world market. The technical feasibility of vinyl recycling has been clearly demonstrated. Now, the challenge for polymer producers and recyclers alike is to work together to refine the technologies, develop the systems and support the municipal efforts that will expand vinyl recycling to the level that will make the process work on a day-today, city-by-city basis. RECEIVED March 16,1995


Progress in Poly(vinyl chloride) Recycling - ACS Symposium Series

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