Autovinyl (4, Cours Michelet, F-92091 Paris La Defense Cedex) was founded in January 1997 by the carmakers Renault and PSA, the component suppliers Ecia, Griffine Industries, Plastic Omnium, CTAA-Sofedit and Treves, and the PVC producers Elf Atochem / Resinoplast, Solvay and LVM. The mission of this partnership is to develop the recycling of PVC parts from end-of-life vehicles, in particular coated fabrics from passenger compartments, as well as the recycling of PVC production scraps resulting from dashboards and trims manufacture.

One of the first tasks of Autovinyl was to invite tenders from recycling companies, two of which were finally selected: RM Plast (Mantes, France) and Wipag (Munich, Germany). "RM Plast is a young company which nevertheless has a good deal of experience in the treatment of PVC coatings," says Alain Jean, Elf Atochem's executive manager for plastics recycling and managing delegate of Autovinyl. "Wipag, on the other hand," he says, "has acquired good experience in the recycling of dashboards for the German car industry." Both companies have a capacity of around 1,000 t/y.

One year into the operation, some 1,740 t of automotive PVC waste have been recycled by Autovinyl, two thirds of which comes from production scraps and the remaining third from end-of-life vehicles. According to Alain Jean, "this result is in line with forecasts and represents a first step towards the interim objective of recycling 5,000 tonnes of automotive PVC waste by the end of 1999." In future, Autovinyl also plans to recycle mats, carpeting and other PVC- based coverings. This second source of waste represents a tonnage rougly equivalent to the first (dashboards and trims), or between 5,000 and 6,000 t/y.