The European PVC industry has succeeded in meeting all the 10 year targets set under its Vinyl 2010 (www.vinyl2010.org) initiative, which aims to promote sustainable production and recycling of PVC. Launched by the PVC industry in 2000, Vinyl 2010 is a voluntary commitment to meet the targets for collection and recycling of post-consumer PVC waste, the phase-out of certain additives, minimising the environmental impact of PVC production and encouraging social dialogue between industry stakeholders.

Vinyl 2010 says in its final progress report that last year PVC recyclers reprocessed 260,842 t of unregulated post-consumer PVC waste across Europe, exceeding the goal set in 2000 of recycling an additional 200,000 t on an annual basis by 2010. This is a considerable achievement, it says, considering that in 1999 there was no infrastructure for recycling PVC in Europe and the material was dismissed by many as "unrecyclable".

Josef Ertl, chairman of the Vinyl 2010 board, said the initiative is a good example of industry self-regulation, and has contributed to the creation of a new recycling industry across Europe. “It is no exaggeration to say that it has helped to revolutionise the PVC value chain in Europe,” he remarked.

The Vinyl 2010 report also confirms that the phase-out and replacement of certain additives from the PVC production process is ahead of schedule across the EU - with cadmium phased out in the EU-27 in 2007, and lead substitution on track to be replaced completely by 2015. At the end of February, the European Council of Ministers had passed an amendment that further restricts the use of cadmium in PVC – see Plasteurope.com of 16.03.2011.

Vinyl 2010 is run by the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers (ECVM, Brussels; www.ecvm.org), the European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels; www.eupc.org), the European Stabiliser Producers Association (ESPA, Brussels; www.stabilisers.org) and the European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates (ECPI, Brussels; www.ecpi.org). Collection and recycling schemes for PVC waste streams were created and managed through industry recycling initiative Recovinyl (Brussels / Belgium; www.recovinyl.com). Recovinyl was established in 2005 to facilitate the collection, sorting and dispatching of mixed post-consumer PVC waste, in particular from the building and construction sectors – see Plasteurope.com of 18.03.2011. Today, Recovinyl brings together a network of over 150 companies operating across Europe.

Following the success of Vinyl 2010, the industry is developing a new voluntary commitment for the next 10 years. A key focus of the new commitment, VinylPlus, will be ensuring that all companies in the PVC chain act responsibly. “Certain companies in the value chain have managed to get away with reaping the benefits of Vinyl 2010 without signing up to it,” said Ertl. “As sustainability criteria become increasingly important in public and private procurement, these free riders risk seeing their products excluded from the market.” The PVC industry has been developing VinylPlus with Swedish sustainable development not-for-profit organisation The Natural Step (www.naturalstep.org), and the official launch will take place in June 2011.

e-Service: Vinyl 2010 Progress Report as a PDF document