More Than 30 Years of PVC Recycling—Need for Regulation

Abstract

Building on our “Critical Inventory”, we analyse the need for the regulation of PVC plastics in the EU and its member states. To this end, we checked the three phases of the life cycle of PVC plastics: production, use and end-of-life. In the production phase, we focus on the economic relationships between PVC and chlor-alkali electrolysis, in particular, the dependence on the chlorine market and PVC sales. For the use phase, the health and environmental risks posed by many PVC additives are particularly relevant. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has submitted well-founded proposals for the regulation of individual or defined groups of substances (e.g., ortho-phthalates), which we support. Problems that put a ban on the agenda stem in particular from the end-of-life phase of PVC plastics (PVC compounds), especially in the construction sector. Due to their long service life, a stock of around 160 million tonnes of PVC products in the EU has built up, increasingly finding its way into the waste management sector. Currently, there are no waste management infrastructures or facilities capable of disposing of these amounts. Without a phasing-out the production of virgin PVC (“PVC ban”), these quantities will continue to increase. We, therefore, come to the conclusion that post-consumer PVC should be collected separately and canalized into a disposal infrastructure designed for chlorine recovery. The European PVC industry “would welcome to make this separate collection mandatory”. Including the associated costs, PVC will probably lose its status as a particularly economically favourable plastic.