PVC Recycling Record Project in Franconia

At the end of October 2017, a construction project that may well be a record-breaker in several respects was officially kicked off. A former US Army garrison in Schweinfurt, that is now owned by the city, is currently being demolished and replaced with a new development. Work on the site, which covers an area of 28 hectares and will contain 34 rows of three-storey houses and 26 semi-detached houses, is expected to be completed in 2019. The deconstruction of the existing buildings is being carried out in accordance with modern and environmentally friendly standards, which require the different building materials to not only be separated, but also recycled.

Alongside a large amount of PVC flooring waste, the demolition of the garrison will also involve the removal of around 2500 old PVC windows, which will be collected in containers before being processed using mechanical recycling so that their material can be re-used in new window and building profiles.

The project in Schweinfurt is one of the four largest recycling projects for old PVC windows to be carried out in Germany in the last ten years and is even breaking a recycling record in Bavaria. It is being supported by the German Working Group for PVC and Environment (AGPU), the Rewindo window recycling service, the German Association for the Recycling of PVC Floor Coverings (AgPR), the European PVC Window Profile and Related Building Products Association (EPPA ivzw) and the recycling company Dekura GmbH.