AGPU becomes a member of VinylPlus, the sustainability programme of the European PVC industry. Stefan Valerius, the Managing Director of Dekura GmbH, is elected as a member of the AGPU Managing Board.

AGPU has now been committed to PVC in Germany for nearly 30 years. The transition to the development and production of sustainable products offers the entire industry a wide range of opportunities and both the PVC industry and AGPU are well prepared when it comes to dealing with this transition. Modern PVC products are not only reliable in terms of their application, but also offer innovative properties and remain sustainable throughout their service lives and right through to the recycling process.

At the AGPU General Meeting held at the Collegium Leoninum hotel in Bonn, member companies set the course for the next steps to be taken. „AGPU is becoming a national partner of VinylPlus, the sustainability partner of the European PVC industry“, explains Dr Axel Bruder, the Chairman of the AGPU Managing Board and a member of the Managing Board of RENOLIT SE in Worms. According to Bruder, the group will now continue the successful journey on which it embarked many years ago, which includes working in closer cooperation with VinylPlus and other associations in the European PVC network. Bruder states that this helps to strengthen both the continued work and competence of AGPU in Germany and the targets pursued by VinylPlus on a European level. He also explains that the cooperation of both associations helps to bring about important synergy effects in the industry.

Another focus of the agenda of the AGPU General Meeting was the election of Stefan Valerius, the Managing Director of Dekura GmbH as a member of the AGPU Managing Board. The company based in Höxter is one of the market leaders in the field of PVC and scrap window recycling in Europe. „The election of Mr Valerius means that the entire PVC value chain is yet again represented in the AGPU Managing Board“, states Thomas Hülsmann, the AGPU Managing Director.

The General Meeting was followed by the round-table event for decision-makers from the PVC industry. Alongside Dr Rüdiger Baunemann, the Director General of PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V. and a member of the AGPU Managing Board, the event organisers were also able to gain Dirk Jespen, the Executive Director of Ökopol – Institut für Ökologie und Politik GmbH, as a speaker for the event. In his presentation, Mr Jespen told participants about a current project that identifies the challenges involved in PVC recycling under REACH and waste legislation and proposes corresponding problem-solving approaches. Dr Baunemann provided participants at the round-table event with an insight into the roadmap of the European Commission and the contribution made by the plastics industry with regards to the European „Circular Economy Package“.

AGPU will again run a number of different communication projects in cooperation with VinylPlus in 2017. At the end of last year, the PVC experts proposed three projects: creating and publishing articles on the topic of Green Public Procurement, organising and running a dialogue event with stakeholders on the topic of „sustainable development with PVC“ and continuing the successful „PVC Recyclers Meet PVC Processors“ series of events in cooperation with their partners from “Aktion PVC Recycling” campaign run by the German Association for the Recycling of PVC Floor Coverings (AgPR), ESWA/Roofcollect and Rewindo.

The joint project on „Guidelines on Recycling in Accordance with Waste Law and REACH“ will continue also in 2017. The leading body in this joint project is the Beteiligungs- und Kunststoffverwertungsgesellschaft mbH (BKV) with support from PlasticsEurope, AGPU, VinylPlus, the German Association of the Plastics Converters (GKV), the Qualitätsverband Kunststofferzeugnisse (QKE) and other stakeholders. AGPU coordinates the PVC topics involved in this project in its extended Recycling Working Group.