4 main differences between recycled and regular PVC

The purpose of this article is to describe 4 main differences between recycled and regular PVC that can influence your purchase decision:

1.- hidden costs

Although one of the advantages of choosing recycled PVC compound is the price, it is very common for recycling companies to offer a mixture of various grades and hardnesses. For recycling companies, it already represents a great effort to remove any external agent that generates a potential risk to the customer, so it would be practically impossible to filter tons of pellets by hardness, density and color.

On one hand, the customer will buy a very cheap product but, on the other hand, they will be immersed in the constant task of adjusting their process and generating large amount of scrap. In short, what is cheap at first glance could be more expensive in the long run.

For this same reason, finding recycled PVC supplier that guarantees constant quality from batch to batch is a practically an impossible task. In the best of cases, your best value proposition is based on filtering materials of similar appearance or hardness, but hardly will they be the same.

2.- quality

The previous point makes the perfect case of why it is so hard to mantain a certain quality standard to customers.

This is why those companies that use cost reduction strategies using recycled materials, look for PVC supply sources that produce very flexible and for most stringent markets. We can say medical devices or food film are among the prefered sources. These materials are very easy to process, they do not generate lumps when extruded or mixed with first-hand compounds and they are free of heavy metals banned by the FDA.

There are recycled PVC grades of greater Shore A hardness and in several colors. In either case, mixing this cheap product with a first-hand PVC compound can generate several quality issues. For starters, each lot might be different in both color and hardness which makes it a hard task for quality personnel beause they need to validate each one before introducing them to their process. If mixing with a first-hand compound, a similar hardness or color from the recycled material is always recommended. Also, you must be very careful with the percentage of recycled PVC that you want to mix with a virgin resin, because the greater the quantity, the greater the risk of customer complaints and scrap during process.

Recycled PVC coming from bottles is another common material found in the market. The main reason is that it provides great impact resistance at a great price. It is normally found in two colors: translucent blue or salmon pink. Note that you have to be careful with the grayish/yellowish appearance or the gels that these generate in your finished product derived from poor integration or thermal degradation.

Do not forget that the process the transformer has greatly affects the percentage of recycled PVC addition because, for instance, injection process tends to exert greater friction than in the case of conventional extrusion.

We recommend the addition of additives, such as heat stabilizers and lubricants, to improve recycled PVC processing. You can visit our sister company Chemical Additives where you will find more information about these.

3.- product supply and availability

In an increasingly competitive market, companies frequently look for reliable recycled PVC suppliers that allow them to maintain sales with decent profit margins. The problem is that guaranteeing this is difficult since supply far exceeds demand. Specially in the PVC market, reprocessing is not an easy task compared to other resins, such as polyolefins, which, due to their lubricating nature, tend to better resist thermal degradation.

Although surveys show that the polymer recycling market has grown a lot over the years, the trend eventually leads to stagnation, mainly due to the fact that a 100% recovered resin does not really meet quality and safety standards. In addition, the recycling capacity is limited by the number of times a product has already been processed (thermal footprint) and by the nature of the resin in question. In the case of PVC, the more rigid the recycled material, the more difficult it will be to incorporate with another first-hand resin.

4.- environment responsability

The issue of PVC recycling has taught us that it is a partial and not definitive solution, finding the best solution in consumer awareness and government programs in the recovery, recycling and reuse along the production chain. Of course, the ideal is to involve the private sector through the growth of an economy of free competition and, mostly, by formalizing this productive sector.

Currently there are biodegradable resin alternatives for single-use plastics where PVC compound has a limited impact due to its small presence markets. PVC is usually focused on the construction and hardware industry, where durable plastics with good physical-mechanical properties are desired, a situation that is not easily achieved with biodegradable resins.

Was this article useful? We hope you have learned about the 4 differences between reclycled and regular PVC compound. We invite you to get to know our PVC compounds for several applications. Also our experts can assist you to learn more about this subject.

Chemical Compounds