Every time an office building or an old home is demolished, all of the
broken-down materials have to go somewhere. The US Environmental Protection
Agency estimates that 230 million to 530 million
tons of
construction waste are produced annually — and much of that material ends up in
landfills.
The bulk of construction and demolition waste is old bricks, masonry, concrete,
wood and metal; but it’s not exclusively that. Some plastic-based building
materials — such as windows, flooring and decking — that could be recycled
aren’t, because companies haven’t yet figured out how to collect and reuse the
plastic at the heart of these products.
Chicago-based The AZEK Company has cracked this code.
AZEK manufactures PVC decking for residential homes and other structures.
TimberTech® AZEK decking is a co-extruded PVC deck board with a cap layer
that creates a beautiful wood-look aesthetic while protecting your deck from the
elements. In October 2018, the product was made with 30 percent recycled
content. Today TimberTech AZEK decking is manufactured using 63 percent recycled
content, 47 percent of which is sourced from external scrap materials.
Circularity by Design: How to Influence Sustainable Consumer Behaviors
Join us Thursday, December 5, at 1pm ET for a free webinar on making circular behaviors the easy choice! Nudge & behavioral design expert Sille Krukow will explore the power of Consumer Behavior Design to drive circular decision-making and encourage behaviors including recycling and using take-back services. She will share key insights on consumer psychology, behavior design related to in-store and on-pack experiences, and how small changes in the environment can help make it easy for consumers to choose circularity.
“We’re on a mission to convert the building products industry from its
uninspiring past to a dynamic and sustainable future,” said Bruce Stanhope,
PhD, AZEK’s Vice President of Research and Development. “To accomplish this
takes reimagining current products to find a way to make them better.”
Here’s how they reimagined a more sustainable decking product.
Building a better recycling stream
AZEK went on a mission to shrink its environmental footprint by recycling more,
and diverting more and more waste from landfills. To achieve this, they had to
figure out how to recycle material that most people won’t touch.
The first step was identifying potential sources of materials for recycling. The
company found some across AZEK divisions and others from different sources, and
identified traditional PVC components — such as siding, piping and windows. They
also sourced post-consumer content that has proven much more difficult to
recycle — including vinyl composite tile (VCT) flooring, cooling towers, credit
cards, powders and chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC); and they partnered
with over 150 different grinders and recyclers, ensuring a steady supply chain.
The second step was the secret sauce: figuring out how to remove the
contaminants, and separate the metals and non-PVC components in order to get
reusable post-consumer PVC that could be put back into decking material. To
achieve this, the AZEK team also had to modify their formulations to adapt to
the breadth of recycling stream inputs.
As they put this ambitious recycling project into operation, The AZEK Company
diverted nearly 300 million pounds of waste from landfills in 2019. Their goal
moving forward is to do even more.
“Sustainability is a journey,” Stanhope said, “and we will continue to push the
boundaries of our recycling capabilities and innovations.”
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Vinyl Sustainability Council
Published Jan 15, 2021 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET