Vinnolit at K 2019: It´s all about sustainability

Customers and business partners from all over the world visited the exhibition booth of Westlake Chemical, which included the PVC manufacturer Vinnolit, at the international plastics fair in Düsseldorf. The focus was on personal conversations with visitors who were not only interested in product innovations, but also particularly in sustainability and the circular economy.

PVC is one of the most versatile and most important plastics in the world. Compared to other plastics, the material requires significantly less fossil raw materials. It is mainly used for durable products, especially in the construction sector, and is recyclable at the end of its life cycle. To further promote recycling, the European PVC industry, including Vinnolit, has launched the VinylPlus sustainability program. So far, the success speaks for itself: almost 740,000 metric tons of PVC were recycled within the framework of VinylPlus in 2018. Since the start of activities in 2000, more than 5 million metric tons of PVC have been recycled, saving 10 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Being one of the most innovative PVC manufacturers in the industry, Vinnolit develops an average of two new products per year and invests several million Euros annually in research and development and applications technology. Since the summer, Vinnolit has been involved in the EU research project “Circular Flooring” aimed at enabling environmentally friendly recycling of post-consumer PVC floor coverings. Vinnolit cooperates with eleven companies and research institutes from five European countries. The project, coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV) in Freising, Germany, is funded by the European Union with around 5.4 million Euros (Grant Agreement No. 821366). The aim is to obtain a floor recyclate that achieves its original quality and thus allows a high degree of flexibility with regard to new recipes and applications. This is an important contribution towards conserving valuable resources and keeping them in the circular economy.

You can find the video of the fair on the Youtube channel of Vinnolit.