That was the theme heard repeatedly during the recent Fesnterbau/Frontale 2004 profile exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany.  Thomas W.Buttner, managing director of the German Window and Siding Association, says the sector has for too long been passive; its goal now is to influence politicians to promote housing and renovation investment.  He says that if poor-sealing windows in Europe were replaced, the continent could save 36 million litres of heating oil, or 1.5 billion euro per year.

The move appears to be paying off in some sectors.  Danish politicians in February rescinded a tax on PVC building products.  Werner Preusker, manager of PVC+, an industry lobby group, says this was mainly due to the opening of Denmark's first PVC recycling facility, a 50,000 tonnes/year hydrolysis plant at Stigsnaes.  He also reported that the city council of Magdeburg, Germany, which had previously outlawed PVC profiles in city-financed renovation projects, has reversed its decision.

Recycling of PVC

All this bodes well for the sector, which is promoting its own voluntary environmental strategy, Vinyl 2010, to ensure used PVC is recycled, not hand-filled.  Ulrike Grawe, executive secretary of the European PVC Window Profile Association, says the industry is fulfilling its goals.  Cadmium stabilizers were abandoned in 2001, and profile extruders have committed to reducing lead from 120,000 to 80,000 tonnes by 2010.  A total waiver of lead-based stabilizers is planned for 2015, she said.

Collection and recycling of PVC profiles is increasing throughout Western Europe to the extent that France now has nationwide collection.  Other countries are catching up - 50% of the collected PVC should be recycled and co-extruded into new PVC profiles by 2005.  

But to sustain the recylcate, Europe needs to sell more PVC building products.  Of total Western European PVC consumption, more than 61% is related to construction.  However that, said Preusker, is still to little.  "There is a huge potential in Scandinavia where PVC windows have only a 13% market share, as well as in Southern Europe where it is only 11%," he said. By contrast, Central Europe has a 57% share, topped by Great Britain with 83%.  In the plastics pipe sector, Germany lags with just under 10% compared to more that 80% usage in public sewers in North America.  Nor are German profile extruders seeing much needed increased demand.  Dirk U. Hendrichs, president of lobby group Fenstermarket-plus.de says there is no government incentive to invest in housing.  In 1990, more than 19 million window units (profiles and glass) were sold in West Germany and this figure jumped to 26 million by 1996 in unified Germany.  Last year the numbers sank to 13 million units.