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VinylPlus: Progress Report 2025

The European PVC industry organisation presented the report at the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum in Paris in May 2025.

Despite numerous challenges, PVC waste recycling under VinylPlus remained largely stable and even exceeded expectations, according to the progress report. According to the report presented in Paris, 724,638 tonnes of PVC waste were recycled in Europe last year through VinylPlus. This would correspond to approximately 35 per cent of the total PVC waste generated in the EU-27, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. According to the progress report, the amount of PVC recyclate registered by converters in 2024 increased by 4.3 per cent compared to 2023, reaching 490,278 tonnes.

 
Other advances and achievements of the European PVC industry in 2024, as mentioned in the VinylPlus Progress Report 2025, include the fact that 9.5 million tonnes of PVC have been recycled and reused in new products since 2000. According to the report, this has saved over 19 million tonnes of CO2. In addition, the industry has made extensive investments in research and development projects with the aim of removing old additives from waste and improving the chemical recycling of PVC waste that cannot be recycled. For example, a pilot plant is currently being developed to identify and sort old additives. The aim is to separate PVC waste from old cables, pipes, profiles and floor coverings that contain phthalates and heavy metals such as lead. In addition, according to VinylPlus, a project was successfully carried out in 2024 which confirmed that pyrolysis oil from a mixed plastic waste stream containing 10 per cent PVC waste is of similar quality to oil obtained from mixed plastic waste without PVC. According to the progress report, the VinylPlus® RecoChlor programme, which focuses on the recovery and recycling of chlorine from hard-to-recycle PVC waste through chemical recycling, also delivered promising results.

 
‘At VinylPlus, our goal is clear: to create a future-proof PVC value chain,’ emphasises Karl-Martin Schellerer, Chairman of VinylPlus. He goes on to say that one focus of the work remains increasing the circular economy in the PVC value chain. All efforts were also aimed at making progress towards the 2030 commitment and preparing for the mid-term review in 2025. Within this framework, VinylPlus will conduct a comprehensive review of the targets of its 2030 commitment and measure and evaluate its initiatives to date in order to take account of market developments, technical developments and changes in the regulatory framework, according to Schellerer.
 
Further information:

 

Sources:

  • VinylPlus (21.8.2025)
  • Picture: © VinylPlus

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