Vycom and AZEK Open Recycling Plant for Sustainable Substrates

Vycom, a division of The AZEK Company, is a manufacturer of plastic sheet products for the sign and display industry. Vycom substrates are designed to replace wood, metal, and other traditional materials in a variety of applications. The AZEK Company, which also manufactures materials for construction and other industries, recently opened its own recycling plant in Wilmington, Ohio, which is being used to supply the raw materials for some Vycom-branded materials as well as other AZEK products, with more on the way. We recently spoke with Kevin Duffy, VP of Sales and Marketing for Vycom, about the new plant, what it means for Vycom substrates, and the company’s sustainability efforts. 

WhatTheyThink: How did the decision to open a recycling plant come about, and is it the first of its kind for AZEK? 

Kevin Duffy: Yes, it’s the first of its kind for AZEK, and just to be clear, we’ve traditionally used recycled materials, both post-consumer and post-industrial, for many years. What this allows us to do is to become vertically integrated with the raw materials. So we’re now buying the post-consumer/post industrial material on the open market, taking it into our facility in bale form, and then sorting it, washing it, grinding it, reprocessing it, and putting it into a form that allows it to be put right back into our products. The benefit for us is that we own the facility, so we can control the quality. I think it also shows our commitment not only to both recycling and sustainability, but also to our product lines for the long term.

WTT: AZEK produces different materials for construction and other industrie. How much of Vycom’s substrate material comes from what is recycled at the plant?

KD: The Wilmington plant is a polyethylene recycling plant. At Vycom, we run multiple types of materials. The majority of what we produce today for the sign and graphics market is a PVC [polyvinyl chloride]-based material. We do use polyethylene for other products such as our Polycarve, which is our color material that you can route through to a different color in the core, and that has the ability to have recycled content in it and certainly could be supported from that plant. Overall, the majority of the material that’s going through the Wilmington plant today will be going into our deckboard products that are produced at another facility just down the street in Wilmington, Ohio.

WTT: What specific kinds of materials does it recycle? 

KD: It’s single-use packaging. Think of milk jugs, laundry detergent containers, shampoo bottles, a lot of single-use packaging that comes into the plant in bale form. It’s a mix of different types of polyethylene from high-density, to low-density, to linear low [density]. Again, having the ability to control the process and the quality allows us to take in multiple different streams and we can tune the products to whatever we need for our offerings on the decking side.

WTT: From where does the plan acquire the recyclable materials?

KD: We’ll work with municipalities, waste haulers, recycling companies—anybody that’s out there. In the past, we would have worked directly with people that are already reprocessing these materials, but now we can actually just take the raw materials themselves that had been reclaimed and put them right into our operation. There are multiple avenues and we negotiate long-term contracts. Right now, people are looking for creative ways to use recycled materials. With China no longer accepting a lot of the recyclable materials that they would have in the past, people are looking at new outlets domestically for those materials.

WTT: Are materials made from recycled materials more or less expensive than those made from “virgin” plastics or other materials?

KD: It depends on the quality of the recycled material. In some cases, if you really want a pristine, like-new product, in those cases, the recycled material could actually cost more because there’s a cost to recapturing it, reprocessing it, and making sure it’s very clean and free of contaminants. If you’ve got more capability to handle some of the mixed materials that can have some level of contamination, the economics get much more favorable. That’s what we have with our decking products because 80% of it is the core material that is basically a structural filler and doesn’t need to be perfect, unlike the outer cap component of the deck where you get all the aesthetics, the long life and UV protection, and nice looking pigments and everything else. So there’s a lot in that core that gives us the ability to use those recycled materials very effectively. 

WTT: Overall, are you seeing a greater or lesser demand for recycled materials from customers? And to qualify that, is that demand related in any way to a willingness to pay a premium for recycled materials?

KD: There’s no question that we are definitely seeing a genuinely stronger interest in recycled materials. Companies out there just generally want to do the right thing. I think the old premise that everybody loves recycling but nobody was willing to pay for it is no longer true—I think we’re moving into a different stage where people are saying, “You know what? We’ve got to find the answer to this together.” Plastics, recycling, all of these things have been in the news lately. It’s been a hot topic I truly believe that there’s a pendulum swing.

WTT: Are there any plans to open new plants in other parts of the country or internationally?

KD: We’re exploring that. The first step is going to be to continue to expand the one that we’ve got. The initial output of that plant is about 50 million pounds annually, and we’re going to double that later this year. By the end of next year, the plan is to have that plant up to about 200 million pounds of polyethylene capacity. Certainly we are exploring alternatives and options for PVC, as well. And that’s why we’re starting to have that dialogue with the market base to find out who’s willing to work with us and to look at some of the materials that we can get back and find ways to use them.

WTT: Any other expansion plans on the horizon? 

KD: I think we’ve really done a great job of colocating that facility with our deckboard manufacturing facility in Wilmington. So we’re going to be exploring further capabilities in our Scranton, Pa., location where the majority of Vycom products are manufactured. We’re fully committed to recycling and to these initiatives, to the circular economy, doing the right thing, and being a good corporate citizen. We’re excited because we’re just starting and we’re seeing so many more opportunities to grow these types of programs because we have the scale, and because of the scope of the products that we offer, which is unique in the market. Find article here PrintingNews.com/00000000 ■