Why uPVC windows shouldn't go to landfill

Forty years of uPVC windows

uPVC windows started replacing timber across the UK in volume from the early 1980s, and that first generation is now at the end of its life. Windows fitted in 1985 are being ripped out now and those fitted in 1995 will follow within ten years, so the trade will be dealing with this volume for the next twenty years.

The question is where it all ends up, and why so much still goes in a skip bound for landfill or energy-from-waste when uPVC is one of the most recyclable plastics in construction.

Where windows sit in the waste hierarchy

DEFRA's waste hierarchy is set out in the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011. It has five tiers, in order:

1. Prevention: don't create the waste in the first place.
2. Preparing for re-use: checking, cleaning, repairing so the item can be used again.
3. Recycling: turning it back into materials or products.
4. Other recovery: including energy from waste.
5. Disposal: landfill, the last resort.

Under Regulation 12 of those regulations, anyone who produces or handles waste in England and Wales has to take all reasonable measures to apply that hierarchy. You confirm it in the hierarchy declaration on every waste transfer note, alongside your duty of care under Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Re-using a frame rarely works at scale because of colours, sizes, gasket condition and hardware, so once a frame is off the wall the right tier is recycling. Recovery (incineration) destroys a material that's worth money and gives off emissions doing it. Landfill is the worst option: it buries a recyclable plastic for centuries.

Reasons to keep uPVC out of landfill

There's no UK ban on landfilling uPVC, but there are good reasons not to do it.

It's recyclable at scale. Cleaned, shredded and separated from steel and glass, recycled uPVC goes back into new profile or into garden products, fencing and cable trunking. Recyclers across Europe and the UK are buying that pellet today.

Landfill is running out. The UK has been closing landfill cells for a decade, and permits for new ones are slow and unpopular. That's one reason landfill tax keeps going up. It's well into three figures a tonne for standard-rated waste now, and HMRC publish the rates every year. You pay that every time you tip a uPVC-heavy load into a mixed skip.

What BPF Recovinyl does

The British Plastics Federation runs Recovinyl in the UK, the local arm of the European PVC industry's voluntary scheme to track and grow PVC recycling. Recovinyl sits under VinylPlus, the wider European programme that brings PVC resin producers, additive suppliers, converters and recyclers together around shared targets.

In practice Recovinyl is a registration and audit scheme for recyclers. PVC collected and reprocessed by registered recyclers is logged and audited, and the volumes go into VinylPlus's annual reporting. The point is to give buyers, regulators and the industry a credible, audited figure for how much PVC goes back into use each year.

The scheme doesn't collect waste or run skips. When a recycler works within Recovinyl, the material is tracked to a documented end use.

VinylPlus's 2030 commitment is about growing recycled PVC volumes year on year and getting recyclate into new building products. That needs collection routes at the trade end, which is the job specialist uPVC recyclers do.

The business case

Most people reading this already accept the environmental argument. Closed-loop recycling also makes business sense:

• Income on offcuts. Clean fabricator offcuts, bar lengths and mis-measures earn a rebate instead of costing you a skip. More in fabricator offcut rebates.
• Free collection on old frames. Trade installers can have frames collected free instead of paying to put them through mixed waste. The landfill tax saving alone usually justifies it.
• Paperwork that holds up. Specialist recyclers issue electronic waste transfer notes (eWTNs) and annual recycling reports, which councils and main contractors are starting to ask for. Our guide to waste transfer notes covers the duty-of-care side.
• Tender position. Councils, housing associations and main contractors now ask where waste goes at tender stage and want the answer in writing. A named recycler in your method statement, with recovery rates you can show, moves you up the scoring sheet.

Why the trade still uses skips

In our experience it's almost entirely habit.

On most window jobs the old frames go in a skip without anyone having to think about it. The skip company is already in the phone and the cost is folded into the job price. Switching to a specialist uPVC collection means a different phone call and a different routine for one part of the job.

When an installer or fabricator does switch, not much changes day to day. The differences show up over the year: a rebate on offcuts, a recycling record for tender packs, and a documented chain of custody if anyone asks.

How closed-loop recycling works

The full route is in what happens to old uPVC windows. The main steps are:

1. The glass comes out on site, by the installer or by us, and goes through our glass recycling route. The frame is then collected.
2. At the yard, the frame goes through a shredder.
3. Magnets take out the steel and hardware for metal recovery.
4. The clean uPVC is granulated, the rubber and other plastics are separated out, and the chip is micronised.
5. The micronised PVC is sold back into manufacturing, mostly into the cores of co-extruded window profile, but also garden products, fencing, cable management and construction sundries.

Loose sealed units are a separate stream, covered in sealed unit recycling.

Summary

Landfill is the last resort under the waste hierarchy and, once you add landfill tax, the most expensive option for a material that's worth money.

Recovinyl does the verification, and specialist recyclers like us, across five UK hubs, do the collection and processing. What's needed at the trade end is the switch from a skip to a closed-loop route.

If you're a fabricator, installer or contractor and want to talk through switching, call or email us. We'll quote, book the collection and send the paperwork, and the material you send us is back in new profile within months.