VEKA is claiming a recycling world’s first after one old window was transformed into a new one using its technically-advanced recycling facility.

The PVC-U system supplier teamed up with Wigan & Leigh Housing and the Council’s own window factory and special status employer, Metrolite, to track the window to a unique recycling plant in Germany and back to the same tower block project.
The new-for-old initiative was an exercise to prove it can be done but the same thing could soon be happening all around the UK. All 3,500 windows from Wigan & Leigh Housing’s current refurbishment are already being sent for recycling using this innovative process.

“Even with such a round trip, this window would have a much smaller carbon footprint than a conventional one if it could be done on an industrial scale,” said Dave Jones, Managing Director of VEKA plc.

Simon Scholes, National Sales Manager of VEKA Recycling added: “At the moment, all the other windows in this contract – just like every other major contract in the UK – are made from 100% new material but we want to show that PVC-U recycling is just as viable here as it is in other countries such as Germany.”

The recycled window is one of the 3,500 that make up the refurbishment of 500 flats at Wigan’s Scholes Village complex by contractor G&J Seddon. It was removed from one of the flats several weeks ago and tracked to VEKA Recycling’s preliminary processing plant in Kent, then out to its unique recycling plant in Behringen, Germany, back for extrusion at VEKA plc in Burnley, then finally on to Metrolite to be made back into a window.

Metrolite holds special status as a Supported Workshop for people with disabilities, who make up around 70% of its workforce.

Much of its window production goes to social housing bodies, largely through the Government’s Article 19 provisions on awarding contracts to Supported Workshops.
VEKA Group has always led the field in environmental issues in PVC-U. It launched Behringen, the world’s first purpose-built PVC-U recycling plant 16 years ago and can recycle 50,000 tonnes of PVC-U windows a year, all to a level of purity that can be made directly into new windows.

These mainly go into Germany’s home market, where a recycled product is more acceptable than currently in the UK.

In the UK, VEKA plc pioneered the first window to gain the BFRC ‘A’ Rating for outstanding heat retention and its core product range is now designed to attain – or surpass – that specification.