Social housing specialist Profile 22 will be showcasing its next generation of advanced, energy efficient and sustainable products at the Chartered Institute of Housing Annual Conference and Exhibition.
PVC-U is low maintenance and fully recyclable making it one of the most sustainable building materials available to the social and public sectors and the construction industry in general.
However, a raft of ‘eco-disinformation’ and lack of clarity in Government policy means confusion is growing in the sector as to exactly where PVC-U sits and its suitability for use in refurbishment projects.
Exhibiting the World’s first fully recycled PVC-U window at this year’s Chartered Institute of Housing Annual Conference and Exhibition, June 17th to 19th Profile 22 will give social and public sectors the ‘no-nonsense’ facts.
Andrew Reid, sales development director, Profile 22: “Our campaign is very simple – we want to give the public and social sectors the information that they need to deliver an educated decision on choice of building materials, whether that’s timber, steel, aluminium or PVC-U.
“It sounds straight forward enough but picking out fact from fiction is increasingly difficult. PVC-U windows and doors are secure, low maintenance energy efficient and entirely recyclable but claims and counter claims by competing manufacturers have made choosing the right product complex.
“We’re not here to criticise other materials, simply to highlight the service we offer and to demonstrate the suitability of PVC-U as a low maintenance and sustainable material to the housing sector.”
At the forefront of window systems technology Profile 22 is committed to driving forward more sustainable modes of manufacture by cutting the amount of waste PVC-U going to landfill.
Through its sister company Dekura it is uniquely placed to collect and recycle ‘old’ first generation PVC-U products that have reached the end of their natural lifecycle.
This is something that can be expected to be of growing importance as the social housing sector replaces a growing number of early PVC-U windows and doors with more energy efficient and aesthetically stronger products.
“Our message is two-fold” said Andrew. “We are able to offer social housing providers access to a dedicated and totally transparent recycling and site waste management service, helping them to comply with a raft of legislative requirements governing sustainable development.
“Second we are intercepting and capturing material so that it doesn’t go to landfill, reprocessing and recycling it to support the delivery of a new generation of advanced products that are more energy efficient and more secure.”
Alongside the World’s first fully recycled window Profile 22 will be showcasing an advanced performance ‘A’ rated energy efficient window, capable of delivering a 20 per cent saving on heat and energy loss – and by implication carbon emissions – when installed throughout a property.
Profile 22 will also be running a film, demonstrating its closed-loop recycling operation, following each step of the recycling process from initial collection to extrusion into new recycled products, for example the patent pending and RCM reinforcement, approved by the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in their guide to recycled content in construction products.
Replacing steel or aluminium reinforcements in the window fabrication process, recycled composite material, manufactured from old early generation windows, is stronger, more energy efficient and makes future reprocessing easier.
Andrew added: “PVC-U is hugely recyclable, in fact research suggests it can be recycled up to 10 times without losing performance – based on a recognised life span of 35 years by the BRE and 40 years by the British Standards Institute, each product could have an overall life cycle of more than 400 years.
“We are appealing to the social housing sector to support that process by buying into not only PVC-U as a energy efficient and low maintenance product but by supporting us in recovering and re-using it at the end of its life.”
