PVC recycling and HDPE recycling are essential sustainability practices in reducing plastic waste from the building and construction sector going to landfill.The recovery and collection PVC recycling and HDPE recycling is important in New Zealand’s journey toward a circular economy.
Plastics Recycling New Zealand (PRNZ) was established as a joint venture between WM New Zealand and Aliaxis. This partnership brings together expertise in sustainable waste management with expertise in manufacturing utilising recycled plastic materials, on the path to a circular economy. Increasing volumes of recycled PVC and recycled HDPE within the construction and building sector helps to close the loop on plastic waste.
The facility processes both PVC and HDPE plastics and represents a total investment of over $8.5 million. The facility is the first large-scale PVC recovery plant in New Zealand marking a significant milestone in the country’s journey toward a circular economy.
PRNZ operates recycling process facilities in both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand, providing nationwide access to sustainable PVC recycling and HDPE recycling. The Penrose site in Auckland is New Zealand’s first large-scale PVC recovery plant with PVC recycling and HDPE recycling capabilities, ensuring high-quality processing of uPVC, mPVC and HDPE materials. Transforming plastic waste into recyclate helps to reduces the reliance on virgin materials.
PRNZ recover a wide range of plastic materials, including uPVC and mPVC used in pipes, spouting, conduit, window frames and cladding. The facilities also process HDPE pipes, including water pipes, drainage culverts and conduit such as PE100 and PE80, as well as HDPE chemical drums, janitorial waste such as shampoo and conditioner bottles, milk bottles, industrial packaging and curbside collection of other recyclable materials. PRNZ even recycle vinyl offcuts from vinyl records pressed right her in New Zealand by Holiday Records.
The state-of-the-art recycling facilities sort, wash, shred, granulise and palletise PVC and HDPE plastics producing recyclate ready for reintegration into manufacturing.
The PVC recycling and HDPE recycling process is made up of four stages. The first stage is sorting and preparation, where PVC and HDPE materials are pre-separated, cleaned and sorted for efficient processing. The second stage is shredding and washing, where advanced systems remove contaminants. The third stage is granulation, where the shredded PVC recycling and HDPE recycling materials are made into uniform granules, ready for reuse. The final stage is manufacturing, where the processes PVC and HDPE recyclate is used to create new products. Aliaxis use the recyclate to create PVC and HDPE products manufactured in New Zealand under their Marley, RXP and Dynex brands.
Our independently verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) documents communicate transparent and comparable data and other relevant environmental information about the impact of our PVC and PE products (pipes, downpipes and gutters). We pride ourselves on playing an active role in creating sustainable plastic use and long-term carbon reduction. You can view our PVC and PE Environmental Product Declaration documents here.
Aliaxis remains committed to climate change mitigation through PVC recycling, HDPE recycling and decarbonisation initiatives. We are contributing to global decarbonisation and the circular economy by developing products with recycled content, reducing our environmental impact with efficiency programmes, fostering sustainable practices and increasing the amount of renewable energy across our operations.
View our Environmental policy here.
