Circular Flooring – Pioneering Recycling Process for PVC Waste

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Polyvinylchloride (PVC) is widely used in the construction industry, for example in flooring applications. However, to date, only a minor share of these PVC floor coverings can be recycled after their usage. Thus, valuable resources are lost. How can this be improved? The Circular Flooring partners aim to establish an efficient recycling process for plasticized PVC from post-consumer waste flooring, taking a decisive step towards circular PVC recycling in the European Union.

Construction of the CreaSolv® PVC prototype recycling plant has started

As part of the Circular Flooring project, a new CreaSolv® PVC prototype recycling plant is being built on the premises of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising, Germany. This plant is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, the Fraunhofer IVV and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the Circular Flooring project (Grant-Agreement Number 821366). The process has begun in September 2020 with the construction of the surrounding building. First pilot trials are expected to be performed in late fall 2021 in order to prove the recycling capability of post-consumer PVC flooring waste. Read more

Possible PVC formulations – Project Milestone 4

Within Work Package 2 of Circular Flooring, the CreaSolv® Process for recycling PVC flooring waste is further tailored by Fraunhofer IVV. The recycled PVC is constantly tested and analysed by the two partners Akdeniz Chemson and Vinnolit to develop a general formulation to process the powder back into neat and processable PVC that can be reused for flooring. Read more

Circular Flooring at Plastics Circularity Multipliers Online Conference (October 14-16, 2020)

The Plastics Circularity Multiplier Initiative (PCMI), of which Circular Flooring is a member, hosted its first conference on October 14-16, 2020 in a virtual format to present the latest research results. This initiative unites 21 EU-funded research projects with more than 320 partners (i.e. Research institutes, industry partners, small- and medium-sized companies, public entities, non-profit organizations) and a total investment of 140 million Euros. The aim of this initiative is to communicate their results and deriving policy implications to decision makers, the public and the industry to keep plastic materials in the circular economy of the future and create new business opportunities and jobs in Europe. Read more

Circular Flooring General Assembly

Originally, it was planned to meet in person for the biannual General Assembly at the premises of our partner Sphera Solutions GmbH in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany. That was before lockdown and travel restrictions occurred. Hence, the meeting was hosted virtually, where every Work Package Leader presented the work that has been carried out within the last six months and challenges, risks and next steps have been discussed. Read more

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