900 tons of recycled plastic a year

Last year, Primo Germany invested in its own PVC regrinding and recycling equipment at its production facility in Berlin. One year on, the new equipment serves as proof that recycling does not contradict quality - a great step towards a greener, more energy-saving and CO2-friendly production.

Plastic recycling with saw dust at Primo in Berlin
Plastic recycling with saw dust at Primo in Berlin

In a mixing silo at the facility in Berlin, cut-off PVC from Primo’s own profile production is mixed with PVC scrap bought from dealers. The production facility produces a variety of profiles for windows and doors.

Recycled PVC has always been used for production of some the profiles manufactured at the Berlin facility. But according to operations manager, Harald Möllenkamp, the in-house mixing silo installed last year enables the facility to produce high quality products while maintaining a stable production process.

Especially in terms of quality of the regranulate profiles, Primo is one step ahead of its competitors: “Our recycling profiles have hardly any colour variations and can also be produced with unmixed colours,” Möllenkamp says. According to Möllenkamp, the improvement in quality has also been noted by customers. Read more about the Primo process here.

A greener profile

The recycling of PVC is part of Primo’s overall strategy to integrate sustainability into all processes, implement more sustainable means of production and reduce plastic waste in nature.

But the facility has already gone one step further. For some months, the facility has been using sawdust from the profile production in specific regranulate profiles. Previously, the sawdust could not be processed and was consequently disposed of. Now, the facility has the capacity to process up to 50 tons of sawdust per year.

By using wood fibres, such as sawdust, in combination with plastic, Primo is also latching onto a wider industry trend characterized by an increased focus on sustainability.

With the one-year-old PVC mixing silo, the Berlin facility can now cater to clients’ requests for green and CO2-friendly products. “The recycled PVC is currently only used in consultation with the customer. But we can now offer our customers more options,” says Harald Möllenkamp.

Fact box – Recycling and regrinding PVC:

More than 20% of all the PVC used in Primo products come from recycled PVC, regrinded at one of Primo’s facilities worldwide.

With the new regrinding and recycling equipment, the Berlin facility recycles 100% of its own PVC scrap and purchases 600 tons of PVC scrap per year from outside suppliers.

In total, the facility produces 900 tons of regranulate per year.

About Primo 

Headquartered in Copenhagen, the Danish group has sales and production activities at 11 locations in Europe and China. The group currently has 980 employees and a turnover of 205 million EUR (per 31.12.2022). The company was founded and owned by the Grunnet family and, since its beginning in 1959, has specialised in designing and producing customer-specific profile solutions in plastic.