Centaur – Re-cycling of Materials
Centaur & Their Re-cycling of Materials
Centaur have been manufacturing uPVC products since 1974. In the early 1980’s the company invested in its own compound plant for the processing of the raw resin by adding UV stabilisers, impact modifiers and the white pigmentation titanium dioxide. Formulated by mixing and drying into a powder the uPVC material is then used by either continuous extrusion or injection moulding.
For a manufacturing operation such as Centaur the raw material that it manufactures is the single most expensive commodity as a component of its running costs. uPVC as a thermoplastic polymer it is fully recyclable and can be used with certain controls and restraints in re-moulding.
It has always been Centaur’s policy to granulate any waste or defective materials back into a pulverised state to be re-used wherever possible. Inevitably during the pulverising process certain contaminates can ingress the compound which restricts the use of such materials away from extruded profiles and injection moulded components that are unseen after final installation. This is just an aesthetic condition and does not affect the physical performance of the material provided further usage or continual recovery is mixed in small percentages with first generation “pulva”.
The condition of some of the uPVC from the start-up or purging function from the extrusion lines means that it is not suitable for reprocessing and third party specialist recovery processors are used rather than materials being consigned to landfill.
“Whilst every effort is made to reuse materials it shouldn’t be forgotten”, said Garry Hobday, Assistant Factory Manager, “that reprocessed material becomes more costly than prime stock as you have the granulating cost to be added to the initial compounding. Therefore every effort should be made to monitor and limit the amount being reprocessed.”
