Driving the switch to 50% recycled content in PVC cable management

What do cable management and 300 double decker buses have in common?

Simple. Their weight is the equivalent of top grade recycled plastic that British trunking manufacturer Marshall-Tufflex uses in its cable management products each year, diverting thousands of tonnes of waste plastic from landfill.

It’s a little known fact that for more than two decades Sussex-based Marshall-Tufflex has been incorporating recycled plastics into its award-winning cable management solutions, constantly striving to increase the percentage of recycled content in order to reduce its demand for virgin PVC-U, with obvious benefits to the environment and customers.

This pioneering spirit means that today its PVC-U products and solutions are, on average, manufactured from 80% recycled plastics, with some extruded products such as white Mini, Maxi and conduit produced from 100% recycled material.

Marshall-Tufflex is now calling on other manufacturers to join it in introducing/increasing the recycled content of PVC-U trunking solutions.

It is also encouraging all cable management specifiers to state that PVC-U trunking systems should be manufactured using a minimum of 50% recycled material. A bold move but one that it hopes will start to gain traction with like-minded manufacturers, specifiers, wholesalers, installers and architects.

10 facts about Marshall-Tufflex’s recycling initiative:

1. Quality is affected - in a positive way. Marshall-Tufflex uses recycled PVC-U from the window manufacturing industry. PVC windows are made from high grade material designed to withstand external elements, making it a stronger and more durable raw material than virgin extrusion grade cable management material.
2. This means that Marshall-Tufflex’s trunking solutions are of a higher quality and more robust than virgin grade extruded products because the recycled material has greater molecular strength and UV stabilisation.
3. Strict quality control ensures the recycled raw material is of the best quality, with close monitoring throughout the process. Marshall-Tufflex works closely with recycling partners; frequent tests are carried out to ensure the purity and quality of the recycled material. There is full traceability of material feedstock and formulations and adherence to REACH regulations.
4. Marshall-Tufflex was a pioneer of the PVC-U extrusion industry in the UK more than 75 years ago and it has used this expertise and materials processing knowledge to work with recycling partners to develop its current grade of material. Huge investment in technology has enabled it to offer customers market-leading products with industry-leading eco credentials.
5. Where needed during manufacture the recycled plastic is blended with virgin material to achieve the correct gloss finish for each cable management product. This is a very specialised technique optimised through many years of experience.
6. Price is not affected simply because nothing has changed. All that has changed is the manufacturer’s decision to open up the debate about the recycling of plastics within the construction industry and encourage others to get involved. And for good reason…..
7. ….around 120 million tonnes of waste from construction, demolition and excavation are generated in the UK each year. This represents a wide variety of materials (bricks, concrete, wood, metal etc) but plastic is rarely one of the top five (or even 10) named constituents unless reference is made to packaging. Marshall-Tufflex wants to bring recycled PVC-U into the conversation.
8. Marshall-Tufflex’s 50% recycled initiative sits well beside the drive to eliminate single use consumer plastic items and is in-tune with WRAP’s UK Plastics Pact to create a sustainable system for plastic packaging. “We need to move away from a linear plastics economy where we take, make and dispose of plastic, and towards a circular system where we keep plastic in the economy and out of the natural environment,” says WRAP.
9. Small changes can have big impacts – cable management is a relatively small part of most construction projects but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be considered in resource efficiency discussions. Millions of meters of PVC-U cable management are installed throughout buildings in the UK. If 50% of this was made from recycled plastics the reduction in use of virgin PVC-U would be immense.
10. The last words go to Marshall-Tufflex Chief Executive Officer Paul Hetherington:

“Our 50% initiative is not just about promoting our own products. We want to see the entire cable management industry making greater use of recycled material, not only to reduce the amount of re-usable plastics going into landfill (where it takes decades to break down) but also to lower the demand for virgin PVC-U. It’s about making more informed decisions when specifying or purchasing PVC-U cable management systems. We take our impact on the environment seriously and want the rest of the sector to join us."