THE EUROPEAN MARKETS FOR PLASTICS BUILDING PRODUCTS

In the year 2000, probably 8.3 million tonnes of plastics will be used in the construction and renovation of buildings in Western Europe

Of all the applications of plastics, building and construction is the second most important area, with a volume of 23 %, only coming second to packaging applications. Some 8.3 million tonnes of plastics will be used for construction applications in Western Europe in the year 2000. The average working life of all plastics applications in construction is 35 years but, depending on the specific application, this has a wide variation between 5 years (such as wallpaper) and 80 years (such as pipes). These are only cautious assumptions, because there is not yet any practical long-term experience with a technically defined end to their working life.

The oldest plastic products, manufactured on a large scale and used in the building industry (such as pipes), have been in use for 55 years and are still functioning as well as on the very first day. With an assumed average working life of 35 years, there is technical depreciation of 2.85 % per year. Plastics in the construction industry are thus extremely economical with resources. Environmental balance sheets consider not only economical use of resources, but also the cost of maintenance during the life of the applications. Since most plastics are either easy to maintain or require no maintenance at all, they also achieve first-class marks in their life-cycle evaluation.

Compared with alternative materials in the building industry, plastics usually do better in environmental assessments. In addition to saving resources, the low maintenance cost throughout their life cycle and good recyclability of many plastics used in construction have a positive influence on these assessments.

In particular, the materials used in monoplastic building products such as pipes and window frames are recycled at the end of their working life and the recycled product is used in high-quality pipes and window frames as specified in the relevant standards and norms.

In addition to the ecological advantages of plastics, they also make a great contribution to the saving of energy. Plastic foams are used widely for thermal insulation of house walls, floors, roofing, pipes and many other applications. Without such plastic thermal insulation, the high targets adopted by the world community for CO2 reduction would not be realised.

Plastic insulation systems can also make a significant contribution to noise protection and noise insulation, thus again adding to the quality of life.

After pipes and insulation, the third major application area is for wallcovering and flooring. Flooring, in particular those made of PVC, have been in use for 55 years, and have proved their worth in domestic areas such as kitchens, bathrooms, corridors and children's rooms. They have also made a very valuable contribution in public areas, such as hospitals, sick-rooms, operating theatres, schools, municipal buildings, offices and sports centres.

The fourth-largest application area is window frames, which are made almost exclusively out of PVC. This is an application that has developed relatively recently (since only 1965) but, over 35 years, it has secured more than a 50 % share of window systems in the major industrialised countries of Europe.

Although the life-cycle calculation for window frames indicates an average life of 40 years, the actual technical end of their working life has not yet been reached and, to date, very few used window frames have yet been returned. The capacity for recycling window frames has therefore not yet been exploited, due to a shortage of waste, but technologies have been developed for incorporating a portion of recyclate in new profiles.

Profiles for interior fittings (which have been in existence since 1955) have also secured an important role, accounting for 8 % of the total plastics consumption in the construction industry. They are used in doors, flooring trim, skirting boards, conduits, and guide rails, covering and decoration.

Externally, extruded rigid profiles play a useful role as shuttering, cladding and siding and fencing.

With the exception of insulation and board applications, PVC is by far the most-used plastic in all application areas in building and construction.

In the total wealth creation chain for PVC building products, there are about 11,000 firms operating in Western Europe, employing 275,000 people. The turnover of this secor of the industry amounts to an estimated Euro 36.5 billion a year. Many plastics are used where their specific properties can be profitably employed. Depending on the type of material employed, these may include: good hygiene, easy maintenance, heat resistance, thermal and acoustic insulation.

They also offer glass-like transparency, abrasion resistance, resistance to sunlight, waterproofing, resistance to low temperatures and resistance to acids, chemicals and washing and cleaning agents. These are just a few of the outstanding properties that various plastics can offer in specific applications.

The Building Products market

In the year 2000, probably 8.3 million tonnes of plastics will be used in the construction and renovation of buildings in Western Europe. If these products were made out of traditional building materials, their weight would probably be as much as ten times higher.

There are also significant savings in cost and energy when it comes to transporting plastic construction materials and plastics promote free movement of building materials in the European Union as well as the global market, whereas some traditional materials cannot be exported due to their high weight and enormous transport costs. So today, it is possible for plastic products to be used in any country. They can be manufactured anywhere - even in small markets, because their low weight makes plastic construction products exportable.

Above-average growth is expected for plastics in construction applications in the next ten years also, largely supported by substitution of traditional building materials. In the year 2000 a growth of 3.4 % is expected while PVC will increase its share by about 2.5 %. Other plastics will show an above-average growth rate of about 7.5 %.

Recycling considerations

The building and construction sector is, of course, fundamentally concerned with long-lasting products and materials, which may well be in place for 40 years before they require replacement. There is therefore little experience of practical recycling of plastics building products on a large scale - and, apart from dumping as landfill, there is no experience of recycling any other building material either...

When the time comes, however, the great amount of technical work on recycling plastics building products to reuse the material will certainly prove an advantage. Many systems have been developed for re-using waste plastics as a central core of panels and large-diameter pipes - with good properties and economics. Plastics come in the form of thermoplastics or thermosets. As thermoplastics (which is the larger part of plastics building products), they can be shaped and re-shaped by the application of heat. The same basic facility can still be utilised for the re-use of recyclates from used products, to manufacture new products.

There may be some loss in original properties, from prolonged exposure to sunlight and particularly from re-processing, but all the work so far shows that this can be modified by the use of suitable additives, to "boost" properties back to their original values.

Thermosets are plastics that undergo a chemical change when they are first processed. This gives them their great hardness and strength, but it means that they cannot be re-shaped thermally afterwards. For recycling, however, they can be ground and re-used as a filler. Economics again come into play when considering recycling, and the low original cost of the vast majority of plastics used in building makes it very difficult for re-processed material to be offered at a competitive price unless, possibly, within "closed-loop" systems as already described. A significant development, however, is the increasing use of more expensive technical plastics in high-tech building systems which, in time, could provide the building sector with specialised plastics products with a potential.