BPF Member Lister Support Customers Through Recycling
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
BPF member Lister Trade Frames is well known as a leading window and door manufacturer in the Midlands and for proactive marketing support, especially in regard to BFRC Window Energy Ratings. What may be less well known is the company’s outstanding performance in recycling post-consumer waste.
Listers became a member of British Plastics Federation two years ago to gain knowledge in and support for best practice, legislation and the environmental developments for the PVC-U windows sector. Around the same time, it started a serious initiative to recover old PVC-U frames, post consumer, and to put them back into the market through recycling. The company now gathers and recycles over two tonnes of old windows and doors every month from customers and this is continuing to grow.
Ian Johnson, Listers Quality and Environmental Manager, has run the scheme from its conception and is amazed at just how successful it has been for customers. “Some years ago, we noticed that several of our customers were taking old PVC-U frames to landfill and we realised that this was bad for the environment and it was adding to the negative image that PVC has gained in ecological terms. So we decided to take action and collect all these frames ourselves, store them and find a route for recycling.”
Two years on and Listers now receives back all PVC windows, doors, glass, metal and timber from trade customers. This is collected in separated skips and the windows are de-glazed and sorted for collection and recycling. All this is done at no cost to trade customers.
Ian says: “We are both astonished and impressed at the amount of post-consumer waste that we now collect and send back to our recycling partners. Our customers appreciate the free service which saves them money, the environment benefits and we boost our own green credentials and those of PVC-U products.”
Listers say that although there is a cost in organising, administering, monitoring and complying with the recycling scheme, it has been yet another reason why trade customers stay loyal to the Lister and Elitis brands. It offers the consumer an added reason to choose them over a competitor because of their complete environmental approach.
Two tonnes of recycled post consumer PVC waste may sound a lot, but Listers expects this to double in the coming year. Until recently, the scheme has been available only to local customers, in the Stoke-on-Trent area. From April, however, it is expanding to collect recyclable waste from customers throughout the Midlands, the North and Wales.
Mark Warren, Listers Managing Director says that their own approach to business has knitted very well with that of the BPF: “We gain a lot of insight and information from the BPF on best practice and how we can promote and in some cases defend our use of PVC-U products. Being able to demonstrate convincingly our recycling regime gives us and our products extra credibility. There is no doubt in my mind that this will become a requirement for every PVC-U window and door manufacturer in the future.”
The British Plastics Federation Windows Group welcomes all enquiries from similar environmentally focused companies. The group’s aim and that of its PVCaware.org campaign is to enable the UK plastics windows industry to fulfil its business potential, contribute to society and the environment by promoting responsible and sustainable development.
Lister Trade Frames, 01782 391900, www.listertf.co.uk
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