Harnessing the environmental factor to attract new sector entrants

The fenestration industry should leverage its environmental credentials to attract new entrants, according to Building Our Skills and one of its National Partners, CNC Recycling.

Mark Handley, Partnerships Manager of Building Our Skills, explains more: “When youngsters are asked to list the issue that they are most motivated by, they usually talk about the environment. For example, the schools’ initiative called the Pupils’ Parliament, bears this out.

“So, we are completely in agreement with CNC Recycling when it comes to making this topic a tool for attracting newcomers into the fenestration industry. Let’s really make some noise about this aspect of it. The work that CNC Recycling, and others, do provides a very helpful backdrop to this whole topic.”

CNC Recycling is a Middlesborough-based organisation, although it operates on a nationwide basis. The company collects thousands of tonnes of old PVCU windows and doors across the UK every year from installers and fabricators. This enables recycled materials to be fed back into the supply chain as a valuable secondary raw material to produce new windows and doors.

The company collects over one million windows per year, and over the last eighteen months has collected from 1,289 window companies nationally. It has been proved that PVCU, due to its thermoplastic nature, can be recycled nine times without any significant loss of performance (Source: EPPA*).

Over the past twelve months CNC Recycling has invested approximately £2 million in state-of-the-art equipment in order to improve further the process efficiency of its ‘closed loop’ system. Closed loop refers to the no-wastage aspect of the process, which enables all parts of old PVCU windows and doors, including metal and rubber parts, to be re-used.

The new sorting and separating equipment recovers clean white and ‘jazz’ (coloured) post-industrial and post-consumer PVCU. This recovered PVCU is now ready for further processing within the Fenestration industry and reintroduced into the core of new profile, keeping this valuable recycled material within the window industry and completing the genuine closed loop recycling.

Business owners who wish to learn more about how to use environmental messaging in their initiatives to attract new employees are welcome to contact either the sales team at CNC Recycling at email sales@cncrecycling.co.uk or by telephone 01642 983188 or Mark Handley at Building Our Skills at email markhandley@buildingourskills.co.uk.

www.buildingourskills.co.uk