European PVC Recycling Reaches 765,972 Tonnes in 2025, Demonstrating Resilience Amid Challenging Market Conditions

Recovinyl welcomes the 2026 VinylPlus Progress Report presenting the Recovinyl 2025 figures for this year, which show that 765,972 tonnes of PVC waste were recycled within the Recovinyl network in 2025, representing a 5.7% increase compared with 2024.

The results underline the resilience of the European PVC recycling sector at a time when recycling industries across Europe continue to face significant economic and regulatory challenges. Of the total volume recycled in 2025, 58.8% originated from pre-consumer waste and 41.2% from post-consumer waste, compared with 61.4% and 38.6% respectively in 2024. This shift demonstrates continued progress in recovering PVC materials and keeping valuable resources in circulation.

Window profiles remained the largest recycling stream, accounting for 416,889 tonnes, followed by flooring (119,873 tonnes), cables (104,633 tonnes), flexible PVC (53,812 tonnes), pipes (41,001 tonnes) and other rigid applications (29,764 tonnes).

The achievement brings the cumulative volume of PVC recycled within the Recovinyl/VinylPlus network since 2000 to 10.3 million tonnes[OG1] , helping to avoid an estimated 20.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions while supporting more than 1,500 direct jobs in recycling plants across Europe.

Despite the positive results, Recovinyl stresses that sustained growth cannot be taken for granted.

“While plastics recycling capacity in Europe has declined overall, PVC recycling has shown resilience, with stable capacity and continued growth in volumes,” said Ingrid Verschueren, Managing Director of Recovinyl.

“However, reaching our target of 1 million tonnes by 2030 will not happen without cutting through EU bureaucracy and tackling the lack of investment. Today, uncertainty, slow and complex processes, and inflation concerns are holding back the capital needed to scale up.

“Policymakers must now move from added complexity to delivery: simplify and harmonise EU rules for collection, sorting and recycled-content implementation, align EPR schemes across Member States, and create real market pull for ‘Recycled in the EU’ materials so European recycling can invest and grow.”

Recovinyl believes that achieving the industry's ambition of recycling 1 million tonnes of PVC annually by 2030 will require a policy environment that supports investment, encourages innovation and rewards the use of recycled materials produced within Europe.

As the organisation responsible for monitoring, verifying and reporting PVC recycling and the use of recycled PVC across Europe, Recovinyl remains committed to unlocking greater volumes of post-consumer PVC waste for recycling. By working closely with recyclers, converters, policymakers and the wider PVC value chain, we aim to strengthen collection systems, increase recycling rates and accelerate the transition to a more circular and competitive PVC industry.

Brussels, Belgium – [10/06/2026] 

Click below to see the full 2026 progress report:

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