Increased interest in recycled PVC has led compounding firm Benvic to double capacity for that material at a plant in France.
When completed early next year, the plant will have annual PVC compounding capacity of 7 kilotonnes (15 million pounds), marketing manager Eric Grange said Oct. 17 at Fakuma 2024.
The plant recycles rigid PVC scrap into recycled content resin that's then used in conduit and other applications, Grange added.
"Customers are concerned about carbon neutrality, and they want post-consumer content instead of post-industrial," he said.
Benvic also is seeing increased demand for recycled grades of polypropylene and other resins. "We're finding ways to use low-value feedstock," Grange said.
In the U.S. market, Benvic is making medical grades compounds under the ChemMed trade name at a plant in Chesapeake, Va. Grange said the firm also has seen increased demand for its Plantura-brand bio-based compounds in automotive and other markets. Plantura grades are based on PLA or other bioresins.
In a news release, Benvic officials said over the past five years, the firm has moved from being a pure player PVC compounder to a solution provider across PP, thermoplastic elastomers and halogen free polyolefins.
Dijon, France-based Benvic was acquired in 2022 by private equity firm International Chemical Investors Group of Frankfurt. Investindustrial Growth, another European private equity group, had owned Benvic since 2018.
Benvic was founded in 1963 as a subsidiary of plastics and chemicals giant Solvay Group of Brussels. The firm made 10 acquisitions from 2019-22, most recently buying Trinity Specialty Compounding of West Unity, Ohio, in early 2022.
Today, Benvic is part of a larger business that has annual sales of 500 million euros ($548 million). The firm operates eight production sites in the U.S. and Europe.