Vinyl Siding: Chasing Arrows

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Vinyl siding was introduced to the public in the 1960’s but did not really begin to take hold until the 1980’s. It began as an option for remodeling and evolved into the skin of choice for new structures in America. Vinyl had its best year of reported sales in 2004 and now, I believe partially due to the increased interest in fiber cement, has begun to slowly decline.
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Contrary to the sales pitch vinyl has proven far from final. For some time the product was prone to fading and much of it I have encountered has become brittle and in need of replacement over the years. So with all of that vinyl ready to come off our houses and end up in our landfills shouldn’t someone be stepping forward with a viable recycling program?
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There is one huge obstacle to the mass recycling of post consumer vinyl and that is contamination by foreign matter, even a small amount of which can render the material unusable. For years the Vinyl siding industry has been recycling in house scrap generated during production and more and more the recycling community is taking an interest in pre consumer vinyl scrap. (Pre consumer vinyl is jobsite waste that is fairly easy to keep contaminant free.) But the post consumer waste which is the majority of what’s out there is the hardest to economically justify recycling.
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The mantra of the recycling industry seems to be that someone has to make money from recycling for the recycling to continue. There are technologies available or at least on the drawing board which can help us to identify what of post consumer vinyl waste is usable and what is not but this technology costs money that no one will invest if they do not see the possibility of a financial return.
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But what about the companies that made money from the sale of the product? I have recently read that computer manufacturers will soon be forced to contribute to the recycling expenses of their products. Why shouldn’t the manufacturers of vinyl building products be responsible to contribute to the sustainability factor of their product as well?
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The worst part of this entire scenario, in my opinion, is that today’s vinyl may outlast yesterday’s by a decade or so. That is good news for a home owner hoping to get the maximum value for their investment but terrible news for a country who couldn’t get enough of the earlier version that will soon be in need of replacement. Because no one saw fit to plan ahead, all of that viable and valuable vinyl may soon be covered by dirt in our landfills only to be reclaimed at a much higher cost many years from now.
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