Australian Vinyls Corporation Pty Ltd
Media Statement - 16 September 2009
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New Building Showcases Vinyl’s Environmental Attributes
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This week, the remaining Australian Vinyls staff located at Altona moved into the newly expanded corporate office at the Laverton plant, bringing all Victorian resin and speciality products staff onto the one site for the first time in the company’s history.
The enlarged office building has been constructed using an innovative, Australian-made PVC building product. Dincel Construction System is a PVC permanent formwork system, filled with concrete to produce highly durable, thermally efficient walls.
The rigid PVC profiles are manufactured by Dincel using Australian Vinyls’ resin and a unique, heavy metal-free stabiliser system. The lightweight profiles are quick to install on site and enable walls to be constructed using less concrete and no steel reinforcement compared to traditional wall construction systems. Offcuts from the profiles are recycled and the whole system is recyclable at the end of its life.
Concrete and steel are relatively energy intensive materials to manufacture. The reduction in materials consumed to construct the building’s envelope means that the building has a significantly lower amount of energy embodied in the materials used. PVC itself has relatively low embodied energy compared to other polymers because more than half its feedstock is derived from salt, whereas other traditional polymers are derived almost wholly from oil by-products.
Reducing the embodied energy of materials may result in lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with the building products. Dincel has published a peer reviewed paper which shows that using the Dincel Construction System rather than traditional wall construction systems to construct a typical two bedroom apartment, would be equivalent to taking 20 cars off the road in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions.*
Australian Vinyls has also installed uPVC window profiles and double glazing to improve the operating energy efficiency of the new building area. The windows have the added benefit of reducing traffic noise.
Together with a new durable vinyl floor that has been laid in the refurbished Amenities Room at the Plant, Australian Vinyls is showcasing some of the great vinyl building products available in Australia.
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*www.dincelconstructionsystem.com/news_room.php
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