Hollywood Monster has declared the PVC banner to be obsolete, as it ends a decade long search for a viable alternative to the popular but harmful plastic material.
The company has formally rejected the use of PVC, says managing director Simon McKenzie, claiming it is the first display graphics printers to switch to a substrate that can be disposed of safely at end of life. From 1 March what has been an annual consumption of 350,000m2 of PVC (in a pre-Covid year) moves to Kavalan.
The Birmingham display printer has been testing the Chinese made material for more than a year, subjecting it to weld testing, strength testing and durability.
“We have satisfied ourselves with extensive testing of the material that it performs in the real world. It performs as well as if not better than PVC on every test we ran,” says McKenzie. “Now is the time to make a change. Many of our clients have been asking for a viable alternative to PVC and they trust us to deliver.”
While not currently recycled, Kavalan can be safely incinerated at end of life, capturing the energy contained, which PVC, because of the harmful chemicals it contains, cannot. PVC has to be disposed of via landfill where it will remain for hundreds of years before breaking down. In contrast, Kavalan’s supplier CMYUK offers an end of life service with Howe to Recycle to guarantee that the material does not end up in landfill.
McKenzie has been looking for a PVC alternative, trying different substrates but none has to date satisfied him that it could replace PVC. “During the 2012 Olympics we produced a lot on a Portuguese material but it was substandard. It could not be a true replacement. Since then that material has improved but is still nowhere near good enough as far as we are concerned.”
Kavalan by contrast was a revelation when CMYUK first showed the substrate to Hollywood Monster. “I thought this is PVC,” says McKenzie. “It looks like PVC, and when I took it to the factory and asked them to put it on the welding lines without changing the settings, it behaved just like a normal PVC. And how it behaves on the welding machines is the most important factor for us.”
There is a premium over the traditional product, which shrinks when transport, landfill tax and other factors are considered. The new material is half the weight of the old so trucks can carry twice as much as before. “Economies of scale will rapidly turn Kavalan into a cost neutral exercise. It is the right thing to do and we are delighted to be leading the way to becoming fully sustainable.”
