i2M’s Plan to Eliminate PVC Pool Liners from Landfills

With winter months slowly ending, people will be stripping their pools of their liners and start gearing up for the summer sun. Year after year we see old pool liners ending up in our landfills. One vinyl manufacturer is working to change that by creating circularity within the vinyl pool liner industry.

i2M is a vinyl manufacturer that specializes in performance and decorative films. These films include wood grain laminates, waterproofing membranes, and pool liners. Their pool liners are designed to be high-performance, durable, and beautiful.

Recently i2M has developed a new initiative to help keep used PVC pool liners from ending up in landfills. Their ReNew™ Champions Program is the first of its kind, post-consumer pool liner takeback program. This initiative is designed to support the circular economy, promote sustainability best practices, and reduce or eliminate costly disposal fees for pool liner installers.

The ReNew™ team has partnered with several accounts to collect and return old pool liners and used vinyl pool floats. They provide special bins to their customers to facilitate the takeback process and have optimized and re-engineered the recycling system to accommodate post-consumer PVC.

So how does it work?

-A customer requests a collection container from i2M.

-They are then sent two, heavy duty bins to place any collected pool liners in.

-Pool liner installers pick up newly manufactured pool liners and drop off the used ones in the bins.

-Once the bins are full, the customer will inform i2M, who will arrange for pickup.

-i2M will pay for the transportation of the post-consumer pool liners and send back empty collection bins for future use

-Once i2M has the pool liners, they find the liners a renewed life in a diverse array of non-pool PVC products.

“We believe this is a win-win, as it eliminates the need for pool liner dealers and installers to pay for disposal of liners and prevents vinyl feedstocks from entering the waste stream,” said Alex Grover, i2M President.

To learn more about ReNew™, click here.