produces a vinyl deck board system

Many of the new companies that have started up in the last two years to manufacture high quality deck systems use virgin polymers. The largest of the woodfibre-plastic lumber manufacturers in Canada are Composite Building Products International Inc. (Barrie, Ontario), Brite Manufacturing (Bolton, Ontario), GSW Thermoplastics (Barrie, Ontario), and Nexwood Industries Ltd. (Brampton, Ontario). Together with Royal WPC wall board with wood grain(Woodbridge, Ontario), which produces a vinyl deck board system, these companies have the dominant share of the decking systems being manufactured in Canada and sold in major retail outlets. All of these manufacturers (except one) use virgin polymers for their products and are not major purchasers of post-consumer recycled ontent (and certainly not curbside collected film).

Canadian municipalities, retailers and companies that collect or enerate used PE film and other plastic wastes continue to be dependent on large U.S. producers of composite plastic lumber, such as AERT (Springdale, Arkansas) and the Trex Company. However, DIY decking tile a new processing system designed by a Canadian company may provide a large and 3 growing market for curbside collected film and mixed plastics currently being landfilled.

SPS Inc. (Tilsonburg, Ontario) has developed a high productivity flow mold process that has made it cost-effective and practical to manufacture large cross section-plastic composite timbers for use as railway ties and marine bumpers and pilings. The large diameter molds permit the use of mixed plastics or plastic films with higher levels of contamination at much lower processing costs. The new flow mold process also can accommodate sophisticated composites that utilize glass fibre, nylon fibre,composite flooring tile woodfibre or rubber in mixtures that use about 50 percent PE film to achieve the structural properties needed for demanding applications. The process has been successfully used to manufacture plastic composite railway ties that are now approved for use by North American railways.