AZEK & Return Polymers Celebrate 3 Years of Growth, Teamwork, Leadership, and Sustainability

January 30, 2023 Return Polymers celebrated another milestone, three years of affiliation with our parent company, The AZEK Company. It’s been such a whirlwind of new growth that we’re just now getting around to celebrating that anniversary! 

Growth Isn’t Possible Without a Solid Team to Drive It

The sense of team, entrepreneurial spirit, and singular focus of delivering a quality sustainable product at Return Polymers receives the credit for the success of the last three years. Our people believe in what they do, and they’re really, really good at it.

Throughout the integration process and growth over the last three years, we’ve been able to retain over 95% of the original management and supervisors. The number of team members has more than doubled while maintaining our safety record for the same three years. We’re also delighted to have promoted our first woman as a shift lead in the Ashland operation. We are proud and grateful for this team’s commitment to the ideals of The AZEK Company.

More Capacity Means More Recycling

Return Polymers plays a crucial role in AZEK’s Full-Circle Recycling Program. We’ve been in the process of expanding our operational capacity through both acquisition and new facility space.

Return Polymers has expanded our team through the purchase of both Fryman’s Recycling and MRP Plastics. We also just completed a three-year long expansion of our existing facility, which tripled the overall recycling capacity.

More Recycling Means Greater Sustainability

At its core, our business is about diverting PVC scrap destined for landfills back into high quality durable products. RP takes our role of leading the recycling industry very seriously. The expertise we have been able to develop and best practices created are being shared and encouraged across the marketplace.

To that end, our business is one of the founding members of the NEO Vinyl Recycling Coalition, and we serve as the chair of the Vinyl Sustainability Council’s Recycling Task Force. In 2020, Return Polymers received the Recycler of the Year award from the Vinyl Institute and The AZEK Company received the Recycler of the Year award for 2021 for the PVC Vintage Decking product.

Because of our proven recycling leadership, AZEK has expanded RP’s role and entrusted our team to define the strategy and operational initiatives for all polymers including both PVC and polyolefins (LDPE, HDPE). We welcomed the Wilmington, OH recycling facility as members of our RP team as of January of 2023.

Again, this growth wouldn’t be possible without the energy, leadership, and laser-focus of our team at Return Polymers, who are working everyday to reach the shared goal of recycling 1 billion pounds of rigid PVC by 2026.

With this level of leadership and hard work, we’re confident that we’ll knock that goal out of the park.

Happy three (and a half) year anniversary, AZEK and Return Polymers!