VIABILITY Grant Recipients Making a Difference: Every Shelter

Our team is extremely proud of our post-consumer recycling grant program – VIABILITY. More than 1.1 billion pounds of vinyl is recycled in the U.S. and Canada annually, but we’re committed to increasing that number. Following the close of the third round of VIABILITY funding in late 2023, we have awarded $1.67 million to 16 different organizations that are making a difference in the world of vinyl recycling. These grants have gone to research institutions, fellow trade associations, nonprofits, and companies large and small.

One such organization that is utilizing new ways to recycle post-consumer PVC and received grant money is the nonprofit Every Shelter. Every Shelter designs shelter solutions for displaced communities and refugees. In 2018, Scott Key, the co-founder and CEO of Every Shelter, was in a refugee camp in northwest Lebanon and saw a billboard used to cover a refugee shelter. The refugee family had been using the material for more than two years, with little sign of damage. This moment provided a spark of inspiration and created the foundation for the non-profit organization that has assisted more than 30,000 refugee families in many parts of the world.

Every Shelter’s VIABILITY proposal centered around bringing the concept of repurposing used vinyl billboards to help victims of natural disasters in the United States. In this case, the used billboards are converted into tarps for temporary roofing after severe storms such as hurricanes. These temporary tarps have a much longer life than the traditional blue tarps used for this purpose at the same cost.

Existing FEMA tarps have a lifespan of just about 30 days, compared to a lifespan of ~24 months for Every Shelter’s billboard tarps. The long-lasting properties of vinyl make it the perfect material to upcycle into a temporary roof tarp.

Beyond the incredible humanity displayed in Every Shelter’s mission and operations – it also has another enormous positive. Repurposing used vinyl materials.

In the US alone, there are an estimated 439,711 billboards, most of which are printed on huge rolls of flexible, resilient vinyl. Billboards change out every 3 months and if 70% are printed on vinyl, that’s up to 27,700 tons of vinyl per year that would be landfilled. Prior to the VI’s funding, Every Shelter had already done great work with diverting vinyl from landfill, with over 132 tons of repurposed vinyl. But clearly, there is so much more opportunity out there to divert these used billboards from landfill. Our grant has helped their team pilot the operation and expand the number of billboards it can obtain.

From 9/30/2023 to 12/21/2023 (after the Every Shelter team received VIABILITY funding), their team turned 1,650 billboards into emergency tarps. This represents 74,250 pounds of vinyl that would have been destined for landfill – and that’s only a 2.5-month period. We’re so excited to see what comes next for the Every Shelter team as they continue to divert PVC from landfill.

While helping on the ground in the wake of Hurricane Idalia, a member of the Every Shelter team reached out to the Vinyl Institute to express their gratitude for our grant funding. “The fact that we even have billboards recycled and transformed into tarps to potentially assist these disaster victims is thanks to this grant,” said Stefanie Cortez, Grants Manager at Every Shelter. We’re so proud that our grant money has had a real, tangible impact on both Every Shelter’s operations – but also on real world families in need.