NICHE MARKET
31recyclinginternational.com | January/February | 2020
with ECONYL yarn delivers up to 84%
CO2 savings compared to incinera-
tion. The recyclable tiles have lifespan
of between 10 and 15 years, similar to
traditional flooring.
Another unique feature is that each
tile has a distinctive marking on the
back to indicate both the date of pro-
duction and the location. ‘It also helps
identify what is inside that particular
carpet tile, down to the molecule,’
Barthélemy explains.
Benefits of respinning
An entire EcoBase-backed tile with
PA6 yarn is recyclable. Both the yarn
and backing are recycled without loss
of quality; used yarn becomes new
yarn and used backing becomes new
backing. This means the product is
cradle-to-cradle verified. The two
materials are sorted, cleaned, pro-
cessed and baled individually at the
Waalwijk site and subsequently
shipped back to Aquafil’s headquar-
ters in Arco, near Lake Garda, for ‘res-
pinning’.
At Aquafil, workers feed segments of
carpet one by one onto a conveyor
that sends them into a shredder that
reduces them to 12 centimetre square
pieces. Through a cutting-edge dry
and wet process, three components
are sorted into separate streams with
90% of the water output recycled.
Calcium carbonate (or ash) emerges
as a dense dust that is chemically
identical to chalk, the polypropylene
as fluff that is baled up, and the nylon
a spaghetti-like string that is cut into
tiny pellets with 97% purity – perfect
for yarn production.
Recovered calcium carbonate – which
represents 40% of the carpet’s total
volume – is used in the construction
industry. The polypropylene is used to
make anything from food packaging
to chairs to children’s toys.
Let’s restart
At the moment, around 95% of
Europe’s used carpets are either land-
filled or incinerated. The continent’s
carpet recycling industry was worth
Fotobijschrift
KaderKop
??
Big infLux of carpets
Tarkett reports the worldwide carpet tile market
has seen ‘steady growth’ in the last couple of
years. In 2018, the global sector was worth over
EUR 10.7 billion. The popularity of efficient carpet
solutions isn’t surprising given the fact that people
spend up to 90% of their time indoors.
The top three carpet manufacturers in Europe are
Belgium, Germany and France and each discards
over 400 000 tonnes of used carpets annually. Total
carpet manufacturing revenue in Europe exceeds
EUR 55 billion per year.
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