TARKETT says that, for the first year, carpet tiles collected in the UK will be fully turned into new carpet tiles.
Says the company: ‘In total, we’ve seen a growth of almost 60% in the volume of carpet tiles collected from all over the UK between 2019 and 2020, and all collected carpet tiles made out of Nylon6 yarn and EcoBase backing will soon find new life as carpet tiles through Tarkett’s ground-breaking technology at its pioneering carpet tile recycling facility in The Netherlands.
‘Following the cradle-to-cradle principles, everything from the way the materials are being sourced, to the way the carpets are being handled after their lifecycle, has been addressed.’
In 2019, Tarkett announced Europe’s first facility designed to completely close the loop on carpet tile production, as documented by independent third party Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for tiles with their EcoBase backing. This comes as standard or is reportedly available for all Desso Carpet Tiles.
The company continues: ‘Tarkett has developed breakthrough technology at its Waalwijk facility and is now able to separate the two principal components of carpet tiles – yarn and backing, while retaining more than 95% yarn purity. This level of purity is vital in ensuring the polyamide 6 (PA6) yarn can be recycled by its partner Aquafil and later transformed into regenerated ECONYL nylon yarn.
‘During 2020, Tarkett has reportedly ramped up its ReStart take-back programme, which aims at collecting as much post use carpet tiles as possible that have been installed in the UK after it has reached end-of-use – so its materials can see new life as a new carpet tile. During 2020, the collection has grown almost 60% compared to previous year, with the effect that an increased amount of new tiles are being created with the material from old tiles, which minimises the impact on the environment.’
Ross Dight, technical director at Tarkett UK, says he’s really proud of the way Tarkett ReStart partners have come together and worked collaboratively with Tarkett to ensure that the tiles are diverted from landfill, and that we can recover as much valuable raw material for new carpet tile production as possible. The fact that we are the only manufacturer which are designing our tiles for disassembly and have invested in innovative technology which allows us to do so, is likely why we see such an increase in the number of tiles that the customers want to send back to us.
