Post consumer nylon 6,6 can now be recycled into new carpet - Interface, Universal, PCC team up to make it reality
Hicksville, N.Y.—In recent years, much has been made of the fact how carpet made from nylon 6 can be recycled into new broadloom with no loss of performance or styling, and at the same cost as if using virgin yarn. Thanks to a three-way partnership between Interface, Universal Fibers and Post Consumer Carpet Processing Technologies (PCC), the same can now be said of carpet made from nylon 6,6.
Last month Interface’s InterfaceFLOR division previewed products in the ReEntropy collection, which represented the first commercial broadloom made from post consumer, recycled nylon 6,6 fiber. A comprehensive product rollout is planned for this fall.
For more than a decade major efforts have taken place to keep post consumer carpet made with nylon 6,6 out of landfills. And while millions, if not billions, of pounds have been collected and diverted into other useful products, there had been no economical way to “close the loop” and turn the fiber back into broadloom yarn.
“To our knowledge the competition is not processing post consumer fiber and direct feeding within their extrusion process,” said Bill Goodman, vice president of sales and marketing for Universal. “They do have a reclamation project, but we are not aware of any fiber that is being reprocessed in their operations using our technology.”
David Hobbs, president of InterfaceFLOR Commercial, noted, “The industry, as a whole, has particularly struggled with developing a viable way to recycle nylon?6,6, the most prevalent fiber used in the commercial market. One technological hurdle the industry has faced is the ability to separate carpet face fiber from backing in a way that preserves the materials in a pure enough form for recycling, and in a way that is economically feasible.”
Goodman added, “The ability to now reprocess post-consumer nylon 6,6 broadloom fiber and produce high quality product is a milestone for the floor covering industry and the environment.”
John Bradford, vice president of research and development, Interface Americas, said the cornerstone ReEntropy product has a low amount of post-consumer recycled content to start with, “between 3% and 7% depending on the color. This is because the program begins with color and building out the entire color palette will take time.”
While the face yarn of ReEntropy starts off with a small percentage of recycled content, the product itself actually has a much higher value thanks to Interface’s Cool Blue backing, noted Bradford. As the standard backing for the collection, “this gives ReEntropy the highest amount of post consumer content we know of in the marketplace.”
Three-way partnership
The patent pending technology to recycle nylon 6,6 comes through a working relationship that spanned the Atlantic Ocean. In Italy, Sergio Dell’Orco and Frank Levy, co-owners of PCC, used their 40-year background in textile recycling processes and technology to create a customized system for the carpet industry.
David Hobbs, president of InterfaceFLOR Commercial, said through close collaboration with PCC “we were able to implement an innovative technology that represents a breakthrough for our industry and furthers our progress toward eliminating virgin materials in our products.”
This technology separates broadloom face fiber from backing in a way that preserves the materials in a form suitable for recycling. Through it, InterfaceFLOR can reclaim all types of carpet from both commercial and residential markets.
Enter Universal, which developed technology to produce nylon 6,6 fiber from recycled broadloom at its Bristol, Va., facility. This advancement works in cooperation with the technology developed by InterfaceFLOR and PCC and allows carpet to be produced with the same performance attributes as if it were made from virgin materials.
Goodman noted, “Our recycled yarns have the same performance characteristics as virgin polymer. We will use similar technology to ensure post-consumer recycled nylon performance is not compromised and will stand up to virgin performance. The cost to collect and process post-consumer carpet into quality post-consumer fiber can easily be justified with the benefits we all share in reducing our carbon footprint and saving our environment.”
Early estimates predict that InterfaceFLOR can divert 30 million pounds of broadloom from landfills annually with this new technology, and even more as additional machines come online. Carpet will be reclaimed via the company’s ReEntry Carpet Reclamation program that to date has diverted more than?84 million pounds of broadloom from landfills solely by taking back products from projects where Interface flooring brands were being installed.
Calling all carpet types
Now, said Hobbs, carpet can be reclaimed from any type of source. “If you’re not using your broadloom any more, even if you’re not buying ours, we want it back from you to recycle the components.”
Bradford said Interface can collect all types of carpet because it “has identified streams of use for other types of broadloom face and backing material that will be reclaimed, such as nylon 6, polyester or polypropylene, thus eliminating the need for any type of carpet to ever go to a landfill or an incinerator in the future.
“Some are within the greater carpet industry,” he added, “and some are not. Our goal is to maximize the use of post consumer content both inside and outside the industry.”
While ReEntropy, which represents the next step in the evolution of Interface’s Entropy line—one of the company’s most successful products on the market during the last several years—is a commercial product, mill executives said this is just the first step toward expanding the use of recycled nylon 6,6.
John Wells, president and CEO of Interface Americas, called this “a big step for the Interface companies, and our ultimate goal is to use this post-consumer yarn system in products throughout all of our business divisions.”
While no timeframe has been specified, those in the residential market could soon be seeing carpets made from recycled nylon 6,6, noted Bradford. “We would like to see a Bentley Prince Street broadloom product offered within the first year of operation.”
When this happens, dealers will then have the opportunity to sell new carpets made from both recycled nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 post-consumer materials.
“Environmental stewardship is something we take seriously and have focused on for many years,” concluded Bentley Park Universal’s president. “We understand that part of being a good corporate citizen involves protecting the environment and conserving our resources. This technology is another example of our commitment to that end.”
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