Tarkett says that, for the first year, carpet tiles collected in the UK will be fully turned into new carpet tiles. ‘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.
‘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 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 grew 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, especially during these tough times, 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.
Tarkett DESSO, a valued long term and strategic core funder of Carpet Recycling UK was amongst the latest batch of Carpet Recycling UK award winners at the back end of 2020. James Bagdadi, Technical Advisor won the Recycling Champion Award.
In promoting the ReStart scheme, James educates customers on sustainability topics and his technical knowledge enables flooring contractors to understand how to harness materials for best recycling value. James said: “I’m proud, honoured and humbled to be given this award. Tarkett lead the way in driving the transition to a circular economy in the flooring industry and the Tarkett Restart programme is a huge part of that process, allowing us to collect post-consumer carpet tiles and other resilient flooring waste.
He added: “I’m pleased to be part of an organisation that allows us to really innovate and develop recycling schemes and contribute positively to what we’re doing in the flooring industry. Thank you CRUK for the award and to our contractor partners and colleagues who work with us to facilitate the collection of post-use carpet tiles.”
“This is a fantastic achievement” says Adnan Zeb-Khan. “The ReStart programme has been developing for a long while to harness and process commercial carpet tile waste and to hear that the carpet tile waste is now being turned into new carpet tiles is a revelation, and a great demonstration of how design for the circular economy can be achieved. To this end, the Carpet Recycling UK Highly Commended Award for Recycler of the Year was well deserved by Tarkett DESSO in 2020.
“We want to help connect more flooring contractors to the ReStart programme to increase the diversion of carpet tile waste from landfill and where possible turn these into a resource for new flooring” Through CRUK there is a discount available to flooring contractors on the cost of palletised take back of post-consumer carpet tiles (any manufacturer, full or part tiles nationwide). Please ask for details! info@carpetrecyclinguk.com
Contact Tarkett DESSO for full information on the ReStart programme here James.Bagdadi@tarkett.com