New technology recycles old carpet tiles

Innovative technology has been developed that separates the yarn in old carpet tiles from their backing, so that all the materials can be used again.

When carpet tiles become worn out, many end up in landfills or are incinerated. Tarkett, a French company, has developed its EcoBase carpet tiles, which are 100% recyclable. The two main components of these tiles are the polyamide yarn and the backing.

Tarkett has developed the EcoBase tiles so that the backing and the yarn can be easily separated. The firm claims that 95% of the yarn quality is maintained, and has invested €15m (£12.8m) in the project.

The main innovation of this system us that the carpet tiles can be recycled without any significant loss of quality. The separated yarn is used to make new carpet tiles, and the backing is turned into new backing. It is estimated that this recycling process saves about 84% CO2 emissions compared to incinerating carpet tiles.

Fabrice Barthélemy, the CEO of Tarkett, says:

“This is a fundamental step forward in maximising the value of materials and preventing carpet tiles from being incinerated or sent to landfill.”

Many residential and commercial consumers in the Chester area prefer carpets to other types of floor coverings. There are initiatives such as carpetrecylinguk.com that are making the carpet industry more sustainable by reducing the number of going to landfills. Another scheme burns old carpets to provide heating.

Tarkett has demonstrated that carpets in Chester could one day be 100% recycled.