Rolling out the green carpet
Sales Manager Roald de Bruijn and Extrusion Expert Rony d’Hollander explain how MEAF Machines BV is helping carpet and artificial turf manufactures to go green by adding carpet backing solutions to its in-house extruder test line.
The Benelux carpet and artificial turf industry has taken a big step toward a greener future with the recent release of an industry roadmap. In this document the industry sets out ways to significantly reduce energy usage and to aim at 100 per cent recyclability of their products. MEAF Machines has now set up its in-house extruder test and demonstration line specifically to help manufacturers try out greener carpet backing materials before committing to a large-scale change in their production methods.
The carpet and artificial turf industry is fully aware it needs to reduce its ecological footprint, both in the production as well as at the end of life. As laid down in the industry roadmap, the Benelux carpet sector aims for 80 per cent of the carpet from the residential market to be available for high-quality recycling through recycling centres and waste collection stations by 2030, and through material pooling, to be using 50-80% of high-quality recycled raw materials.
Companies face quite a challenge to go from the traditional, hard to recycle carpet backing to more sustainable solutions. This is due to the demands placed on carpet backing, such as dimensional stability, moisture and wear resistance, but also ease of laying and cleaning. At present the main materials used for the backing are bitumen- and latex-based products. The latter is a wet process that requires a lot of processing water per square metre of carpet, as well as natural gas for drying tunnels, and neither bitumen or latex can be easily recycled.
A possible way out of the conundrum is to switch to the extrusion of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) for carpet backing. On the one hand, compared with latex carpet backing the use of extruded TPEs can reduce CO2 emissions by almost 60 per cent. On the other hand, it opens up a way for producing recyclable carpets. Extrusion processes can use up to 100 per cent recycled materials, although obviously there is a relation with the quality of the recycling flows and the properties of the final product. At one side, ‘design for recycling’ needs to meet ‘using recycling in design’. For the industry this means striving to use monomaterials, while separable or at least compatible materials will help a lot. Also, a complete chain of collecting, cleaning and converting post-consumer carpet waste in useful fractions need to be in place to reduce landfill and incineration.
When companies are looking for a new type of raw material, material mixture or a new machine supplier, it is always helpful to be able to run a number of tests in order to decide the best way forward – like taking a test drive when you are looking to buy a new car.
Switching to TPE extruders requires quite a redesign of the carpet sector’s production process. Working closely with the industry, MEAF has modified its test and demonstration line to include embossed cooling rollers, while the extruder can now be set to produce both primary and secondary backing, to allow for carpet and artificial turf manufacturers to run a range of material mixtures, fillers, additives and other tests to facilitate the change to more sustainable carpets.
Building on 75 years of machine building expertise, MEAF’s extruders are some of the best in class when it comes to flexibility, energy efficiency and installation footprint, and it is not just MEAF customers that benefit from the modular design of the machinery. The company is also able to easily rotate between a set-up for packaging or carpet backing on its test and demonstration line. The screw and barrel technology can process almost any thermoplastic, even when larger quantities of fillers like CaCO3 or additives are used in order for the material properties to meet the industry’s specifications.