Innovate Recycle Ltd are very pleased to have been awarded a National Flooring Innovation Star ahead of their attendance at the Flooring Show at the Harrogate Convention Centre this month. 

 

Innovate are building the UK’s first carpet recycling facility in Northamptonshire; providing a solution that reduces and removes material from landfill or incineration and reclaims for re-use, component materials from post-consumer and industrial carpet waste.

 

The company have secured a £2.35m award from the South-East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP), Getting Building Fund and a further input of £2.65m after a successful private investors funding round. 

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“It is a waste of the retrievable polypropylene, environmentally unsustainable and I’m determined to change it. The alternatives to landfill involve us continuing to burn fossil fuel or shredding the carpet into tiny plastic and fibre shreds which are all too easily spread across our landscape”.

 

Joseph Eccleston CEO of Innovate Recycle comments:
“We are delighted to have won the Innovation Star and would like to thank the awards panel for the recognition that it brings.  We are working closely with the carpet and flooring industry to increase the environmental performance of carpet manufacturing. Innovate Recycle are at the forefront of new technology in the UK and our processes enable deconstruction and resource recapture from end-of-life carpets, this enables the reuse of these valuable resources, in particular polypropylene”. 

 

There are shocking statistics that support Innovate Recycle’s launch. Industry figures estimates that the UK produces over 400,000 tonnes of carpet waste each year. Most of this waste goes to landfill, incineration or is shredded to produce equine training surfaces. Currently there is no effective, at volume, recycling process for the material.

 

Circular economy and environmental government policy, such as increasing extended producer responsibility is emphasising the need for a more sustainable approach to carpet and flooring manufacturing. Bob Woods, Chair of the Board of Innovate Recycle added: “Carpets cannot continue to be sent to landfill, incinerated or repurposed into products that damage the environment which is why we are at the forefront of new technology and developing a new circular economy approach for the carpet industry. This new technology and approach will create a unique and sustainable process, one that will produce quality material that can be recycled time and time again.”

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Innovate Recycle’s new facility will be fully operational from Autumn 2022. Waste material will be sourced from across the Midlands, East and South East of England, with the new site creating jobs, including apprenticeships, for the local community. The company will work with partners such as the Universities of Birmingham, Leicester and Northampton to support the growing cluster of waste expertise in Northamptonshire. 

 

The focus will be on the market dominating polypropylene-based carpets. This polymer, when repurposed provides exceptional qualities of strength and recyclability that will provide a strong marketable end of line product that can be continually repurposed to manufacture components across a wide range of industries. 

 

Bob Woods, Chair of the Board of Innovate Recycle comments:

“There is a need for change. Post-consumer and industrial carpet cannot continue to be sent to landfill, incinerated or repurposed into products that damage the environment. Innovate Recycle are at the forefront of developing a new circular economy approach for the carpet industry, building a unique sustainable process, supporting the local economy and producing quality material that can be recycled time and time again”.