New Materials to Come from Carpet Recycling
More than 3 billion pounds of carpet were sent to US landfills in 2018, according to Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE). However, Eastman has announced a carpet recycling partnership with Circular Polymers to help address this problem. The company plans to recycle post-consumer carpet using Eastman’s carbon renewal technology, according to a company press release. The partnership aims to convert the recycled carpet into new materials to serve new and useful purposes.
“Our work with Circular Polymers will divert millions of pounds of carpet from landfills in the first year of our agreement,” said Mark Costa, Eastman board chair and CEO, in the press release. “Securing consistent sources of feedstock is an important element of our circular solutions platform, as it ensures we can provide Eastman customers with materials that contain certified recycled content. This is our first announcement on sourcing feedstocks for our chemical recycling technologies, and there will be more to come.”
Circular Polymers reclaims post-consumer waste products for recycling. Through this agreement, Eastman has secured a consistent source of feedstock for carbon renewal technology, a chemical recycling method that recently began commercial operation at Eastman’s primary manufacturing site in Kingsport, Tenn.
Under the carpet recycling agreement, Circular Polymers will collect polyester carpet from homes and businesses and recycle it at the company’s California reclamation facility, where the company uses a processing technology to separates the PET fiber from the carpeting. Circular Polymers densifies the fiber, which enables its efficient transport by railcar to Eastman’s Tennessee manufacturing site for chemical recycling, where it will produce new materials with certified recycled content. Those materials will be used to produce products used in Eastman markets, including textiles, cosmetics, and personal care, and ophthalmics.
“We are excited to collaborate with Eastman on a project that benefits the planet,” said David Bender, CEO of Circular Polymers, in the Eastman press release. “Congratulations to Eastman on their leadership in the circular economy and upcycling carpet.” CARE, a nonprofit created to support and facilitate market-based solutions that keep carpet out of landfills, partnered with Eastman and Circular Polymers to facilitate the agreement. Since its founding in 2002, CARE has diverted more than 5 billion pounds of carpet from landfills.
“CARE is proud to be part of the team bringing a solution for waste carpet to the marketplace,” said Robert Peoples, executive director of CARE in the press release. “Eastman and Circular Polymers moved quickly from idea to implementation, and this is a win for all involved.”
Commitment to Circular Economy
This announcement comes less than a year after Eastman first announced its intention to prioritize meaningful contributions to the circular economy.
“We’re a company committed to immediate, substantive action to support a circular economy,” said Steve Crawford, Eastman senior vice president, chief technology and sustainability officer in the press release. “Finding new value in old carpet is something we can all appreciate and relate to. If we just discard the carpet and landfill it, then it’s as if the valuable resources it took to make that carpet are locked up and no longer useful. Eastman is also committed to changing that story for multiple sources of mixed plastic which now are being landfilled. By collaborating with feedstock providers like Circular Polymers and others across the value chain, we are going to work together to reclaim the value of our resources.”
Eastman expects to use up to 50 million pounds of waste plastic in carbon renewal technology operations in 2020, and states that projects are currently underway to significantly expand that amount.
“In addition to other feedstock agreements like this one, we are also developing takeback programs in partnership with strategic customers to supply additional feedstocks for our innovative recycling technologies,” Crawford said in the release. “Our carbon renewal technology is already operating at commercial scale capacity, so we are actively pursuing additional feedstock opportunities to realize a material impact as quickly as possible.”
