Cartersville, Ga.—The Planet Recycling, Inc., carpet collections network will join Aquafil Group’s journey to the circular economy in mid-December 2020. Planet Recycling, Inc., based in Phoenix, Ariz., has been an industry leader in recycling residential and commercial carpet waste and carpet pad materials for more than 35 years.
Planet Recycling has products and services including flooring waste management, carpet recycling and installation supplies. The company diverts more than 10,000 tons of post-consumer carpet and carpet pad from Phoenix Valley’s and San Diego county’s landfills each year.
“The combination of Aquafil and Planet Recycling’s expertise enables us to create a unique carpet recycling loop across the entire supply chain from collection to recycling and fiber manufacturing,” said Franco Rossi, president of Aquafil USA.
The company’s existing collection facilities will enhance the availability of used carpet material for the Aquafil carpet recycling facility in Phoenix and will also create a stable quantity of nylon waste to be supplied to Aquafil’s regeneration plant in Slovenia where carpet waste and other materials such as fishing nets and other types of nylon waste are regenerated to make Econyl yarns and polymers.
Each year in the U.S., four billion pounds of carpet is discarded in landfills and only 5% of carpet waste is recycled. Aquafil Group is committed to help reduce this waste by implementing a closed-loop supply chain where carpets are recycled instead of ending up in landfills. “If all carpets were made of nylon 6, we could recycle them all efficiently and with minimal cost in order to create a fully circular supply chain for carpet materials,” said Giulio Bonazzi, president and chief executive officer, Aquafil Group. “The integration of Planet Recycling business is a big component of the company’s long-term strategy and will ultimately increase the use of recycled carpet materials to be used by Aquafil customers across the globe to create new sustainably made products.”
Aquafil has two carpet recycling facilities, one in Phoenix and one in Woodland, Calif., that can each process up to 36 million pounds of carpet annually, which is equal to the total weight of 27 Airbus A380 planes.
“We are thrilled to continue our journey to build a circular supply chain with a company that has also invested in solutions to help preserve our planet for the last several decades,” said Rachel Palopoli, part of the family that founded and operates Planet Recycling.
Palopoli will direct the new Aquafil carpet recycling collection point to increase used carpet collection both in Arizona and California.