Eco-conscious consumers have woken up to the impact of single-use products, from their contribution to ever-growing landfills to the trash that is polluting the Earth’s oceans. Most synthetic-fibre carpets meet this fate after use, with huge amounts of carpet waste thrown everyday into landfills year after year.
With the carpet industry looking to improve the sustainability of its products, a versatile, sustainable nylon yarn that can be recycled and regenerated infinitely is disrupting the traditional linear ‘take-make-waste’ manufacturing model.
Invented by Aquafil, ECONYL® regenerated nylon is made entirely of discarded waste products – including fishing nets, fabric scraps and old carpets. Unlike virgin nylon, which relies on oil from the Earth’s reserves, not a single barrel of oil is used in producing ECONYL® yarn. This innovative material can be made without ever tapping into new resources and then incorporated into new carpet products, enabling consumers to make a thoughtful flooring decision that does not impact the environment.
Carpets made using ECONYL® yarn are soft to the touch, with the qualities homeowners seek: low maintenance, stain and fade resistant, hard wearing and affordable. These benefits are on display in Carpet Court’s new Australian-made ranges from Tuftmaster Carpets and EC Carpets using ECONYL® regenerated nylon, all of which feature a distinct style, colourway, look and feel.
This new collection of sustainable carpeting features three soft feel twist pile ranges, a more luxurious soft touch collection, and three high-performing modern textured loop ranges, all in on-trend colours and designs. The Textured collection includes the opulent Expanse range, perfect for lavish interiors; the neutral, organic palettes of Genesis; and the hardwearing Frontier, designed for busy urban lifestyles.
The Premium Soft collection retains all the features of traditional solution-dyed nylon, with dense yarns creating exceptionally elegant carpets. This collection includes Origins, which expertly balances durability and comfort, and the luxuriously soft Source range available in a large palette of natural carpet colours.
Busy living spaces call for high performance carpeting, making the Performance collection, which features the Awaken, Inception and Provenance ranges, the perfect choice. The yarns in these ranges are individually twisted to create a carpet that is exceptionally durable and resilient, offering a low maintenance solution that does not compromise on style.
Until recently, the process of choosing eco-friendly products for the home had been hampered by a legacy of misconceptions: sustainable materials were either too expensive, not flexible or durable enough, or lacking in quality and style. This is no longer the case with ECONYL® regenerated nylon.
Aquafil began exploring the comprehensive nylon reuse cycle from 2007, which ultimately led to the development of ECONYL® yarn in 2011. The company found that it was possible to purify collected nylon waste and go back to the chemical building blocks of nylon. Once purified, it can be turned into carpet yarn that is structurally identical to its virgin equivalent. This ‘closed-loop’ manufacturing process enables endless deconstruction and recycling without any loss of quality.
Sustainable carpets are now a reality. Using ECONYL® yarn instead of virgin nylon reduces the global warming impact of nylon by 90%. For every 10,000 tons of ECONYL® regenerated nylon, we are saving 70,000 barrels of crude oil and avoiding 65,100 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions.
Carpet Court’s innovative new ranges made with ECONYL® regenerated nylon are now available in-store.
Carpet Court
