WAALWIJK, Netherlands, April 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
As part of its ongoing commitment to making a positive impact on health and wellbeing and the environment, Desso, the global carpets, carpet tiles and sports pitches company, today announced its participation in 'Healthy Seas, a Journey from Waste to Wear'. The initiative aims to remove waste, in particular fishing nets, for the purpose of creating healthier seas and recycling marine litter into ECONYL® yarn used for new Desso carpets.
As part of its commitment to recycling healthy materials for its carpet products, Desso has also worked with one of its key suppliers Aquafil, which developed the capability to recycle old Polyamide 6 yarn from used carpets and fish nets into new material known as ECONYL® yarn over and over again.
Today, over 90% of Desso's commercial carpet tile collection is Cradle to Cradle® certified and over 50%[1] of Desso's carpet tiles contain up to 100% ECONYL® yarn, made from 100% regenerated nylon including post-consumer yarn waste from DESSO's Refinity® plant.
"Since 2010, we have been using ECONYL® yarn in many of our carpet products as part of our ongoing commitment to the circular economy powered by Cradle to Cradle® principles," says Desso CEO Alexander Collot d'Escury. "We are delighted to combine our commitment to using recycled content such as ECONYL® with the critical task of helping to clean up the seas."
Since 2008, Desso has followed Cradle to Cradle® principles, ensuring the materials you use are as healthy as possible as well as being safely recyclable. Inspired by nature, the Cradle to Cradle® concept calls on Desso to rethink how it makes things and the materials it uses, leading to less waste of precious natural resources and the phasing out of any toxins in the materials that could pose significant risks to human health and the environment. Cradle to Cradle® encompasses five key elements: Material health, material reutilization, renewable energy, water stewardship and social fairness.
Cradle to Cradle® is enabling Desso to make the transition to the restorative circular economy away from the current 'take, make and waste' linear model.
Desso's vision is to 'make the floor work for our health and wellbeing', driven by its three pillared innovation programme: creativity, functionality and Cradle to Cradle®. The result of this combined commitment to the environment, health and wellbeing has been the creation of a number of product innovations including the DESSO AirMaster® carpet - engineered to help improve indoor air quality; it has been proven to reduce the concentration of fine dust indoors eight times more effectively than hard flooring, and four times better than standard carpet[2].
"The Cradle to Cradle® vision is to design products and services that make the world better than it was before," says Alexander Collot d'Escury. "The way the oceans have been fished - leaving waste behind and harming sea life and the environment - is a very stark example of bad design. We are delighted to support the HealthySeas initiative, which fits in with Desso's commitment to developing a business model that utilises waste in order to create healthy new materials and at the same time make a positive impact on the planet."
"We are delighted to have Desso's support for the Healthy Seas initiative," says Giulio Bonazzi, CEO of Aquafil, and a co-founder of the Healthy Seas initiative. "It is fitting that our largest customer of ECONYL® yarn in Europe and one of the companies that has been leading the way in terms of Cradle to Cradle® and the circular economy should be involved in this critical project to clean up the seas and turn waste into an economic benefit."
According to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), there are approximately 640,000 tons of abandoned fishing nets in the oceans, accounting for one-tenth of all marine litter. These discarded nets can remain in the sea for centuries continuing to catch or injure marine life such as fish, dolphins, turtles and marine birds (known as ghost fishing). Healthy Seas aims to provide a solution by bringing together businesses, NGOs, divers, fishermen and other stakeholders to recover the fishing nets and recycle them into Desso carpets, amongst others.
HEALTHY SEAS
'Healthy Seas, a Journey from Waste to Wear' is an initiative founded by the ECNC Group, Aquafil and Star Sock. For more information on the initiative visit: http://healthyseas.org/
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1. 50% relates to the 2012 sales volume of products available with ECONYL® yarn in the commercial carpet tile collection. The total % of recycled content varies per product and per colour. Whether a colour contains ECONYL® yarn and the exact % thereof can be found on our website: http://www.desso.com
2. Based on tests performed by GUI, with DESSO AirMaster® versus standard PVC hardfloor and versus standard structured loop pile carpet.
SOURCE Desso Group BV
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