Joint Venture Created to Boost Carpet Recycling Efforts

Polar Materials, Social Circle, Ga., and Franklin Industrial Minerals, Dalton, Ga., have formed a joint venture to manufacture post consumer carpet backing fillers to assist carpet manufacturer's compliance with NSF 140 post consumer recycled content protocols.

The new patent pending fillers, called C2C, are mixtures of recycled carpet backing with normal limestone fillers or, alternatively, post consumer glass.

Many styles of carpet can contain up to 30 percent by weight mineral filler, mostly limestone. With a post consumer content mandate of 10 percent of carpet weight, a cost effective way of meeting 10 percent content is to mix post consumer carpet backing with the limestone filler. By offering mix ratios of 20, 35, 50, and 100 percent PC content, the C2C grades can supplement other existing post consumer additives to give every carpet style the targeted post consumer content. Every carpet mill uses large quantities of limestone delivered in bulk to their silos/compounding systems. By mixing the necessary post consumer content with the limestone, the carpet mills will not need any capital expenditure or special material handling systems to accommodate their PC content. Extensive testing has confirmed the C2C grades are stable in latex and PVC.

Further, the Polar Materials C2C products are totally compatible and recyclable with existing carpet formulations.

The development of C2C grades also significantly improves the economics of the carpet recyclers, turning the large disposal cost of 35-50% of their output into a revenue stream. The joint venture with Franklin Industrial Minerals offers the immediate availability of more than 100,000 tons annual production in the Dalton carpet market.

Polar Materials is a sister company to Vitro Minerals, a supplier of recycled glass powders. In addition to the Dalton, GA, plant, the company has facilities in Tennessee and South Carolina, with another plant under construction in California.