MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Carpet Recycling UK’s fourth Annual Conference opens in Birmingham on July 11th with a packed programme providing information and inspiration for all sectors of the carpet waste supply chain, including presentations from leading American carpet recyclers.
Preceding the one-day event at the city’s Institute of Engineering and Technology will be a networking dinner on July 10th. This year sponsorship is provided by Invista, manufacturers of ANTRON® Carpet Fibres.
The conference is aimed at organisations seeking outlets for their carpet waste as well as carpet manufacturers and firms interested in new recycling technologies. A new format features three parallel ‘breakout’ sessions in the afternoon allowing attendees to select the most relevant talks for them.
Topics will include waste prevention/redesign, reuse, recycling and energy from waste (EfW).
Up to 100 delegates are expected at the event, which is organised by resource recovery specialists Axion Consulting. Axion manages Carpet Recycling UK, the industry-backed association for recycling and reusing waste carpet.
Two US-based carpet recyclers, Frank Endrenyi, President of Sustainable Materials Solutions LLC and Sean Ragiel of Carpet Cycle, a carpet collector and recycler, will be offering insights into new developments in the United States.
Other sessions will focus on Closing the Loop – Designing for the Future to inspire fresh thinking on how products are designed so as to preserve increasingly limited resources. Speakers include Tammy Korndoerfer of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA), a Hamburg-based scientific institute specialising in the Cradle to Cradle® design concept, and Jan Ladefoged Jenson of Danish carpet manufacturer egetaepper a/s spotlighting their approach to addressing and integrating sustaining manufacturing processes. Raw material suppliers Aquafil SPA and Wools of New Zealand will discuss how their products can suit a closed loop process.
Further presentations will look at new outlets for carpet waste and developments in re-use of carpet tiles, plus a talk by WRAP on resource efficiency in manufacture and in refurbishment projects. Test results using carpets in two alternative thermal treatment technologies based on pyrolysis and gasification will be presented. The collection and recovery of fibres from installation wastes will be discussed, increasing opportunities for higher value in textiles and plastics.
CRUK Co-ordinator Jane Gardner of Axion Consulting comments: "Our fourth annual conference once again builds on our previous successful events and demonstrates the significant growth of the carpet recycling network in the UK over the past year.
"Delegates have tremendous opportunities to learn about available and emerging technologies for carpet recycling, as well as to meet those already in the business and find outlets for their carpet waste.
"In particular, the introduction of parallel breakout sessions allows attendees to make the most of their time in choosing the subjects of most value to them. CRUK is making great strides forward and this event aims to share that success," adds Jane.
