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→ Shredded plastic waste (Photo: TotalEnergies/Laurent Villeret)
New artificial turf (Photo: FieldTurf)
NEW ARTIFICIAL TURF FROM OLD PLASTIC? NEW SOLUTIONS BASED ON THE CIRCULAR ECONOMIC ACT Author
Rolf Haas, Deputy Chairman IAKS Germany
Contact Kai Weber-Gemmel, FieldTurf kai.weber-gemmel@tarkett.com
Artificial turf pitches are becoming increasingly popular for sports facilities. The decisive advantages are that they can be used with high intensity and independently of the weather. When choosing a new artificial turf, the question that has to be asked is: “How ‘green’ is a modern artificial turf?”
FieldTurf, a globally leading manufacturer of artificial turf, develops new solutions in cooperation with fibre supplier Morton Extrusionstechnik. Both companies are part of the Tarkett Group, which, with its 12,000 employees, produces 1.3 million m² of flooring – on a daily basis. A synthetic turf’s climate neutrality hinges on replacing petroleum as the raw material for the artificial turf fibre. The development department of Morton Extrusionstechnik in Abtsteinach is addressing precisely this challenge. Thanks to the cooperation with TotalEnergies, pyrolysis oil is emerging as the new resource. Chemical recycling – Advanced Recycling Pyrolysis oil is obtained by chemically recycling plastic waste. The aim of this form of advanced recycling is to convert plastic waste into a raw material for new plastics. Recycling could thus be one of the solutions to the global plastic waste problem. In 2017, around 6.1 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated in Germany alone. Each German citizen thus produces an average of 38 kg of plastic packaging waste per year – a total of around 3 million tonnes. 70
There are three ways of recycling plastic waste: 1. Mechanical or physical recycling: the macromolecules are retained and plastic recyclates are created as the product. 2. Raw material or chemical recycling: the macromolecules are broken down and the product is resources from which new plastics can be made. 3. Energy recovery or thermal recycling: the macromolecules are incinerated and the product is energy coupled with carbon emissions. Since plastic is mainly obtained from fossil raw materials such as petroleum, natural gas and coal, it has a considerable energy and calorific value. For this reason, almost half of the plastic waste in Germany is still incinerated for energy, although this means that plastic waste is lost as a source of raw materials. The climate-damaging carbon emissions due to incineration are enormous. During pyroly sis, a chemical recycling process, the macromolecules of the plastic waste are broken down at elevated temperatures (from around 300° Celsius) and in the absence of oxygen. The resulting pyrolysis oil is a high-quality resource for new plastics. sb 4/2021
