'When I look at a landfill, I see a goldmine.' - Giulio Bonazzi, Aquafil CEO and founder of ^ECONYL®

ECONYL ^® is a material that consists entirely of nylon 6. Other names for nylon 6 are polycaprolactam, PA6 or polyamide 6. Nylon 6 is a very strong, wear-resistant and resistant material. It exists in different forms. For example, ECONYL ^® can be used for injection molding, but it can also be made into filament yarns. We use the filament yarns for our rugs. A filament yarn is a yarn that is made up of a type of hair, all hairs together determine the thickness of the yarn. The amount of hair also determines the characteristics of the yarn, such as its softness. For carpets we use yarns that can consist of hundreds of hairs. Nylon 6 is a popular material because of its good properties. But ECONYL ^® is more than nylon 6.

ECONYL ^® has two unique character traits:

1. It is made from 100% waste. More about this processing process is described in this article. A partially recycled yarn is not unique, but a fully recycled yarn is. In addition, there is a very unique feature;

2. It can be recycled infinitely, regenerated as ECONYL ^® calls it, without loss of quality. This makes it a very unique, even revolutionary material that is very suitable for circular applications. The circular economy is essentially about the infinite reuse of materials; imitating a closed ecosystem as we see in nature. ECONYL ^® makes this possible.

ECONYL ^® is therefore a very powerful yarn that, in addition to its circular qualities, is also very strong, feels soft, lasts a long time, is easy to maintain and is available in the most beautiful colors.

Circularity is often described as a "team effort". This is because multiple parties are involved in completing a full circular chain. The same is true for ECONYL®. Unfortunately, we observe that producers using the yarn often do not utilize it optimally. This is a real pity because ECONYL® genuinely paves the way for a larger-scale shift towards a circular economy. The following aspects hinder the efficiency of ECONYL®:

1. No take-back plan. If no one takes responsibility for taking back products containing ECONYL ^® , a perfectly regenerable material will end up in an incinerator or on a landfill.

2. Designed without eco-design. As described, ECONYL ^® can be regenerated time and time again without loss of quality. But that only applies to that specific fiber. In almost all applications, ECONYL ^® is still mixed with other materials. Additives and adhesive layers are also used. This results in a very low potential recycling rate, and in many cases, recycling becomes impossible because materials cannot be separated. Additionally, such a construction produces waste streams.
Using ECONYL ^® without considering take-back and deconstruction at the end of its life diminishes the unique strength of the fiber.

New Weave makes full use of ECONYL ^® and the regeneration system. Through a take-back program in combination with innovation in weaving technology, which eliminates the need for other materials, we guarantee 100% regeneration. Read more about take-back and eco-design.

ECONYL ^® is produced by the Italian company Aquafil. Aquafil was founded in 1965 in the town of Arco in Northern Italy. The company has been collecting waste as raw material for technopolymers since 1998. In 2011, Aquafil started the ECONYL^® project. The driving force behind ECONYL ^® is CEO of Aquafil, Giulio Bonazzi. The decision to start developing the revolutionary yarn in 2011, long before the circular economy was a well-known term, was the result of a sharp vision of the future and a good dose of decisiveness. Nylon 6 is originally extracted from oil, this process is finite and also harmful to the environment. Under Bonazzi's leadership, Aquafil decided to take matters into their own hands and develop an entire chain from waste to regeneration.

Bonazzi admits to having "hugely underestimated" the transition to using waste as a raw material, and probably would not have embarked on this venture had he known in advance how challenging the task would be. Sometimes, entering a process naively turns out to be the right move, or else there would be no ECONYL^® today.

Yet the development of ECONYL ^® is also partly coincidental. As mentioned, ECONYL ^® is produced by the Aquafil company. Before the idea came to produce the material from waste, Aquafil already produced nylon 6, but from the usual raw material, oil. Nylon 6 turned out to be a unique material in the sense that it is highly recyclable. Aquafil therefore had a solid basis for producing a material made from waste. This doesn't detract from the fact that implementing an entire waste supply chain was a mammoth task.

Aquafil currently also produces oil-based nylon 6, which is marketed under a different name. However, ECONYL ^® has been such a great success that the dot on the horizon is to move away from oil as a raw material throughout the company.

The regeneration process of ECONYL ^®

ECONYL ^® is more than just a material, it is a completely closed system of regeneration that makes circular application possible. In short, this system consists of 4 steps:

1.Rescue | Rescue: The ECONYL ^® regeneration system starts with the rescue or collection of waste such as fishing nets, industrial residual materials, carpet and plastic. This happens all over the world. This waste is sorted and cleaned, with the aim of recovering nylon 6. More about the waste flows generated is described later in this article.

2. Regenerate | Regeneration: In an intensive regeneration and purification process, the nylon waste is returned to its original purity. This means that ECONYL ^® regenerated nylon is exactly the same as new nylon.

3.Remake | Remaking: ECONYL^® regenerated nylon is processed into yarns and polymers for the fashion and interior design industries.

4. Reimagine | Application: The new material, made entirely from waste but with a quality that is indistinguishable from new, is reapplied by producers all over the world.

In addition to the video at the beginning of this article, there is also a little look behind the scenes of this regeneration system:

A behind-the-scenes look at carpet recycling in the US

The first, and also a significant waste stream in the regeneration process, is old carpets. The majority of carpet recycling takes place in the United States. In part due to regulations, a favorable environment has been established for recycling plants. In certain areas, producers are legally obliged to ensure recycling. The U.S. faces a massive waste problem with old carpets. Each year, 1.8 billion kilograms (about 4 billion pounds) of carpet is discarded in the U.S.

Aquafil has established two recycling factories in the U.S., in Phoenix, Arizona, and Woodland, California. Each of these factories can process 16 million kilograms (about 35 million pounds) of carpet. Wall-to-wall carpeting, which is common in the U.S., is typically made in a consistent manner. It usually consists of three main components; a top layer of nylon 6, a middle layer, which provides stability, made up of calcium carbonate, and a bottom of polypropylene. As mentioned, only nylon 6 is and can be used to make ECONYL^®. However, that doesn't mean the other components can't be reused.

The nylon 6 is carefully separated and broken down into something akin to carpet fluff. This is then made into large bales and shipped to Slovenia. There, along with other purified nylon 6 waste, it undergoes the regeneration process to become ECONYL^®.

The polypropylene also gets a second life and can be used for injection molding. The remaining calcium carbonate is not burned but is reused for road construction and the production of concrete.

Old fishing nets are another significant waste stream in the ECONYL® regeneration process. A distinction is made between two types of nets:

- Collected nets from aquaculture and fish farms.
- 'Ghost nets', left-behind nets that pose a threat to nature.

The vast majority of fishing nets that serve as a raw material for ECONYL® come from the first category, the collection of nets from aquaculture and fish farms. The fishing nets used in this industry need to be replaced regularly, providing a more or less constant supply of waste. The downside of these nets is that they are highly processed. For instance, these nets often have a copper coating. This coating prevents organisms from adhering well to these nets, keeping them cleaner for longer. The nets aren't designed for deconstruction, making the removal of this coating very challenging. Also, with fishing nets, we see that nylon 6 is mixed with other materials, making the separation process difficult and, in some cases, impossible.

In addition, the so-called 'ghost nets', left-behind nets that affect marine ecosystems, are also a raw material in the ECONYL ^® regeneration process. These nets are rescued and recovered through special operations. These operations are extremely intensive and therefore the share of ghost nets in the total is relatively small.

The organization Healthy Seas^® plays a special role in the collection of fishing nets, this organization was founded in 2013 by three organizations: Aquafil, Star Sock and Ghost Diving. New Weave donates 5% of sales of the Circular 1 collection directly to Healthy Seas^® to finance the collection of old fishing nets. Because Healthy Seas ^® plays a special role in the collection of waste for the regeneration process, we will discuss the role of this organization in more detail in a separate article. Read more about Healthy Seas®.

In 2021, Healthy Seas ^® collected 188,500 kilos of fishing nets or litter. 250 volunteer divers were deployed for this. In addition, the project involved 1,250 fishermen and farms, provided information to 1,870 children and organized 108 clean-up days.

In October 2021, Aquafil announced that it was purchasing from the Norwegian company Nofir for a percentage of approximately 32%. Nofir is a leading European player in the collection and processing of fishing and aquaculture nets. Nofir is a lot bigger in this regard than Healthy Seas. It collected approximately 6.7 million kilos of fishing nets in 2021, mostly from Norway. In total, the company has collected more than 54 million kilos of fishing and fish farming equipment since its founding in 2011.

A still relatively small, but potentially significant waste stream in the future, comes from take-back projects. Products designed with the intention of being partially or fully regenerated at the end of their lifecycle are returned to Aquafil. This is the future of sustainability and aligns with Aquafil's regeneration system. Unfortunately, at the moment, we see too few producers designing with the end in mind.

The aim of New Weave is to make optimal use of this opportunity. Solid eco-design makes it much easier for Aquafil to recycle products that are compatible with their take-back program. Another good example of eco-design with ECONYL ^® is the Circular Series by the Italian fashion brand, Napapijri.

Pre-consumer waste refers to all the waste produced before a product reaches the consumer. For instance, residual waste from the production process. Even in the production of New Weave carpets, this waste exists; for example, when carpets are cut to size, some offcuts remain. Since New Weave carpets are made entirely of ECONYL ^®, these leftover materials can be fully and infinitely regenerated. Another form of pre-consumer waste includes components or products with defects. Pre-consumer waste is a waste stream that returns to Aquafil relatively quickly, as products from the take-back program are often only reclaimed after many years.

ECONYL ^® thus retains its full quality and can be returned to its fundamental building block, which is the essence of the regeneration process. With recycling, as we see, for instance, with PET bottles, there's a sacrifice in quality. Moreover, some new (virgin) material is required to achieve the desired quality level. This renders the material unsuitable for circular application as it cannot be recycled infinitely. Melting down the material is the typical method in recycling. However, there are various initiatives underway to regenerate PET and other polyesters, but these have not yet reached the scale and proficiency of the process developed by Aquafil.

ECONYL ^® on the other hand, is regenerated in a different manner, through a depolymerization process. While it sounds complex, it's relatively simple to explain. Aquafil describes it as follows:

'A polymer (ECONYL ^® , ed.) consists of various building blocks connected through chemical bonds. The depolymerization process involves breaking these bonds. We do this in reactors at our facility. The waste material enters these reactors, accompanied by extremely hot steam under high pressure. Under the right conditions, these chemical bonds break. The result is that we obtain pure and separate building blocks. As a result, we acquire caprolactam, the primary component. Since we use steam, this caprolactam contains water. This is removed through distillation. The outcome is pure caprolactam, which subsequently serves as the building block for nylon 6 during the polymerization process. The remaining water is reused in a closed system.'

ECONYL ^® is entirely made from waste, but this nylon waste material was once derived from oil. Oil is not an inexhaustible resource and also causes environmental damage during its extraction.

Aquafil, in collaboration with partners, is working on producing nylon 6 from plants, also known as bio-based production. Aquafil announced in July 2022 that, in partnership with Genomatica, they successfully completed a test to produce nylon 6 on a larger scale. LINK