Creating artificial turf yarns with new recycling technologies for circular economy

Project Information

RE-MATCH

Grant agreement ID: 854977

DOI

10.3030/854977

Project closed

EC signature date 28 January 2019

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 March 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

RE-MATCH A/S
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RE-MATCH (Creating artificial turf yarns with new recycling technologies for circular economy)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Artificial turf (AT) has been gaining ground as a substitute for natural grass, due to its numerous benefits. Since its use is growing fast worldwide, a new environmental issue has been created: What to do with the turf that is worn-out or needs to be replaced? Approx. 50 million m2 of sports turf were disposed worldwide in 2017, and the volume is expected to increase by >70% in 2021. However, there is still no sustainable solution for processing and disposal of every AT component within the booming AT market. Until now the disposal options for end-of-life turf have been limited to landfill and incineration, apart from a few cases of re-use and largely inefficient recycling solutions. These solutions deliver sub-optimal materials, and do not provide any solution for the plastic component, which is not upcycled.

The increasing amount of AT that has reached the end of its life needs to be managed responsibly, as it is classified as waste and it is a criminal offence in many parts of the globe to lift, transport, and store used synthetic turf without a waste license. ATs have been identified as an environmental threat as the mounting regulatory pressures for sustainability. Our method of upcycling and reuse will remove any foreign impurities, dust and micro particles from the infill in order to be able to use the worn out turf as new raw materials for production of new turf. Upcycling of the plastic fibres to turf yarns will secure that fibres are cleaned, rejuvenated, and subsequently used to produce plastic items thus completing the full life cycle.

The following objectives have been pursued:
• Investigate the optimal technical solutions for the dissolvent, hardware, machinery and related production methods;
• Plan the technical setup and installation of a pilot plant for upscaling the production of resin from clean plastic fibers, according to the CreaSolv process;
• Quantify and assess the environmental impact, regarding the replacement of current turf yarn production methods with the patented upcycling-based AT resin production;
• Assess the requirements demanded by environmental regulatory authorities according to different geographical markets, thereby complying with current national legislations;
• Assess the network of stakeholders for the viability of the value chain, including suppliers (end-users), customers (turf and yarn manufacturers), and lawmakers & regulators;
• Forge strategic partnerships within professional sport organizations for the purpose of demonstration activities, testifying the user’s acceptance of the upcycled process;
• Fine-tune the potential business models and pricing and review preliminary estimates of the business case after 5 years of market introduction;
• Explore alternatives for developing new applications for this technology

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Briefly, during this action we have found that:
• Multiple stakeholders are willing to partnership with Re-Match, thereby being part of our network at each step of the process: i) customers buying our resin; ii) end-users using the upcycled AT generated from our resin; distributors to facilitate the process of transport, etc.
• Customers demand: i) a competitive price for the resin, ii) evidence-based efficacy towards their needs of quality and resistance, iii) compliance to waste disposal legal standards, iv) process certification, and v) a guarantee that the solution has been verified and validated.
• To meet customers’ requirements, particularly those related to the sports segment, we will need to fully optimize the process of resin generation, creating on one hand a standard set of resin features but fine-tuning according to the needs of the customer and end-users.
• We comply with every environmental requirement in the International Legislation Standards.
• The optimization process of resin generation has been reviewed and the critical steps identified. Among them, the determination of polymer type becomes essential, namely the identification of C4, C6 or C8. Likewise, the process development for automation is critical to reduce performance variation (fluctuation), while keeping the high-quality level of the product.
• The configuration of the pilot plant must meet the requirements for an optimal production of resin, this in enough quantities to be later extruded to turf yarns, providing material to 10 mini pitches at least. The pilot plant will be configured to deal with 8,000 tons of grass fibre per year, generating around 5,600 tons resin per annum.
• We shall use the distributors depending on the geographical segment of the end-user, either related to the transport of the old AT, or to the transport of resin after production. The amount of resin generated might potentially also influence the importance of this step.
• The business plan/strategy of Re-Match has been repositioned accordingly with the updated market intelligence gathered during the project.
• We have freedom to operate.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The expected outcome of the innovation project (phase 1 + phase 2) is a certified, validated and commercially ready process for upcycling of AT components. After a successful outcome of the feasibility study, the following steps of the innovation project (phase 2) include testing and demonstration of the technology in a scaled-up prototype with end-users, which requires the development of a pilot plant. This will enable the evaluation at large scale of the economic and technologic viability of such an upcycling process, paving the way towards a market introduction of circular upcycled ATs, while fine-tuning the production methods. Several trial-fields are planned in several countries, to demonstrate the efficiency of the prototype technology with end-users in real life conditions and different climates. These fields (FIFA standard size) will be tested and based on different production methods, aiming at process optimization.

Upcycling Process by Re-Match