Ege Carpets is replacing the glue in 13 carpet collections

Carpet Giant Replaces Latex binder with recycled binder from broken car windshields

Carpet manufacturing Ege Carpets is replacing the glue in 13 carpet collections, which will now consist exclusively of recycled materials. The new sustainable binder is made from broken car windshields.

Binder from broken car windshields is the main ingredient in Ege Carpets’ latest step towards more sustainable production. The Danish carpet giant, which is one of Europe’s largest and leading of its kind, has chosen to replace the latex-based glue in 13 carpet collections by a more sustainable alternative. The new glue is made from laminate film from broken car windows, which would otherwise have ended up as waste in landfills.

“We use latex glue to attach the back to our carpets. And it is this glue we have now chosen to initially replace in all our ReForm carpet tiles, which we produce in more than 400 variants. Our products now take the next step in a more sustainable direction by recycling material where it makes sense. By replacing our latex-based glue with the new recycled binder, we also significantly reduce our CO₂ footprint,” says Rune Stephansen (CEO of Ege Carpets)

Ambition to produce the world's best and most sustainable carpets

Ege Carpets has had a life cycle analysis done, which shows that the new glue can reduce the CO₂  footprint in production by between 22 and 38 per cent per square meters. The analysis was carried out in accordance with Cradle to Gate, i.e. it only calculates the reduction in the process from the time the glue is delivered at Ege Carpets until the finished carpet tiles are sent to the customers.

The new sustainable PVB binder is supplied to Ege Carpets from Shark Solutions. For 18 years, we have worked from a zero-waste mindset to utilize the laminate from broken car windows and building glass, which would otherwise simply go to waste.

“We manufacture binder from recycled materials, where we make full use of the resources. Our binder contains no dangerous chemicals and is approved as a raw material by Asthma-Allergy Denmark. So this is a product that can replace traditional binders in e.g. carpets and paint, which is better for the environment and which is also competitive in terms of price. For the carpet industry, it is obvious to replace because it can help make the carpets recyclable” says Jens Holmegaard, CEO and founder of Shark Solutions.

Rune Stephansen says that the new initiative is another step in Ege Carpets’ ambitions to produce the world’s best and most sustainable carpets.

“To begin with, we have chosen to implement the glue on all the carpet tiles in our ReForm concept, which is our most sustainable concept, which has been developed with the aim of utilizing resources to the full. All our ReForm carpet tiles consist of 100 percent regenerated yarn on the top, 100 per cent recycled polyester from used plastic bottles on the back and now also 100% recycled PVB binder to hold it together. This is only the first step on the way to being able to replace the glue in all our carpet tiles and thus make our product catalog even more sustainable” says Rune Stephansen.