SUSTAINABILITY & RECYCLING Clean Living


Texfelt manufactures highly sustainable, eco-engineered non-woven materials, and is particularly known for its carpet underlay, SpringBond, made from


recycled plastic bottles. Here, Texfelt’s Managing Director, James Taylor, explains why and how flooring retailers should make their product portfolio more environmentally friendly.


Reducing carbon footprint is a goal that most businesses should strive to achieve today. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in awareness around sustainable products and their advantages, with a heightened focus on ‘green living’. As such, flooring retailers need to pay attention to this demand and start to focus on their own eco-credentials and think about the products and materials they sell.


In the past, flooring products have not been produced in a sustainable or eco-friendly way and have actually been a risk to public health. Traditional carpet underlay is made from polyurethane (PU) foam, which contains dangerous and harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs), affecting the air quality in homes. Over time, these VOCs cause a toxic build- up in humans, which can lead to health problems such as difficulty in breathing, asthma and various allergic reactions. PU foam also requires flame-retardant (FR) treatment using chemicals, which can also be extremely hazardous.


Retailers have a duty of care to limit these harmful toxins and help to create safer living conditions in the home. Sustainable flooring that’s been made from a renewable source – for example, a carpet made entirely of natural and ethical resources such as wool, or carpet underlay that’s made from recycled plastics - helps to reduce these indoor pollution levels while enhancing comfort in the home.


In addition to the health benefits, there are several environmental concerns that eco-flooring addresses, including the overload of plastic. It’s alarming that over eight million tonnes of plastic end up in landfill or in our oceans every year, with the majority being just used once prior to that. Whilst the world needs to reduce its consumption of plastic, we need to find ways of upcycling the waste product that’s building up too.


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Flooring with a short lifespan might look lovely when first installed, but, in a few years, it will contribute to the ever- growing landfill. More eco-friendly flooring options, however, have a longer lifespan and can be reused and recycled for different purposes at the end of its useable life.


It’s quite often believed that making the home eco-friendly can be expensive, that the results aren’t always aesthetically pleasing and you may compromise on quality. In contrast, however, recent advances in green technology, such as Texfelt’s state-of-the-art Kytech technology which blends recycled plastic and other natural fibres together, confirms that doesn’t have to be the case. Today, manufacturers are able to offer retailers a variety of eco-friendly materials at competitive prices that do not compromise on comfort or insulation, ensuring they’re not only attractive for the conscience, but also revolutionary in the home.


An example of this is our environmentally-friendly underlay, SpringBond, which contains sound-proofing properties to minimise the transfer of noise between floors. This is ideal for those who live in an apartment and for households who value peace and quiet, while the thickness of the underlay also means it’s not just comfortable but insulating both in terms of heat and noise acoustics, keeping homes and buildings warm and ultimately saving on heating bills.


While the benefits of eco-friendly flooring vastly outweigh their alternative counterparts, it’s vital to understand that consumers today are more conscious of how products are made and sold and, as a result, are turning to retailers with more ethical and sustainable practices. Retailers therefore need to think carefully about their product selection in order to serve this new ethical shopper.


www.texfelt.co.uk Tomorrow’s Retail Floors | 21


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