21/05/2026
♻️ From carpet back to fiber: closing the loop in practice!
Over the past year, together with Institut für Textiltechnik Augsburg gGmbH, Next Generation Recycling Machines and Barmag Object Carpet explored one of the key questions for a truly circular carpet industry ▶️ Can a carpet be recycled back into a high-value fiber application?
The answer is encouraging: thermo-mechanical recycling of mono-material carpet has been demonstrated as technically feasible - including the pathway from carpet to polymer and back into fiber.
What makes this trial especially relevant is that it was carried out with Object Carpet’s 100% polyester Hashtag carpet material, without any addition of virgin material. In total, 3.000 kg of material was processed, underlining that this was not a small theoretical lab trial, but a practical test at a meaningful material scale. Part of the recycled yarn was even used to tuft a small piece of new carpet, making the loop physically visible again. That means the trial was not about “blending in” circularity - it was about testing whether a genuinely mono-material carpet can deliver a real recycling loop in practice.
🔬 What we learned:
• Recycling polyester mono-material carpet back into BCF carpet fiber is possible - not just into lower-value applications
• With controlled processing, a significant share of the material quality can be retained
• At the same time, transparency matters: the recycled material is not yet identical to virgin quality in every parameter, and further optimization is still needed, especially in process stability and yarn performance
• Eco-design is the decisive enabler: clean, simple and filler-free material constructions create the foundation for high-value recycling
This is exactly why product design matters so much. If we want circularity at end of life, we have to start with circularity at the design stage. Materials that are easy to identify, process and recycle create the conditions for real value retention instead of downcycling.
📊 What determines whether this can scale commercially?
• Operational factors such as throughput, energy consumption and logistics
• The price relationship between recycled PET and virgin PET
• The availability of take-back and sorting systems for clean post-industrial and post-consumer streams
• And importantly: EPR bonus-malus systems that reward recyclable product design and create the right market incentives
👉 The takeaway
Closing the loop back to fiber is no longer just a theory. It has now been demonstrated in practice with 100% NEOO material, without virgin input, with 3.000 kg of material processed and with part of the recycled yarn tufted back into a small piece of carpet.
The next challenge is scale: aligning eco-design, recycling technology, take-back infrastructure and policy frameworks so that high-value recycling can move from trial stage to industry reality.
