Dive Summary:
- Turf Reclamation Solutions, a Cincinnati-based turf removal company, has addressed the need to recycle this man-made material with equipment designed to recycle and repurpose turf.
- The artificial surface lasts for up to a decade before replacement, leading to 40 million pounds of turf which needs to be replaced yearly.
- TRS' equipment separates the sand and rubber from the backing, while the creators of turf, AstroTurf LLC, then make new products from the reclaimed materials.
From the article:
"We have built the equipment that allows us to extract all of that sand and rubber out of the carpet," said Mark Heinlein, president of Turf Reclamation Solutions. "So now we're back to having a clean plastic carpet that we can then put through the process to get to an end product."
"The difficult part has been being able to recycle all parts of the field," said Sydney Squires, director of sales support at AstroTurf. "You know of course we could just do the polyethylene blades across the industry, or just the polyurethane, but to be able to recycle them all is really a breakthrough."
