Can fake grass be recycled? The answer is definitively a resounding yes! As part of an overall drive to improve the sustainability of its artificial lawn installations, Artificial Lawn Company has partnered with Nottingham based Let’s Recycle Artificial Grass (LRAG), a specialist in the regeneration of waste artificial grass. LRAG will collect and recycle all old and discarded grass that the company removes, as well as offcuts, roll ends and trimmings collected during installation.
After collection, LRAG will then reprocess these waste grass products and turn them into a range of every day urban furniture products such as park benches, flower boxes, stadium seating and edging boards. These can then be enjoyed for many years and recycled again in the future.
Are Artificial Lawns Bad for the Environment?
Fake grass has long had a negatively biased reputation for being detrimental to the environment, and Artificial Lawn Company has long since striven to pursue improvements in this area, focusing on product quality, processing requirements, and an empathetic use of the product in overall landscaping projects.
This agreement is the first step in a longer journey to ensuring that the company’s artificial grass products satisfy the drive for greater sustainability.
The longer term aim is to complete a full regeneration cycle, in which the grass waste is processed back into a recycled grass product, reducing the overall need for using virgin plastic. It is crucial that more and more of the key players in the industry work together to achieve this, and we are proud to be at the forefront of this drive.
Andrew Simpson, director of Let’s Recycle Artificial Grass commented:
“As a viable landscaping product, the use of artificial grass is only going to increase in the coming years. Indeed, projections indicate that by 2027 the industry will achieve sales of 20 million square metres annually. It is vital that the UK artificial grass industry comes together to create more stringent standards when it comes to sustainability. Partnering with like-minded companies such as Artificial Lawn Company will have a significant impact on the reduction of discarded grass waste in landfill.”
Is Fake Grass Recyclable?
Artificial Lawn Company has long been proactive in ensuring that its products are used in a way that is ecologically sound, promoting a balanced approach to landscaping in which biodiversity can be integrated into the overall design. It is only recently that it has become more widely known and accepted that fake grass can be recycled.
Artificial Lawn Company also recently launched a fully recyclable premium artificial grass product. The traditional latex backing of the company’s Landscape PET lawn has been replaced with polypropylene to bring it in line with the top side grass pile, enabling the product to be lifted up and put straight into the recycling process without any additional costly and complicated steps. Previously, the backing was manufactured from latex, which meant that the grass had to be physically deconstructed - an energy intensive, costly and complex process.
The Landscape Lawn consists of hard wearing, long lasting, C-shaped memory fibres with a pile length of 30mm. This durable product will continue to look good no matter the weather, which makes it ideal both for residential garden projects as well as commercial projects where low maintenance, longevity and good looks are important.
Available in 2m or 4m widths, Artificial Lawn Company can do a supply only, or a supply and installation service (geography dependent) with a 10 year guarantee as standard.
Let’s Recycle Artificial Grass operates a nationwide collection service. Its Nottingham based recycling plant strips the waste grass down and re-processes the component parts into functional products.