Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How One Factory Is Turning Fishing Nets into Carpet
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a factory on the coast of Denmark that's been quietly building what might be the most literal example of a circular supply chain I've seen. It takes old fishing nets — the kind that get snagged on rocks and left to drift — and turns them into carpet fiber. Luna: Fishing nets to carpet. That's a material transformation I wouldn't have guessed. How do you even collect the nets in the first place? Lucas: That's the interesting part. The factory is run by a company called Aquafil, and they've set up collection points at ports all around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Fishermen drop off their worn-out nets, and instead of paying a disposal fee, they get a small payment per kilo. It's a tiny incentive, but it changed behaviour pretty fast. Luna: So the fishermen are basically acting as the first step of the recycling supply chain. That's a clever twist — they're usually the ones losing gear, so now they're bringing it back. Lucas: Exactly. And once the nets arrive at the plant, they get shredded, melted, and re-polymerised into something called ECONYL — that's their brand of recycled nylon. It's chemically identical to virgin nylon, which means it can spin into yarn that carpets, and even swimwear, are made from. Luna: Chemically identical — that's the key claim, right? Because a lot of recycled materials are lower quality, but nylon can be fully re-polymerised without losing its properties. Lucas: Right. And that's what makes the economics interesting. Virgin nylon is made from crude oil, and its price moves with oil. Recycled nylon is made from waste, so its input cost is more stable. When oil spiked in recent years, the recycled stuff actually became the cheaper option. That's when a sustainability story turns into a bottom-line story. Luna: So it's not just about being green — it's about hedging against oil price swings. I bet that's a conversation that gets a lot easier with your CFO. Lucas: Absolutely. But the supply chain is still the hard part. Fishing nets are bulky, they're dirty, they're tangled with ropes and floats and sometimes even other trash. Sorting and cleaning them is a huge chunk of the cost. Luna: I imagine the logistics are a nightmare. It's not like a recycling plant that gets a uniform stream of plastic bottles — every net is a little different. Lucas: That's exactly the challenge. And it's why they've partnered with port authorities and local waste companies to handle the collection. The factory itself is the last step of a much longer chain. But the payoff is real — Aquafil says every ton of ECONYL nylon saves around seven barrels of crude oil. Luna: Seven barrels per ton. That's a concrete number you can actually hold on to. And it must add up across all the carpet they make. Lucas: It does. And the bigger picture is that globally, we're talking about an estimated 640,000 tons of fishing gear lost or abandoned in the ocean every year. That's the equivalent of dumping a truckload of plastic into the sea every minute. So even if this factory only recovers a fraction of that, it's a start. Luna: That number is staggering. And it's not just an environmental problem — it's a business problem for the fishing industry, because lost gear keeps catching fish, which is a waste of their catch. Lucas: Right, it's called ghost fishing. And that's why some countries are starting to introduce extended producer responsibility schemes for fishing gear. Basically, the manufacturers of nets would have to fund the collection and recycling of their products at the end of their life. That could flip the whole economics of this. Luna: So instead of Aquafil having to go out and find the nets, the net makers would be on the hook to bring them back. That would be a game-changer for the supply chain. Lucas: It would. And it's already happening in Europe. France and Denmark have both implemented or are piloting EPR for fishing gear, and the EU is pushing for it across the bloc. If that becomes standard, you suddenly have a steady, predictable flow of raw material. Luna: It feels like the whole system starts to click into place when the people who make the stuff are responsible for what happens to it after. Lucas: Yeah. And that's actually a good segue to something I want to mention. We're able to dive into stories like this because of a small group of listeners who chip in a few dollars a month through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big ask — it's just what keeps this podcast going without ads. If these conversations have given you a new idea or a new way to think about manufacturing, that's the kind of support that helps us keep doing it. Luna: And it's genuinely a small group that's making it possible for us to spend the time on the research and the conversations. We don't take it for granted. Lucas: Alright, back to the nets. So we've got the collection, the chemical recycling, and the policy tailwind. But there's another layer that I think is even more interesting, and it's about the design of the carpets themselves. Luna: Design? You mean how the carpet is made to be recyclable in the first place? Lucas: Exactly. Because if a carpet is made from a mix of nylon and polyester, for example, you can't easily separate them at the end of life. So Aquafil has been working with carpet manufacturers to design carpets that are 100 percent nylon — both the face fiber and the backing. That way, the whole carpet can be recycled as one material. Luna: So it's not just about the recycling process — it's about designing for recyclability from the start. That's a whole different mindset. Lucas: Right. And it's a hard sell, because it means changing the way products are made today to make them easier to recycle tomorrow. But some big carpet brands are already on board. They're buying ECONYL and committing to closed-loop production. Luna: It's a long-term bet. But I guess the companies that do it now will be ahead of the curve when regulations tighten. Lucas: Definitely. And there's a lesson there for any manufacturer, not just carpet makers. The products you design today will be the waste streams of tomorrow. The question is whether you want that waste to be a liability or a resource. Luna: That's a nice way to frame it. And for a factory manager listening, what's the first step to thinking about their own waste streams this way? Lucas: I'd say start by mapping your waste. What's actually in your scrap bin? Is it a single material or a mix? If it's a mix, can you separate it at the source? That's the kind of low-tech first step that can unlock high-tech recycling later. Luna: And then maybe look for a partner like Aquafil, who's already built the recycling infrastructure for your material. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of collaboration that turns a niche recycling story into something that scales. Luna: So what's the one thing you want listeners to remember from this episode? Lucas: That the circular economy isn't a slogan — it's a supply chain. And the companies that are winning at it are the ones that treat waste as a raw material, not as a problem to be buried. Luna: And the next time you walk on a carpet, you might wonder where that fiber came from. It could be a fishing net that was once lost in the North Sea. Lucas: That's right. Thanks for listening.