Carbon fiber from America’s Cup yachts to be recycled

An article in Inside Composites reports that ELG Carbon Fiber and Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) are working together to ensure that the team’s carbon fiber waste is recycled, to promote economical and environmentally efficient uses of the material.

ELG will become a technical supplier to the team and will process all carbon fiber manufacturing waste and end-of-use parts to recover high-performance carbon fibers. The recovered fibers are slated for conversion into ELG’s milled and chopped fibers, which the company uses to make thermoplastic and thermoset compounds, as well as nonwoven mats used to manufacture composite structures.

Tracing waste has been an important consideration for Land Rover BAR. “Our desire to be the world’s most sustainable sports team has meant that recycling the significant amounts of carbon fiber that we use in boat construction has been a concern for us for some while,” said Michel Marie, Land Rover BAR’s manufacturing manager. “This will be a very significant issue, not just for the marine industry but for the wider world in the coming decades and we have to start now and push hard to develop awareness and find solutions.”