#615 2012 · Interface Inc. (Net-Works program) · Manufacturing / carpet tiles
A carpet company needed recycled nylon and the ocean was full of exactly the wrong kind of net
the problem
A manufacturer needed a steady supply of recycled raw material, while a completely separate industry's waste was piling up as an environmental hazard nobody had connected to that need
background
Carpet manufacturer Interface had committed in 1994 to eliminating its negative environmental impact entirely under its 'Mission Zero' pledge, which meant sourcing more of its nylon fiber from recycled rather than virgin petroleum-based material — a supply chain problem with no obvious large-scale source of the right kind of waste nylon.
Separately, discarded and abandoned fishing nets — 'ghost nets' — made up roughly 10% of marine waste worldwide by UN Environment Programme estimates, entangling marine life and damaging reef and coastal ecosystems, while the coastal fishing communities that generated this waste, particularly in the Philippines, had no market for old nets and often no way to earn income beyond the fishing itself.
what everyone would do
The standard way to source recycled nylon would be to build or contract with a conventional industrial recycling supply chain — collecting post-consumer nylon waste through existing municipal or industrial recycling channels, treating the sourcing challenge as a materials-recovery logistics problem within the recycling industry Interface already operated near.
what they saw
Interface saw that its raw-material need and a completely unrelated industry's waste problem were actually the same material — nylon fishing net was chemically exactly the input the carpet supply chain needed, but nobody had connected the two because carpet manufacturing and coastal fishing had no natural reason to interact. Buying the waste directly from the coastal communities generating it converted a disposal problem with no existing market into a supply chain, while simultaneously giving those communities an income source they'd never had.
the move
In 2012 Interface launched Net-Works with the Zoological Society of London and yarn maker Aquafil: fishing communities in the Philippines collected discarded nets and sold them into local community banks for supplemental income, Aquafil regenerated the nylon into ECONYL recycled yarn through a closed-loop process that could be repeated indefinitely without degrading quality, and Interface used the yarn directly in its carpet tiles — turning an ocean pollutant into a raw material supply chain paid for at the source.
why it works
Fishing communities collected discarded nets that would otherwise become marine pollution, since they had no existing market or use for the waste, and Net-Works paid for the collected nets through local community banks, converting what had been pure disposal cost into direct income for fishing families. Aquafil then regenerated the collected nylon into ECONYL yarn through a closed-loop process repeatable indefinitely without quality loss, giving Interface a continuously renewable raw-material source rather than a one-time cleanup. Because the material's origin, ocean-polluting waste, and its destination, recycled carpet fiber, were chemically identical, no new material had to be invented, only connected across two industries that had never had reason to talk to each other — solving Interface's supply need and the fishing communities' waste and income problem simultaneously through the same transaction, rather than requiring two separately funded interventions.
the payoff
The program collected tens of thousands of kilograms of waste fishing net through its Philippine hubs (Danajon Bank, the Bantayan Islands and Northern Iloilo) and generated hundreds of community bank memberships giving fishing families access to savings and microfinance for the first time, later expanding to Cameroon's Lake Ossa region; across its first years the program collected over 300 metric tons of waste net, supported more than 2,000 families, and helped protect over 5,000 hectares of ocean habitat.
where it breaks
The mechanism depends on the two problems genuinely matching at the material level — a manufacturer's raw material need only pairs with another industry's waste stream when that waste is actually chemically or physically suitable for the manufacturer's process, a fit that was a specific coincidence here rather than a generalizable recipe. It also requires building genuinely reliable collection and payment infrastructure reaching dispersed, often remote communities, a real logistics and trust-building undertaking rather than something a company can simply announce and expect to work. And it depends on the recycling technology existing and being economically viable at the volumes needed — without a partner able to profitably convert the specific waste material into usable feedstock, collecting the waste alone wouldn't create the supply chain regardless of how well-matched the underlying materials were.
what came after
Net-Works became a widely cited case study in circular-economy and social-enterprise circles as an 'inclusive business model,' pairing an environmental cleanup with a direct income mechanism for the communities generating the waste rather than treating pollution cleanup and poverty alleviation as separate problems, and it helped Interface hit its Mission Zero environmental-impact-elimination target in 2019, a year ahead of its self-set 2020 deadline.
references
- [1]Net-Works: The world's first inclusive business model to recycle discarded fishing netsInterface Inc. (investor relations), 2015investors.interface.com
- [2]Interface Set to Scale 'Net-Works' Program That Turns Fishing Nets Into CarpetSustainable Brands, 2015sustainablebrands.com