Industrial plant for the production of eco-friendly tarpaulins meeting high structural and ecologic requirements supporting the achievement of a non-toxic environment in Europe

Introduction

Tarpaulins are large sheets of strong, flexible, and water-resistant material used to protect from extreme conditions. The main material is PVC coated polyester, which is characterised by low price and good resistance. However, PVC represents a significant environmental burden since no viable recycling solutions are in place.

Background

For decades, companies have been trying to replace harmful PVC-coated fabrics with a more sustainable polymer. Although there are alternatives available, they are generally too costly to compete with PVC coated fabrics and do not fully address stringent requirements in terms of safety and recyclability.

Project Overview

With TARPAULIFE, we want to demonstrate the possibility of manufacturing POLYOLEFIN-based large area coated fabrics which could be cost-competitive against PVC-coated fabrics for large market applications. The main application selected is for waterbags.

Waterbags

Waterbags represent an innovative way of transporting large amounts of freshwater over the sea. The limitation of the modular waterbag technology developed by ZIPLAST is the use of PVC-coated fabrics. Other applications selected for the replication of the proposed solution are:

1. Eco-friendly truck tarps
2. Glacier ice covers

Expected Results

The main result of the project will be the set-up of a production facility of POLYOLEFIN-based coated fabrics, width 3 metres, with a production capacity of 250,000 square meters per year already 1 year after the project. Additionally, we will demonstrate two 2.5 million litres waterbags made with the new material in two locations: the Northern Sea and the Mediterranean.

Future Projections

We foresee the production of:

• Over 100 waterbags in the three years after project end
• Over 2 million cubic metres of water stored in three freshwater hubs

The proposed solution would allow us to avoid the incineration of over 2,000 tons of PVC and save over 13 tons of CO2 not released into the environment.