Own company founded – Start of production still 2021
Burgheim – 16. November 2020: The Sport Group is one of the world’s leading companies in the field of synthetic sports surfaces. With its subsidiary Polytan, the company has a high market share in the construction of artificial turf pitches and running tracks. Now the Bavarian company is also entering the recycling business. The newly founded subsidiary FormaTurf will turn old artificial turf pitches into new products starting next year.
Frank Dittrich, CEO of the Sport Group: “This makes us the only company in our industry to cover theentire artificial turf value chain and close the loop. We develop, we produce, we install, we maintain, we remove and we recycle”. The special thing: FormaTurf recycles almost 100 percent of an old artificial turf pitch consisting of the turf carpet, sand and rubber granulate. “We do not see an old artificial turf as garbage, but as a valuable raw material”, continues Frank Dittrich. The aim of FormaTurf is to turn the old material into new, durable products. To this end the company is building a new factory in Germany.
In recent years the number of artificial turf pitches in Germany has increased significantly. The service life of the upper layer (lawn carpet, sand, infill granulate) of a pitch is normally between ten and fifteen years. Many pitches have now reached the end of their lifetime or will reach it in the coming years. For this reason, FormaTurf anticipates a sharp increase in the number of recyclable artificial turf pitches in the coming years. This means that large quantities of synthetic material are returning to the resource cycle and can be recycled sensibly. FormaTurf can recycle almost all installed artificial turf systems and is not limited to taking back pitches installed by the Sport Group subsidiary Polytan.
The creation of FormaTurf is another of many steps in the Sport Group’s sustainability strategy. Through its subsidiary Polytan, for example, the company offers the first CO2-neutral artificial turf made of renewable raw materials. “We want to be the most sustainable company in our industry. We could not close our eyes to the issue of recycling. I am convinced that our overall concept offers the customer the best possible solution,” says Frank Dittrich.
