Recycled (Circular Economy or Closed Loop) Sail Manufacturing

[solosails]

Now you are asking a completely different question. Would people buy sails made from material that is partly recycled. The answer is probably would consider it, after all we buy lots of other products that incorporate recycled material. Whether the interest turns into a decision to purchase will then depend entirely on the value they offer - that is the benefits as perceived by the buyer in relation to the price paid. The feel good factor might sway some, but probably not at any kind of premium.

I used to cover this kind of issue when running courses on ethical management. One of my questions to my mature audience (you can guess how long ago this was) was "if catalytic converters were an option would you specify one to help reduce pollution?" The answers were always the same - "only if it was no cost, or the company paid for it, or for a small number, only if it meant I could have the colour of paint I wanted." In other words, individuals are not prepared to make personal sacrifices unless they personally benefit. You can use this sort of test on all sorts of scenarios.

So, would sailors participate in a recycling scheme. Yes, if it was no cost to them or even better a small benefit by way of a lower cost of a new product. Not sure that requiring them to strip all the hardware for free would work. Also not convinced that old sails make a significant contribution to landfill, given as others have pointed out many sails are retained as spares or recycled through the second hand market. This may well of course change as the explosion in the number of new boat builds of 10-20 years ago works its way through the cycle and sails need replacing.

Think your best approach is to develop a line of sails made from recycled material to demonstrate that they are viable both in function and price. Create a demand for the product and supply of old material will (excuse the pun) materialise.

Yes, very good points made here, thanks.

So it seems that basically, it is highly likely that people would only want to play their part in waste, oil and pollution reduction if they don't have to pay for it, or even better if they were rewarded to do it whilst letting others do the work involved for them?

By the way, I think were all kidding ourselves if we think that the old sails are all doing some good somewhere, there must have been millions of sails made out of PET over the last 50 years, you can safely bet they're not all in somebody's shed waiting to be used, they are buried and not rotting in some land fill near you.

Plus there is the side that s the production waste, typically we nest sails down to about 19% wastage, so for every sail we make, we are forced to throw into the ground around 19% of your sail area in plastic.

We are a small loft and admittedly we cut for other lofts too, but seriously, we have to dispose of huge amounts of this useless otherwise un-recycled plastic waste every week, and that is just us, think of the mass production lofts all around the world... there is far too much waste going on here, we need to find a way to recycle this stuff. Is it solely up to the manufacturers to do this, or should the end users have a part to play as well?

I think its about time we educated ourselves out of this "dont care if I have to do something about it" attitude. I'm really saddened that in your experiments you have proved people think like that, truly.

 

[solosails]

Are we sure that old sails are a problem as to regards landfill etc. Whilst i accept that there are tonnes of sails made every year ,do they actually get dumped & if so do they rot down ( & to what constituents)in a short or long time
If they decompose quite quickly is it a problem? Do we know what happens or are we guessing?
My joke post earlier may have a bit of practicality in it. Dacron sails rot (i assume) & the resin just decomposes due to UV etc - (or does it)
I accept that laminate sails are becoming popular & less likely to decompose - or are they?
Surely research should first be done to find out what happens to old sails in the long term

Personally i would like to see some effort into how to dispose of old GRP boats rather than the rags they fly when in use

Very good points too!

Yes, to be honest I don't know factual answers to your questions. They do rot, mostly in UV exposure, but the PET fibres themselves if buried will take many many years to rot down (how many I dont know), maybe I can get some answers from the manufacturers on this. I have put it on my to do list, thanks for bringing it up.

 

[prv]

Dacron sails rot (i assume) & the resin just decomposes due to UV etc - (or does it)

I don't have hard facts to hand, but this seems a very poor assumption to me. Dacron is just the US trade name for polyester, same material our hulls are made of, and they don't rot, do they? Not in the conventional sense of biological decomposition, anyway - UV of course degrades the stuff eventually, but if they've ended up buried in landfill then there isn't going to be any UV around. And I doubt the substances that these plastics degrade to are particularly good for the environment either.

Pete

 

[flaming]

As someone who has over the years been a paid up member of more than one environmental organisation I'm trying very hard to be positive about this.

I do agree though that the number of boat owners happy to sacrifice the quality of their sails for purely altruistic reasons is likely to be too small to make this a viable scheme. If they could be of the same quality, then I could see it... But unless you can make top end race sails out of it then you're limiting yourself to people who buy sails only infrequently, and so paradoxically the idea of taking a punt on the quality of a new method might actually be more of a turn off than the guy who buys new sails every year anyway. Plus the idea of a deposit to be claimed back in 10 years, if the scheme survived that long, isn't going to be popular...

I've never met anyone who's thrown a sail away though. They just become spares, or delivery sails, or get passed on to another boat of the same design. By my count in the 7 years I've been sailing on the Elan we've been through 3 mains, 8 jibs and 5 kites that are no longer "front line sails". And not one is in landfill. I know where every single one is.

I'd be a big fan of the idea of using the recycled sails as general plastic recycling though. You just need a mechanism for getting those sails when the owner buys new ones, not having them put in the shed "just in case". Sailors are the worst hoarders imaginable!

 

[solosails]

As someone who has over the years been a paid up member of more than one environmental organisation I'm trying very hard to be positive about this.

I do agree though that the number of boat owners happy to sacrifice the quality of their sails for purely altruistic reasons is likely to be too small to make this a viable scheme. If they could be of the same quality, then I could see it... But unless you can make top end race sails out of it then you're limiting yourself to people who buy sails only infrequently, and so paradoxically the idea of taking a punt on the quality of a new method might actually be more of a turn off than the guy who buys new sails every year anyway. Plus the idea of a deposit to be claimed back in 10 years, if the scheme survived that long, isn't going to be popular...

I've never met anyone who's thrown a sail away though. They just become spares, or delivery sails, or get passed on to another boat of the same design. By my count in the 7 years I've been sailing on the Elan we've been through 3 mains, 8 jibs and 5 kites that are no longer "front line sails". And not one is in landfill. I know where every single one is.

I'd be a big fan of the idea of using the recycled sails as general plastic recycling though. You just need a mechanism for getting those sails when the owner buys new ones, not having them put in the shed "just in case". Sailors are the worst hoarders imaginable!

Good thoughts, thanks.

 

[prv]

I've never met anyone who's thrown a sail away though. They just become spares, or delivery sails, or get passed on to another boat of the same design. By my count in the 7 years I've been sailing on the Elan we've been through 3 mains, 8 jibs and 5 kites that are no longer "front line sails". And not one is in landfill. I know where every single one is.

+1

We replaced Kindred Spirit's jib and staysail; I cut them up and used the fabric for various bags and covers. The main and mizzen lasted throughout our ownership and were passed on to the next owner.

We replaced Ariam's main and genoa, offered them to Seateach in Emsworth who turned their nose up, then my mum claimed them as shade awnings for when they have loads of people round for a barbecue.

Mind you though, if I did have a surplus sail that I decided to dispose of, I don't reckon it would end up in landfill anyway. I'd take it to the council dump, where I guess it would go into the "other waste" bin, and then it would be burned under the big shiny dome at Marchwood and turned into electricity. I presume they filter the exhaust gases somehow, so it wouldn't be chucking burnt plastic nasties into the air. Maybe there's a more efficient way of dealing with it, but that doesn't seem too heinous an end.

Pete

 

[Tranona]

Plus there is the side that s the production waste, typically we nest sails down to about 19% wastage, so for every sail we make, we are forced to throw into the ground around 19% of your sail area in plastic.

We are a small loft and admittedly we cut for other lofts too, but seriously, we have to dispose of huge amounts of this useless otherwise un-recycled plastic waste every week, and that is just us, think of the mass production lofts all around the world... there is far too much waste going on here, we need to find a way to recycle this stuff. Is it solely up to the manufacturers to do this, or should the end users have a part to play as well?

I think its about time we educated ourselves out of this "dont care if I have to do something about it" attitude. I'm really saddened that in your experiments you have proved people think like that, truly.

If your 19% waste is indeed correct, that represents a huge amount of virgin material ripe for recycling. Surely better source material than a hotch potch of knackered and dirty 20+ year old rags?

So, the starting point should be yourself and all the other sailmakers who are the ones sending in your own words "useless unless otherwise "un-recycled plastic waste". Why not do something about it and collectively develop your own recycled cloth. If the volume are as you say, and allowing for losses in the recycling process it could be that as much as 1 in 10 of new sails could be made from your own waste - and the waste from those could be re - re-cycled!

So, put your own house in order first before trying to blame it on the user, who currently has no option if he wants to dispose of old sails other than putting in the council re-cycling bin.

I am sure that once you have started the process users will be only too happy to donate material to complement your own supplies.

 

[Daydream believer]

I don't have hard facts to hand, but this seems a very poor assumption to me. e

Well I did qualify it with "(I assume)" & "(or does it)". But without actual research can you prove otherwise? The fibres in sails are (& my comments are meant with due respect) different to our hulls because for a start the fibres in sails are smaller than a composite hull &, therefore, expose more of the surface to the elements (for want of a better term). Do you know what the effect of UV is on the fibres before they hit the landfill? Then of course some sails end up in incinerators as pointed out earlier
I cannot say you are wrong no more than you can say I am right

 

[Daydream believer]

Plus there is the side that s the production waste, typically we nest sails down to about 19% wastage, so for every sail we make, we are forced to throw into the ground around 19% of your sail area in plastic.

I think that if I was a sail maker i would be extremely concerned about that. bearing in mind the small size of panels & the amount of doubling of areas in say clew, luff battens etc then you must be using the material very inefficiently. I am aware that the weft has a factor here so not all parts can be used in doubling up ---but 19% !!!!
Is it that it is cheaper to throw the offcuts away than it is to sort it & re use & use additional labour intensive stitching. If so then i would suggest that your first steps could possibly devise ways of using the waste within the sails having first cut the cloth more efficiently. Surely you use computer programmes to devise how the cloth is cut & buy roll widths to suit your designs

 

[lw395]

....
Mind you though, if I did have a surplus sail that I decided to dispose of, I don't reckon it would end up in landfill anyway. I'd take it to the council dump, where I guess it would go into the "other waste" bin, and then it would be burned under the big shiny dome at Marchwood and turned into electricity. I presume they filter the exhaust gases somehow, so it wouldn't be chucking burnt plastic nasties into the air. Maybe there's a more efficient way of dealing with it, but that doesn't seem too heinous an end.

Pete

Landfill is a bad way of getting rid of most things, and generally worse for plastics.
I don't see the difference between old sails and any other worn out product.
Most of us probably produce more waste in the form of old tyres driving to our boats.
We probably use more plastic as packaging for the other stuff we buy.
I've probably chucked out more kg of man-made fibre in the form of knackered oilskins than I 've retired old sails, and I'm known for buying used dinghy sails and racing them until they are too much effort to repair.
I don't know enough about plastics to know whether used dacron sails are useful to recycle for the plastic, but as a source of fabric, they make good bags, conservatory blinds, sun awnings etc.
Do I want my sailmaker to administer a complex scheme to police recycling?
No, I want him to make good sails.
Sailmaking is labour and capital intensive, both in making the sails and the cloth. It is high value compared to the raw polyester.
That makes it a poor target for using compromised materials just because they are greenwashed.

That's not to say I'm against recycling, but you can waste an awful lot of resources on transport and storage just to massage the consciences of a few people.
It would probably be better to look into whether money can be made collecting dead sails and using the polyester for unrelated industrial stock.
Or maybe the fibre could be used in less demanding applications? Polyester is used in a lot of clothing is it not?
I think it's commonly used in wadding, that could be done with recycled fibre, but the reality is, low spec man made fibres are pretty cheap.
I suspect you'd struggle to pay for the fuel to transport them?

 

[lw395]

I think that if I was a sail maker i would be extremely concerned about that. bearing in mind the small size of panels & the amount of doubling of areas in say clew, luff battens etc then you must be using the material very inefficiently. I am aware that the weft has a factor here so not all parts can be used in doubling up ---but 19% !!!!
Is it that it is cheaper to throw the offcuts away than it is to sort it & re use & use additional labour intensive stitching. If so then i would suggest that your first steps could possibly devise ways of using the waste within the sails having first cut the cloth more efficiently. Surely you use computer programmes to devise how the cloth is cut & buy roll widths to suit your designs

With radial cut sails I'm sure it could be higher.
If you look at it in kg of waste per £ of retail price of product, it's probably low compared to many industries.
Cottage industry potential though.

 

[charles_reed]

Cruising sails are not consumables like fizzy drinks. As jac says, for many they last almost a lifetime. Doubt there are many who buy more than one suit of sails for a boat in their ownership. I have owned my boat since 1980 and have only bought 3 sails in that time. Still have the original 1963 suit, some of which are still serviceable. Life of cared for sails is probably 10 years plus and can't see anybody paying a deposit with the chance of getting it back in 10 years.

As suggested, better to get a recycling system going and offering the discount on trading in against new sails. However suspect the scrap value of old sails would be low so probably not a big incentive.

I'd agree with Tranona's point - even my Far-Eastern made fully battened main lasted 10 years - and that in the Med, with 6 months continuous use every year. And that failed due to UV degradation
I've still got the original solent and roller genoa which came with the boat and are usable after 25 years.
The only two sails I've had to scrap are a crosscut roller genoa and the main described.

 

[solosails]

If your 19% waste is indeed correct, that represents a huge amount of virgin material ripe for recycling. Surely better source material than a hotch potch of knackered and dirty 20+ year old rags?

So, the starting point should be yourself and all the other sailmakers who are the ones sending in your own words "useless unless otherwise "un-recycled plastic waste". Why not do something about it and collectively develop your own recycled cloth. If the volume are as you say, and allowing for losses in the recycling process it could be that as much as 1 in 10 of new sails could be made from your own waste - and the waste from those could be re - re-cycled!

So, put your own house in order first before trying to blame it on the user, who currently has no option if he wants to dispose of old sails other than putting in the council re-cycling bin.

I am sure that once you have started the process users will be only too happy to donate material to complement your own supplies.

I'm not blaming it on the end user, I am saying the whole industry needs to get cleaned and that the end user is not blameless in that.

But the point about 19% waste, this is better than most lofts achieve. We have a £2K piece of software that nests the panels down in the most efficient way possible, some sails nest down to 10% some as much as 25% waste. And yes, that really is the best we can do, the edges of the cloth cannot be used as they are not perfect, the individual patches have to be fitted in the cut somehow, and all panels have to have a gap tolerance and so that is all we can do.

And although you are obviously upset by me suggesting that it's not just the manufacturers fault, I completely agree with you, I am 100% up for recycling the production waste as I mentioned in the first place, but this is the problem, nobody wants to recycle it as it is too little an amount and what is needed is the whole sail to be recycled (the other 80-90% of the material) in order for there to be enough for the salvagers to think about it.

In other words, we all have to take part in this, and not shirk the responsibility on one party. You want the sails, and you like me should care about how they are produced and what affect it has in our planet. As I mentioned the end user is the one with the bulk 80-90% of the raw plastic and has the biggest responsibility for its re-use. Until we can get this back in the system, nobody is interested in the smaller share of waste that we produce in production.

As for dirty old rags, they are still plastic and very much usable to be recycled, I'm not sure why you suggest otherwise.

Once again, and I want to make this very clear, we are all responsible (manufacturers and end users), and my aim is very clearly to lessen the amount of new plastic used in the first place, as well as reduce the amount of end of life waste and at the same time close loop the Manufacturing waste.

And to answer your final point, you're right the end user currently does have no option to recycle the sail and that is the whole point of this discussion. To create a facility for the recycling of old sails.

 

[[70521]]

I live in an engineering world and we look at the "time to failure" of a component, to make recycling payable this needs to be quite short. Is there any research done on the time to failure on a set of sails? Has there been any research on the age that a set of sails last? Has there been any research done on why people change their sails.

I strongly suspect that this might appeal to a small number of boats. I, for one, would not put a deposit down on something that I hope lasts more than 10 years.

 

[solosails]

I live in an engineering world and we look at the "time to failure" of a component, to make recycling payable this needs to be quite short. Is there any research done on the time to failure on a set of sails? Has there been any research on the age that a set of sails last? Has there been any research done on why people change their sails.

I strongly suspect that this might appeal to a small number of boats. I, for one, would not put a deposit down on something that I hope lasts more than 10 years.

Hi Camelia,

These are very good points indeed.

Answer = Impossible to quantify!

Reason = A sail lasts as long as the user feels it is doing the job well without falling apart - going by most of the replies here, most people feel this is around ten years.

As a sailmaker, we are permanently repairing 10+ year old sails that are so stretched that it is amazing the boat goes forward at all and not just sideways, however, the quote from the customer is always the same,

Customer - " I've had these sails since the boat was built, it's amazing that they're still in such good shape isn't it?"
Sailmaker - " Well, umm,... yes, they are still in one piece... a little ... tired maybe, it might be worth thinking about a new one some time though as the shape has lost its way a little."
Customer - "hmm, maybe next year..."

This is absolutely fine and I have no issue with this whatsoever, in fact it is a brilliant thing that these sails get used for such a long time and therefore get the maximum amount of useful life from the fibres (plastic).

But we also get asked often if we would like old sails when the user buys a new one. Just now, I tend to decline them as we do not have space to store them and they are just waste material that we have to dispose of, and although there are now many companies who want these old sails to make bags etc, mostly these companies will only use a very small amount of the sail (bits with numbers on or interesting seams) and the rest will be put in a landfill.

If there was a label on sails much like the label on plastic bottles that showed the recycling companies what materials were in it, then at any stage (deposit or not), these sails could be recycled rather than thrown away.

( A note to the general discussion) - I know you all keep going on about how nobody throws their old sails away, but trust me, at some stage, they do get thrown away, it's a bit of a red herring to argue that they don't, they are not all still out there somewhere doing good. Please believe me, we get asked to throw away sails all the time.

 

[lw395]

......
As for dirty old rags, they are still plastic and very much usable to be recycled, I'm not sure why you suggest otherwise.
......

UV degraded polyester is chemically different from new polyester.
It might still be a carbon based resource, but it cannot simply be re-used.
It won't have the same physical properties.
It might be re-used for less demanding applications, but that is not true recycling.

'Pre -consumer' plastic (e.g off cuts and rejects) is much more widely recycled into high grade products than 'post-consumer'.
It hasn't had the ageing and UV.

Sailcloth is also of course not homogeneous polyester, it is fibres and resins and dyes and UV coatings.

To lump it all together as 'still plastic' does not demonstrate a great grip on the concepts....

 

[solosails]

I just spoke to my last customer and asked him what he did with his old sails, he replied, 'I took them down to the dump' ...

Very interestingly though, he had had those sails since the 1970's !! WOW, those sails saw some action! and somewhat belays what most of you are saying, that you keep sails for a VERY long time.

(I will not say what he said about the performance of his boat with our new sails, in case anyone thinks I'm trying to advertise, I have had my fingers burned here a few too many times for that already!)

 

[solosails]

UV degraded polyester is chemically different from new polyester.
It might still be a carbon based resource, but it cannot simply be re-used.
It won't have the same physical properties.
It might be re-used for less demanding applications, but that is not true recycling.

'Pre -consumer' plastic (e.g off cuts and rejects) is much more widely recycled into high grade products than 'post-consumer'.
It hasn't had the ageing and UV.

Sailcloth is also of course not homogeneous polyester, it is fibres and resins and dyes and UV coatings.

To lump it all together as 'still plastic' does not demonstrate a great grip on the concepts....

Yes, good point.

If anyone knows how UV degraded PET fibres are degraded when thinking about recycling them, that would be a great help to the discussion.

RE the Resins etc, yep, this is a worrying aspect. Mostly those resins have long been broken out of the cloth by the time they have reached their useful life, but that doesn't mean that recycling centers would be willing to take it.

I have sent some samples to BIFA recycling HQ to see what their analysis team think with a view to recycling, they replied saying we need to know what 'ingredients' are, problem is the manufacturers (Who I have spoken to a lot about this) are unwilling to divulge their secret ingredients, and so I have drawn a bit of a blank here.

This is why I am posting here to see if we can get enough movement and support behind the scheme to be able to get the larger companies to budge.

However, I am loosing all hope, I don't think anyone really wants to help get involved which is a real shame.

I don't think there has been a single argument in favor of this proposal here. I thought I was going to be met with overwhelming support, how wrong I was. I'll just quietly carry on trying to do something about it by myself.

Thanks for your views everyone, happy sailing!

 

[[70521]]

However, I am loosing all hope, I don't think anyone really wants to help get involved which is a real shame.

All about cost/benefit. For a cruiser, or even a racer, there is little benefit.

So let’s say I win the Lotto this weekend and place my order for my new boat and set off on my single handed circumnavigation with my two sets of sails. While in the Southern Ocean on of my sails fails. I drag out the spare, hoist that and set about repairing the failed sail. So it's quite useable and once north of 30^osouth swap back to the sail with my terrible stitching.

Slipping quietly into Plymouth Sound, and after having a beer, I ring you up to say I've got this cracking sail that did very well for 19,000 miles and now it is surplus to requirements. What are the costs/benifits of me giving it to you?

 

[solosails]

All about cost/benefit. For a cruiser, or even a racer, there is little benefit.

How right you are,... it's all about money. Says it all really doesn't it?

I am sickened by this world sometimes.