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Ford Motor Company has established within its global Ford Product Development System (FPDS), a vehicle product system which strives to maximize recyclability and recoverability while minimizing the total environmental impact of vehicles. One aspect of how the automotive industry can move towards sustainability is to include sustainable materials like recycled and natural materials in its products as well as in its manufacturing process. Additional examples of using materials imparting low life cycle impact exist in both in the US and Europe. By introducing sustainable materials in mass production, huge figures for reducing environmental burdens result, for example, worldwide 140 million pounds of recycled non-metalic materials have been used just for Ford vehicles alone.

EcoPlus™ Automotive Carpet Systems, are used in trunks, on floors, for throw in mats, and more and contain many different thermoplastics polymers in various forms. New technologies are being developed to recycle complex carpet systems. One system has been evaluated at the Vehicle Recycling Partnership using a “remelt’ recycling process which can be used on a wide variation of thermoplastic materials, or blends of thermoplastic materials. The remelt process takes normally incompatible thermoplastic polymers and makes them compatible in a homogenous mix. This proprietary process yields a useable plastic. Plastic made from automotive carpet systems can be used to manufacture new automotive parts or other plastic articles of commerce.