Most product literature treats recycled content as an unambiguous good. For a geosynthetic that will sit in a river or on a seabed for decades, the question is more awkward than that, and the answer went the other way.
The reasoning
Recycled polymer is reprocessed material. Reprocessing involves further heat history, and the feedstock is variable because it comes from mixed sources. Both tend to produce a polymer with shorter chains, more inconsistency, and lower resistance to further degradation than virgin material of the same nominal type.
For most applications that is an acceptable trade. For a product whose whole job is to not degrade while submerged for decades, it is a direct hit on the property that matters most.
The specific concern is microplastics emission: how much particulate the material sheds into the water over its life. A polymer that degrades faster sheds more.
The method
There is no standard to appeal to. As far as can be established, no published ISO or EN standard measures microplastic release from a geosynthetic in service. A textile laundering method is sometimes cited for it and should not be; the rock bag FAQ sets out why.
What we can say from it is directional: virgin polyester emits fewer microplastics than recycled polymer under that method.
What we do not say is by how much. There is no percentage on this site, and there is a specific history behind that. A “30% fewer microplastics” claim was live in 27 places until August 2026, when the client’s own accuracy review answered the question with “No data. Stay qualitative.” It came down.
That is worth knowing when you read anything else here about material performance: the figures that were not supportable were removed rather than softened.
See Microplastics and geosynthetics.
The counter-argument
Being straightforward, because a page that only argues one side is not useful.
Recycled content has a real environmental benefit. It diverts material from waste streams and generally carries lower embodied energy than virgin production. Those are genuine goods, and a procurement policy that rewards recycled content is not being unreasonable.
The trade is between two environmental effects: the upstream benefit of using reprocessed material, against the in-service effect of a material that may shed more into the water it sits in.
We have not quantified either side. No life cycle assessment, no embodied carbon figure, no microplastics quantity. What exists is a test method showing the direction of one effect, and a judgement that for a product living in water, in-service shedding is the effect that governs.
Someone could reasonably weigh that differently. If your organisation has a recycled-content requirement, this is a conversation to have early rather than a box we can tick.
What this means for a submittal
If a specification requires recycled content, the mesh does not meet it, and that is a genuine mismatch rather than something to argue around. See getting a non-standard product approved.
If a specification asks about microplastics or in-service polymer shedding, the honest answer is that no published ISO or EN standard measures it for a geosynthetic, so no defensible comparative figure exists from any supplier. Reviewers in sensitive waters do ask, and that answer is received better than a suspiciously round percentage.
Environment and habitat covers the wider environmental questions, including what happens to the material at end of life.
The end-of-life question
Related and worth separating.
Virgin polyester is a recyclable polymer in principle. Whether a specific installation’s material can be recycled at end of life depends on recovery, contamination, and local processing capability, none of which we control.
What can be said is that units are recoverable rather than requiring demolition — see end of service life, recovery, and reuse. That is a different claim from “recyclable,” and it is the one we can support.