Swimming Pools Are “Green” With EcoTek®
For more than 30 years, Alaglas Swimming Pools owners have enjoyed the high strength and low maintenance that the company inherently builds into its structures. With new EcoTek® “green” resin from AOC, Alaglas was the first composite pool manufacturer to assure customers that their pool was made with more environmentally friendly technology. Alaglas started using EcoTek H460-EKAG polyester for the structural segment of its state-of-the-art composite pools. While most thermoset resins are produced solely from unsustainable petrochemical feedstocks, EcoTek H460-EKAG resin is 28 percent derived from biologically renewable resources and/or recycled materials.A pool made with EcoTek H460-EKAG resin earned the superior quality in an open molded part award in the 2010 ACE competition. “This resin makes us a better environmental steward and enhances a pool’s appeal to customers looking to make greener lifestyle decisions,” said Monty Felix, CEO of Alaglas.
“The same manufacturing process techniques and equipment were used to seamlessly incorporate the new green resin into our material system,” he continued. “We didn’t have to change a thing. Resin conversion was a simple matter of moving our suction wand out of one drum and into another."
How Greenness is Achieved
The renewable content in EcoTek H460-EKAG comes from agricultural products such as corn and plant oils that are precursors to the building blocks of the polymeric back-bone. Formulations made with these building blocks provide green alternatives to formulations produced from building blocks that are wholly derived from crude oil and natural gas. The formulations recycled content comes from reclaimed poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) that would otherwise be destined for a landfill and/or from reclaimed glycols that would require diversion into a chemical waste stream. Mechanical properties of EcoTek H460-EKAG are equal to or better than those of a conventional formulation designed for open-molded products such as swimming pools. As a result, Alaglas pools made with green formulations technology are durable enough to be sold with the same 50-year structural warranty that has been offered with pools made with traditional formulations.
About Alaglas
Alaglas Swimming Pools opened its doors in St. Matthews, SC, USA, in 1987. Since then, the company has built thousands of swimming pools and has advanced its manufacturing process beyond industry standards. Alaglas pools are sold through an extensive dealer network throughout the Eastern U.S. For more information, phone (877) 655-7179 or go to www.alaglas.com.
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