EarthKind Recycled-Resin Fibreglass Pools
How much plastic does an EarthKind pool recycle?
EarthKind is a sustainable resin platform launched by NCS Resins in February 2021 to reduce the resin industry’s dependency on virgin, crude-oil-derived raw materials. Like DEXA, it is an NCS product platform — what Advance Pools chose was whether to build with it.
The EarthKind 100-Series resin our pool shells are laminated with carries 27% recycled PET plastic in place of virgin feedstock, and produces 9% less CO2e than the conventional resin it replaces. It is Lloyd’s Register approved, performs identically, and costs you nothing extra.
NCS measures it like this: one tonne of 100-Series resin contains the equivalent of 15,500 recycled 500 ml plastic bottles at 27% recycled content, and saves 279 kg of CO2e against the conventional resin it replaces.
An average fibreglass swimming pool uses 200 to 250 kg of resin. So every Advance Pools shell keeps roughly 3,100 to 3,875 plastic bottles out of landfill and avoids 56 to 70 kg of CO2e — on a pool built to last, and guaranteed, for fifteen years.
We show the working because a recycling claim you cannot check is worth very little.
The EarthKind 100-Series resins
EarthKind currently offers the 100-Series, built on recycled PET feedstock. The general-purpose grade uses coloured rPET — green, brown and blue cold drink and water bottles — and the terephthalic acid recovered from them gives the resin excellent performance. The premium grade uses only clear rPET and matches conventional isophthalic resins. Both are Lloyd’s Register approved and both are formulated as direct equivalents to the conventional resins they replace, so nothing about your pool’s structure, lamination or lifespan changes.
What EarthKind does not change
Your guarantee. The 15-year Advance Pools structural guarantee applies exactly as it does to any shell we build.
Your price. Lower-carbon feedstocks cost more than petrochemical ones, and that is the resin industry’s central challenge with green alternatives. We absorb the difference rather than pass it on.
Your pool’s appearance. Coloured rPET means slight batch-to-batch colour variation in the raw resin. That sits in the structural laminate behind the gelcoat and is never visible. Same colour range, same finish, same pool.
Where the plastic comes from, honestly
The PET going into EarthKind resins today is post-industrial waste: offcuts, rejects and process waste from PET manufacturing that was headed for landfill. It is genuinely recycled material. It is not, yet, the bottle you put in your kerbside bin. NCS is developing post-consumer feedstocks through partnerships intended to create social impact alongside the environmental one, and we would rather tell you where the journey actually is than imply it is finished.
Running your pool kindly, wherever it is
The shell is one part of a pool’s footprint. How it runs over the next fifteen years is the bigger part — and across South Africa and the wider sub-continent, water and electricity make that a pocket issue as much as an environmental one.
Cover it. Evaporation is the largest single source of water loss in any pool, and most of this region is built to accelerate it. Dry interior heat, high-altitude sun and wind all strip moisture off an open surface far faster than still, humid air does. A cover is the highest-impact thing you can do, for water and for heat retention, and it matters more the drier and windier your site is.
Plan for water you may not always have. Restrictions have hit the Cape, Gauteng and much of the region over the past decade. A sealed fibreglass shell does not lose water through the structure the way a cracked marbelite pool can, and a covered pool needs topping up far less often — which matters most in exactly the years when topping up is restricted.
Right-size the pump. A variable-speed pump running longer at a lower speed filters as effectively as a single-speed pump running hard, at a fraction of the electricity. Where grid power is expensive or unreliable, a lower-draw pump is also far easier to carry on an inverter or a generator.
Filter on a schedule, not by habit. Most pools are over-filtered. Match run time to the season and your actual swimming load rather than leaving a timer on summer settings all year.
Heat deliberately. A heat pump moves heat rather than generating it, using roughly a quarter of the electricity of an element heater. Paired with a cover, it is the difference between a short swimming season and one that runs most of the year.
At the coast, watch the hardware rather than the shell. Salt air is hard on pumps, rails and fixings, but a fibreglass shell and its gelcoat are chemically unbothered by it. Spend the maintenance budget on corrosion-resistant fittings instead of worrying about the structure.
EarthKind and Sustainability FAQs
Quick answers to the questions we are most often asked about EarthKind resins — what the recycled content actually is, how much carbon and plastic each pool saves, and what any of it means for the pool you end up with.
What is EarthKind?
EarthKind is a sustainable resin platform launched by NCS Resins in February 2021 to replace part of the virgin, crude-oil-derived raw material in polyester resin with recycled PET plastic that would otherwise have gone to landfill. It is an NCS Resins initiative, in the same way DEXA is — what Advance Pools chooses is whether to build with it. We do. The EarthKind 100-Series resin our pool shells are laminated with carries 27% recycled plastic content.
Does an EarthKind pool cost more?
No. Lower-carbon feedstocks cost more to produce than conventional petrochemical ones, and that higher cost is the resin industry’s central challenge with green alternatives. Advance Pools absorbs the difference rather than passing it on. An EarthKind pool is priced exactly as it would be otherwise, and carries the same 15-year structural guarantee.
How much CO2 does one EarthKind pool save?
Between roughly 56 kg and 70 kg of CO2e per pool shell. NCS measures the EarthKind 100-Series resin as saving 279 kg of CO2e per tonne against the conventional resin it replaces, a 9% lower carbon footprint. An average fibreglass swimming pool uses 200 to 250 kg of resin, which puts the saving at 56 to 70 kg of CO2e for every pool we build. For scale, the average South African is responsible for about 6.87 tonnes of CO2 a year.
How many plastic bottles go into one pool?
One tonne of EarthKind 100-Series resin contains the equivalent of 15,500 recycled 500 ml plastic bottles. A fibreglass swimming pool uses 200 to 250 kg of resin, so every Advance Pools shell keeps roughly 3,100 to 3,875 bottles out of landfill. At full plant capacity, NCS can recycle the equivalent of 337 million 500 ml bottles a year across the whole EarthKind range.
Is a recycled-resin pool weaker than a normal one?
No. The EarthKind 100-Series resins carry Lloyd’s Register approval and are formulated as direct equivalents to the conventional resins they replace. Structural performance, cure characteristics, surface finish and lifespan are unchanged. An EarthKind pool carries exactly the same 15-year Advance Pools structural guarantee as any other shell we build.
Where does the recycled plastic come from?
Currently from post-industrial PET waste — offcuts, rejects and process waste from PET manufacturing that was destined for landfill. We would rather be straight about that than imply something we cannot back up. NCS is actively developing post-consumer PET feedstocks, the bottles you put in a recycling bin, through partnerships intended to create social impact alongside the environmental one.
Will I see the recycled content in my pool?
No. The general-purpose EarthKind grade uses coloured rPET — green, brown and blue cold drink and water bottles — so the raw resin varies slightly in colour from batch to batch depending on the bottle stock available. That variation sits in the structural laminate behind the gelcoat and is never visible in a finished pool. The gelcoat surface you see and swim against is a separate layer, and quality is unaffected.
How were the carbon savings calculated?
By NCS Resins’ qualified chemists, using a life cycle assessment with a gate-to-gate reporting boundary, guided by accepted industry standards and peer-reviewed literature. Gate-to-gate means the assessment covers the manufacturing stage rather than the full cradle-to-grave lifecycle. Because EarthKind products are compared against NCS’s own conventional equivalents, made on the same plant under the same controls, the difference between the two is a consistent and reliable measure. We mention the method because a carbon claim without one is not worth much.
Does a fibreglass pool use less water than a concrete pool?
A fibreglass shell is a single sealed, non-porous structure, so it does not lose water through the shell the way a cracked marbelite or a failing liner pool can. The smooth gelcoat surface also holds less algae, which means backwashing less often. The largest source of water loss in any pool is evaporation, and that is governed by whether you cover it rather than by what the pool is made of — and across most of southern Africa, dry heat, altitude and wind make that loss faster than it would be in a still, humid climate.