Carpet manufacturers are making progress in producing recyclable products that can be recycled into new products, greatly reducing the tons of floor coverings that go into landfills each year.
The Lynnwood Great Floors dealership at 5501 196th St. SW, one of 17 outlets for the Coeur D’Alene business in Washington and Idaho, is carrying some of those new “green” carpets, putting it at the forefront of the new movement.
“We’re preparing to enlarge our display of recyclable carpets to create a whole ‘green center’ at the front of the store for people to look at and learn about the recycling advantages,” said Manager Jeff Johnson. “When these new carpets are installed in new or remodeled residences or businesses, about 25 percent of their content will be recyclable into new products when they wear out.”
It’s the chemicals used in synthetic carpet materials that make the difference, he said.
“You could make recyclable materials in the laboratory 20 years ago, but it’s just recently that we’ve been able to make it economically feasible. Even five years ago we weren’t there. Now we’ve started in, in another 10 years you could see 100 percent recyclable carpets. As builders and their clients become more aware of these new carpets and ask for them, we want to be prepared to provide them,” he said.
The new market reflects a maturing of an industry that was launched by early adopters who were involved for mostly ecological reasons. Now, there are positive economic reasons to be involved.
“Collecting, sorting and identifying used carpet was once a challenge for the industry,” said Carroll Turner, technical program director of the Carpet and Rug Institute in Dalton, Ga. “Carpet is primarily a man-made fiber, a thermoplastic with more than 250 different forms. Affordable new technology, such as Honeywell’s CarPID, which uses near infrared analysis techniques, is capable of identifying all major fiber types. Since 1996, the institute has promoted a carpet code identification system, with seven-digit bar codes on the backs of carpets to identify their content. This allows current production to be identified for future recycling to help economically sort and use post-consumer carpet in its highest value applications.”
Even scraps and rolls of nongreen carpet that used to be considered industrial waste destined for landfills has gained new economic value. Excess carpet is cut into rugs and mats, while waste trimmings, backing and yarn are sold to processing plants to produce carpet cushion, furniture battings and cushions.
The carpet remnants are also used as reinforcing fiber for concrete, road underlay, plastic lumber and automotive parts, according to the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) in Dalton, Ga.
CARE, a joint industry and government effort to increase the recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet to keep it out of landfills, estimated in 2003 that 5 billion pounds of carpet went into landfills. Since CARE began its efforts in 2002, it estimates 500 million pounds of old carpet have been recovered for new life in other products.
That national estimate could be too low. In Wisconsin, Sargenian’s Floor Coverings estimates more than 225 million pounds of used carpet was reclaimed in just one year by the StarNet Commercial Flooring Cooperative, a network of 150 independent contractors across the country.
Last year, the StarNet association began guaranteeing that any carpet its members removed from commercial or residential sites would be recycled and would never go to landfills.
In Washington and Idaho, Great Floors LLC has helped recover and recycle enough carpet since 2005 to cover the 525,000 square feet of Qwest Field and its Events Center three times over, nearly the size of 27 regulation-size football fields.
Also, Great Floors is a contractor for floor coverings for Washington state offices. Currently, it’s providing carpeting for the Department of Transportation headquarters building in Olympia, as well as the Department of Ecology headquarters in Lacey. The DOE project will help make its building one of the first state facilities to receive a LEED EB Silver Certificate for energy efficient “green” construction.
“Many carpet reclamation services claim to recycle, but the product just ends up in an incinerator to keep it out of landfills,” said Ian Martin, vice president of commercial sales for Great Floors.
“Our service includes partnering with StarNet, a national floor cooperative, and the Carpet America Recover Effort nationally to recycle carpets into new products. Recycling carpet products is turning positive for good reason. It’s proving to be economical.”
More information is available from www.greatfloors.com.
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