Carpet- Deep Dive

Carpet makes every room feel cozier. But have you ever thought about what happens to carpet once it’s reached the end of its useful life?

Americans discard about 2 million tons of carpet each year. It’s piling up in landfills. With few laws regulating how carpet is produced and discarded, it’s not a healthy picture.

The EPA estimates that 3.37 million tons of carpet and rugs were generated in the U.S. waste stream in 2018. Of that, about 9% was recycled, 18% burned for energy recovery, and the remaining 73% was landfilled. (Make into a graphic?)

Even if homeowners and businesses want to recycle their carpet, it’s nearly impossible to do so in a convenient or cost effective way. Recycling has become more expensive as carpet manufacturers have started using more polyester than nylon – decreasing the value of scrap carpet.

California is the only state with laws that require producers to be responsible. Thankfully, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Oregon have introduced bills. This legislation can be very effective (California recycles carpet at twice the national average), but there are other ways.

Owners can look for carpet producers who have instituted their own programs, known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs. Not only do EPR programs make it easy for homeowners and businesses to recycle, they looking at the full cycle of production and disposal processes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Our First Floor Lobby will soon feature a Carbon Negative carpet from Interface, a company that has it’s own EPR program that takes responsibility for the full lifecycle of their products. (Scan the QR code to see the actual carpet in the BIM model).

Interface’s innovative Flor carpet tiles are made to be recycled and re-used.

The yarn will detach from the backing and be remanufactured into new carpet while the backing itself gets re-used because it is installed without adhesives. And because Interface administers the program, the process is easy and straightforward.

Interface also looks at the big pig picture. Flor tiles are manufactured with a combination of recycled nylon and bio-based materials in the carpet backing, their products store more carbon than they emit into the atmosphere.