Green Right Now Blog

By Shermakaye Bass
  March 5, 2008

So, you've just picked out a silky new carpet for your house in just the right shade of taupe. Ever wonder where the outgoing squished padding and retired, coffee-stained carpet are off to? Chances are they're both headed to the landfill, where they will grow musty and take up mountains of space.

Every year, used carpet accounts for 5 billion pounds of U.S. landfill waste, occupying four percent of the country's designated dump space.

That's a lot, says carpet-recovery leader Robert Peoples, but the figures could have been worse had major industry players not banded together with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to form the nonprofit Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) in 2002.

Since then, landfill-bound carpet has decreased by five percent annually, he says. CARE's goal is to bring that to 40 percent by 2012.

"Right now, 261 million pounds (of the 5 billion) are diverted from landfills," says Peoples, executive director of CARE, adding that the country's economic downturn has slowed the nascent carpet-recovery movement. "There's no question that there's a long way to go. The good news is we've started the process."

Peoples says that all major carpet manufacturers have started reclamation programs for commercial carpet (key word – commercial, not residential) and though a 5 percent annual recycling rate is not ideal, it's the reality, given the timing. "Keep in mind, we're building a brand new industry. No infrastructure existed before to do this – no infrastructure to collect PCC (post-consumer carpet), no infrastructure to process the materials, no infrastructure to manufacture new products from those materials. And no real market for those new products has been developed. You're starting an industry from ground zero."

The other, bigger-picture good news is that materials retrieved from those musty old carpets (euphemistically dubbed "post consumer carpet," or PCC, in the industry) can be made into all sorts of very functional, every-day items, from sewage pipe to packaging materials to automotive parts and insulation – to, well, new carpet.

Only, the retrieval process is a major problem for small retailers, says Kentucky carpet dealer Jason Crandall. At the moment, a relative handful of middle-men exist to get PCC back to dealers and other recyclers. Fortunately for him, a major collector is based a couple hours away, but he knows that's not the case for many retailers around the country.

"I started having mine recycled in November of 2007," says Crandall, whose Carpet Unlimited contracts with Louisville-based Carpet Recyclers of Kentuckiana to sort, bale and recycle what it can of the largely petroleum-based material, returning all it can carpet manufacturers like Shaw, MoHawk, Milliken, Beaulieu and others.



Crandall says that working with Carpet Recyclers has been a boon to him.

"We have a 30-yard dumpster here, and we were emptying it two to three times per week before I started," says the Owensboro native whose family has been selling carpet for 40 years. "Now we're down to two, sometimes three, a month. So that has cut my waste bill down to half of what it was. And even paying the money I have to pay to get the trailer to Louisville, it's still dollars to dollars ahead for me (in terms of waste-management costs). It's been great. I wish more people would do it."

There are several reasons why more carpet retailers aren't currently in "recovery" – namely, the fact that new housing starts and automotive sales have plummeted over the past year. That is compounded by the reality that there aren't a whole lot of recyclers/middle-men around the country (and many of them are facing tough times because of the general economic slump). Add to that the fact that the carpet-recovery business is still in its infancy. And you're looking at a potential new field in a green economy that has lots of promise – but still has a ways to go.

"From 2002 to 2007, we had 1 billion pounds of material diverted," Peoples says. Not bad. But not great either, an outsider might observe.

"There's an awful lot going on right now, and you really have to sort of peel the onion to see all that's happening. The carpet industries and entrepreneurial communities have started programs. …But the second half of 2007 and 2008 is going to be a tough year. The melt-down in the subprime mortgage market has really hurt. Some of the new carpet being sold today has old carpet in it, in the fiber of the backing – and some of that padding is made from 100 percent post-consumer carpet. So the outlets for recovered materials are depressed. You can't justify collection if you don't have the resources (to resell or recycle to)."

Peoples, who helped found CARE in the early 2000's, adds that things have also been impacted by the market downturn in automotive sales.



"If you lift up the hood of your car, you'll see a lot of black plastic in there – radiator caps, and other parts under the hood – and many of those are made from recovered PCC. So demand for those parts will be down because of the decrease in car sales."

Still, the advocate says that because 50 percent of all carpet is derived from petroleum, the plastic in the carpet has real value. And eventually, demand for that refuse will rebound. The carpet sector has to be pro-active in keeping recovery afloat until then.

Owensboro native Crandall agrees. He's concerned that just as the carpet recycling movement was getting its legs, unforeseen forces dampened the momentum.

"The guy I deal with in Louisville, Jim Tafel, this is a relatively new thing for him as well. And what he's struggling with is that manufacturers will only take so much of the fibers at a time and then they shut him off, and for his business model, that pretty much cuts his cash flow off. So I'm concerned people like him will not be able to make it until there are more manufacturers willing to participate (or more places to sell PCC).

"I'm even covering some of the cost of the loads, because not all the fibers I send him can be used. And when that happens, he has to pay to dispose of it himself. What can be used he will sell back to Shaw or Mohawk or whoever.

"The other problem is, there's not a lot of retailers like me, trying to really get involved. We're trying to get other carpet dealers in our area to jump on board and use us as a consolidation point, where they'd pay us a little bit of a fee for getting the PCC to Louisville (about two hours from Owensboro). And if they'd consider the amount they could save, dollars to dollars, I think they'd be more interested in it."

But Crandall adds, "Some of them are competitors of mine, and they probably think I'm trying to make money on it. … It helps me save money (to recycle his used carpet), but also it's the thing to do for the environment. I've probably saved eight tons per week from going to the landfill. If we could all get on board and do it, imagine how much we could keep out of the landfills."



One California entrepreneur has found a way to spin PCC into potential gold: Ron Greitzer, CEO of Los Angeles Fiber Company, has created a large plant to strip and rip and reconfigure PCC, converting old textile equipment into carpet recycling equipment.

"We had to re-engineer old equipment … because the technology doesn't exist," Greitzer explains on a video on CARE's website. "We are the only ones in the world recycling post consumer carpet and making a product like this – bales of shoddy," Greitzer says in his video.

The problem is, "most of us don't think what happens to our old carpet… (but) we have huge carpet problem in this country," he says. "It can't degrade. It's petroleum based material mixed with a calcium-carbonate latex."

According to Greitzer, LA Fiber takes in three to four million pounds a month from around the state, then using infrared technology, it sorts the PCC according to fibers, such as Nylon 6, nylon 66, polyester, wool, etc. Next, the carpet is separated from its backing, and, using large shredding machines, it is converted into "shoddy" – which is then baled (with a former hay-baler), cleaned and reprocessed until it is ready for market.

From there, a large manufacturer might purchase it in bulk and make automotive parts, plastic chairs and the like.

Greitzer, whose LA Fiber is the largest recycler of carpet on the West Coast, and others in carpet recovery say that while the market for PCC is still evolving, there is one very simple thing that green-minded buyers can do: Before purchasing new carpet, ask to look at brands and styles that contain as much recycled carpet as possible. An example would be Mohawk's new "SmartStrand" carpets, made with DuPont "Serona" – a polymer comprised of 37 percent renewably sourced material.

Consumers also should ask the retailer if they have a carpet recycling program, and if so, ask how it works. Find out if the dealer will comes and collect it when your carpet's life is over and whether they will pay to retrieve it.

RESOURCES:
Carpet diverted from the landfill can find its way back into productive use because many carpet manufacturers have developed ways to recover fibers that not only reduce waste, but provide for an efficient second-generation product. For more information on carpet recycling, and to see how carpet manufacturers are using waste to generate new, sustainable flooring, see these related sites:

• Greenworks by Mohawk Industries , a recycling program by Mohawk that claims to recover 90 percent of used carpet waste for new products, the highest percentage of reclamation in the industry. Mohawk, of Calhoun, GA, says these innovations will allow it to divert 6 billion pounds of waste from the landfill every year. The company makes carpet products not only from recycled fibers but from recycled PET plastics and even old car tires.
• Millikin Floor Covering , sustainability information from the LaGrange, GA company has pledged to send "no waste" to the landfill from its manufacturing plants and has kept that promise since 1999. Millikin, a 14,001 certified company, also produces a 100% post consumer product called Earth Square that has won awards for innovation and environmental responsibililty.
• Shaw Industries of Dalton, GA, also has developed a closed-loop plan for its "Nylon 6″ carpet that salvages the vast majority of the fibers for construction into new carpet.

(Copyright © 2009 | Distributed by Noofangle Media)