So you've replaced that old berber carpet with one of those new poly nylon blends. Did you every stop to think what happens to that old wall to wall carpet after the installers haul it off?
Your carpet, along with several tons of other people's old carpet gets hauled off to the landfill. According to CARE, the Carpet America Recovery Effort, nearly 5 billion pounds of used carpet end up in landfills every year. This is a staggering amount of waste.
Why is carpet so hard to recycle?
Carpet is a combination of different elements which need to be identified and separated before the carpet can be recycled.
The basic element of carpeting is called the face fiber. This is either a man made or natural textile that can be woven, tufted, or fused into the fluffy part of the carpet we walk on. Face fiber is the most valuable component of the carpet for recycling and is usually made of either wool, nylon, polyester, or Olefin, or a blend of these components. In addition to the face fibers, carpet also has a backing which is made of yet another type of material. A latex product usually provides the backing for residential carpets, while commercial carpets are backed with easier-to-recycle polyvinylcloride (known as PVC).
With all the identification, separating, and reprocessing that has to happen, the recycling process is very expensive. Because of the low cost of raw materials to manufacture new carpet, there really are few reasons or incentives to recycle carpet in the United States.
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