The power of the people must come into play for carpet recycling effort to bump to the next level, outgoing director says
Listen up people: The next time you tear out old carpet, think before you put it out for the trash collector and send it to a landfill where it will pollute the planet until the end of time.
There are now more than 100 carpet recycling collection companies in the United States, and it’s easy to find out if there’s one near you.
Just ask Georgina Sikorski. At the time she took charge of the Carpet America Recycling Effort (CARE) in 2009, CARE had diverted 1 billion pounds of carpet from landfills. Today, that number is more than 2 billion, and although Sikorski is leaving her post in April, she says that number will keep going up – if you do your part.
“People can quickly determine if there is a collector in their region by going to the
Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) map, which has contact information for the over 100 Certified CARE Collectors,” Sikorski, says.
It has been observed throughout history: Cleaning up one mess often creates another mess.
To clean up a mess, carpet manufacturers have been recycling billions of discarded plastic bottles into polyester (PET) carpet every year. But discarded PET carpet is not recyclable. And it now accounts for 30 percent -- up from 4 percent in 2007 -- of the used carpet headed for landfills.
Because 35 percent of the residential carpet market is now PET, which is cheaper but not as durable as recyclable nylon carpet, carpet manufacturer Mohawk has announced Continuum – it new, proprietary PET carpet. The proprietary process results in a more durable, cleaner PET carpet, the company says.
