Recycling Carpet is Greener, Cheaper than the Dump

Tag : Polypropylene Yarn
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ―
Lots of people want to recycle carpet. "It's a big, bulky item thatfor the most part your regular garbage system won't pick up. Soit's just as easy to take it to a recycling facility as it is totake it to the dump," said Ellen Raynor of SF Carpet Recycling .
Hugh Higley is paying SF Carpet Recycling about $35 to recycle thecarpet in his El Cerrito home. The dump would charge about $200 tothrow it in landfill.

"There's a big difference in my pocket with the cost, and there's abig difference in social responsibility of keeping it out of thelandfill and not using more petroleum to make more new carpets,"said Higley.
More carpet comes from installers like Floorcraft in San Francisco. "We are doing our part to help the environmentand also help our customers get rid of the products that are intheir homes and send them to a place that will be beneficial intothe future, rather than sitting in landfill rotting away," saidJeff Lerner of Floorcraft.

But recycling carpet isn't like recycling tin cans -- carpetingmust be broken down to be used again. And not all carpet is createdequal.

"It can be made out of different nylon polymers, or polypropylene,PET like soda bottles, wool. Once its been sorted, it gets sent offto different places to process it. And the yarn on the top of thecarpet is different from the backing," said Raynor.
The carpets are made into plastic pellets used for shippingpallets, pipes, and auto parts.