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Greening Your Purchase of Carpet

Here's the EPA's guide to Environmentally Preferable Purchasing of carpet.

Link: Greening Your Purchase of Carpet

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing, or EPP, seeks the overall best value, taking into account price competitiveness, availability, regulatory requirements, performance, and environmental impact. Because purchasers typically have clear sources of information on procurement and regulatory requirements and well-established methods for evaluating price and performance, the US EPA has developed these purchasing guides to help government purchasers consider environmental factors in purchasing decisions. EPA realizes that there are not universal answers for all scenarios and that purchasers must take into account local conditions when weighing the various attributes of a particular product. Please note that EPA is not endorsing any of the products, services, or organizations described in the guides, and has not verified information provided by these organizations. For more information about the EPA EPP Program, managed by the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), and its history, tools, and resources, please visit http://www.epa.gov/epp/.

Why Green Your Carpets?

Health and environmental concerns associated with carpet include indoor air quality, chemical emissions from manufacturing and disposal operations, and solid waste impacts. A variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be emitted from carpet materials, although VOC emissions from new carpet typically fall to very low levels within 48 to 72 hours after installation when accompanied by good ventilation. Over four billion pounds of carpet enter the solid waste stream in the U.S. every year, accounting for more than one percent by weight and about two percent by volume of all municipal solid waste (MSW). Furthermore, the bulky nature of carpet creates collection and handling problems for solid waste operations, and the variety of materials present in carpet makes it difficult to recycle, although new efforts described later in this guide are underway to increase recycling opportunities.

Cool Carpet

Treehugger describes Interface's Cool Carpet, which continues a new trend in carpet manufacturering.

Link: Treehugger

Cool Carpet earns its moniker through the purchase of emission reduction credits to cover the emissions resulting from manufacturing, production of raw materials such as nylon, transportation of raw materials and finished product, vacuuming and maintenance, and recovery at the end of life. Their credits come from a variety of sources, and are all third-party certified by Leonardo Academy’s Cleaner and Greener Certification Program, and meet the Climate Neutral Network’s criteria for credits. Cool Carpet is standard on Interface's i2 modular products and available on all of their modular products. More info to be had in their nifty flash movie and at their sustainability website.

::Cool Carpet

via ::Gristmill

Non-poisonous Carpeting

Umbra describes how to minimize health hazards when buying carpet.

Link: On carpeting | By Umbra Fisk | Grist Magazine | Ask Umbra | 15 Feb 2006.

The worst part of carpet manufacture, which should make us all care enough to avoid this stuff, is the volatile organic compounds in the adhesives.

The good news is, there are carpets that are less toxic, and some carpet companies -- like Interface -- have reportedly worked quite hard to reduce their environmental impacts over the past decade or so. Recommendations include buying wool if you can afford it; buying carpet "tiles" instead of a broadloom piece, as individual tiles can be replaced easily; finding carpet made with low-VOC adhesives that meets Carpet and Rug Institute indoor-air quality standards; using tacks instead of adhesive; and looking for recycled content or reclaimed carpet. When it comes to padding, there are options made of wool or recycled materials that don't require adhesives, so do look around.

Yerra Rugs

Link: MoCo Loco: Yerra Rugs.

Patricio Lix Klett and Federico Churba of Argentina designed and developed the technology to create Yerra Rugs. They're one square foot modules assembled through a heat process (branding). Yerra rugs are available in a variety of sizes and colors. + yerrarugs.com Autumn rug.