Where does your carpet go to die?

No, it's really not a slow blog day.  I just skimmed an article in the trade publication Building Operating Management about this.  Consider a statistic quoted by the article:  "Recycling one ton (2,000 lbs) of VCT (vinyl tile) saves 2,670 gallons of water, the equivalent of 70 kiddie pools."  This is from Armstrong Commercial Flooring, not exactly your typical tree hugger.

As Property Managers, we make sure the tile gets installed correctly.  When it's time to replace, where it goes, nobody knows...right?  A few years ago I had a conversation with a colleague who was involved in the early stages of carpet recycling, it sounded like a good idea, but at what cost of effort, energy, and yes, dollars, to make that happen? 

As this article outlines though, the effort to recycle or re-use flooring materials is starting to go mainstream.  There was even a "third party" re-use company mentioned that I googled, and it seems to be legit - a representative from http://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com was quoted in the article. Apparently this company takes in materials and either re-use them as they are, or for a different use. An example cited was a basketball court - once it's sanded three times, it can no longer be used for a basketball court, but it could easily be used in a restaurant or other retail store.

As I have mentioned before, our company buys carpet and vinyl flooring in bulk from the manufacturer (used to be Patcraft, now is Mohawk).  Maybe recycling the old carpet is not such a big leap after all.