Four surprising things that are made from old carpet
Synthetic carpets have been historically tough to recycle. But now, industry is finding ways to extract their core components to create a raft of unexpected everyday products.
ROADS AND HIGHWAYS
There are almost 3.7 million square miles (9.6 million square kilometers) of roads in the US, and the vast majority of these are asphalt roads constructed using bitumen, an oily, gravelly bi-product of the petrochemical industry. The Interstate Highway System, which encompasses 45,000 miles (73,000 kilometers) of those roadways, tend to be constructed from concrete, which is more durable and better able to cope with the higher volumes of traffic. Both asphalt roads and concrete highways however are built with aggregate materials, and one of their key ingredients is calcium carbonate.
Calcium carbonate is one of the most prevalent forms of carbon on the planet, and one of the most useful too. It occurs widely in nature - from coral reefs to human bones, and forms rocks such as limestone, chalk and marble.
When used in road building, calcium carbonate in the form of hydrated lime helps bind and stiffen asphalt, significantly increasing its lifespan by preventing things like cracking and rutting. The key ingredient in concrete is cement, which is made by superheating limestone - aka calcium carbonate - in a kiln with other materials.
It may come as a surprise to learn that as much as 45 per cent of the volume of a nylon carpet is actually made up of calcium carbonate. In carpet, the compound is useful both in adding bulk and stiffness to carpet backing, and in reducing overall manufacturing costs.
HIGH FASHION
The global apparel market is worth a staggering US$1.3 trillion a year. This amount of money can be hard to comprehend, and doesn’t even include money spent on shoes and accessories, but to give a comparison that figure is just slightly higher than the entire Russian economy. Fashion is big business, but for the most part it is most definitely not a sustainable business.
Fast fashion businesses rely on linear supply chains to churn out low cost clothing, driven by the industry’s seasonal cycles - which consumers often discard after just a few wears. Once discarded, low recycling rates – only 15.3 per cent of textiles are recycled in the US, for example - mean that much of that fast fashion ends up in landfill, creating a huge environmental issue. Fortunately, growing awareness of this problem is driving change in the fashion industry.
Nylon is one of the most popular synthetic fibers in fashion- but people rarely consider it eco-friendly, since it’s sourced from the petrochemical industry and can take decades to biodegrade. A thermoplastic polymer (meaning that it becomes malleable when heated), nylon was invented in the 1930s by US conglomerate DuPont, and was marketed as a miraculous alternative to silk.
Today nylon is everywhere in fashion, and its innate durability is the very quality that’s turning around its reputation. New techniques for extracting and purifying nylon from carpets mean it is now possible to chemically transform discarded pile into pristine yarn. The world’s biggest and most influential fashion brands are taking notice. Prada’s new line of bags will be made using patented ECONYL thread, part of their new Re-Nylon project that’s turning waste into iconic products.
TUPPERWARE
Seen in kitchens and picnic baskets everywhere, Tupperware is one of the most ubiquitous household products in the world. Hugely popular since the 1950’s, even vintage Tupperware carries prestige and holds its value due to its enduring high quality. Most Tupperware is made from polypropylene or PP, a thermoplastic that was discovered in 1954, 20 years after nylon. It entered the market three years later as a plastic resin known as propathene.
Today polypropylene production is a multibillion-dollar industry, and it makes the single most popular plastic packaging in the US, thanks to its strength and versatility. It is flexible yet tough, has a high melting point and excellent chemical resistance. That makes it an ideal material for reusable plastic containers. Because it’s stiff and fatigue-resistant, not only does it last for many years, it can also be fashioned into hinged mechanisms, unlike many other types of plastic.
Polypropylene is a key feature of most carpets, providing a highly durable backing into which the nylon or polyester pile is woven using a carpet tufting machine. Once it’s separated from the other components of the carpet, it emerges as dense fluff that is then melted down and turned into pellets that are ready for use in injection molding projects - including Tupperware.
… AND MORE CARPETS
The holy grail of sustainable production and supply chains is the circular, or cradle to cradle, approach, where energy and resources are contained within a closed system. In the context of carpets, this means using old carpet to make new ones.
It’s not a simple process. Synthetic carpets - which make up the vast majority of the market - are composite products that are constructed with durability in mind. The pile or weave is either nylon or polyester, and there is both a primary and secondary backing made of polypropylene, calcium carbonate and latex that gives the carpet structure and heft.
The trick is to deconstruct the carpet until you’re left with just the nylon, devoid of impurities. At a plant in Phoenix, Arizona, Italian company Aquafil uses a patented wet and dry process to extract nylon that’s 97 per cent pure from 16,000 tons of used carpet that would otherwise have ended up in landfill every year. The nylon pellets are then shipped to a facility in Europe where they’re regenerated to make ECONYL yarn, that can be turned back into new carpets - including the red carpet at the recent Chopard event during the Cannes International Film Festival.
