Carpet Recycling Lessons From the UK: Werner Braun

Sheep on the farm: wool in the soil ~ carpet recycling lessons we can learn from the UK

In his July 8, 2011 column for the Dalton Daily Citizen, Carpet and Rug Institute president Werner Braun discusses a fascinating program for recycling carpet in the United Kingdom. It’s another example of the many ways recycled carpet is being used to make new things, or, in this case, make old things new again. The article is titled Recycling lessons we can learn from the UK.

The article details a presentation made at the annual meeting of the Carpet America Recovery Effort,  or CARE for short. A UK company named 4Recycling Ltd is experimenting with using recycled wool carpet as a fertilizer to bring fallow fields back to verdant life in various parts of England and Wales. The vast majority of carpet used in the UK is made with an 80/20 blend of wool and synthetic fibers. Evidently, the wool provides micronutrients to the soil while the synthetic fibers serve to aerate, much like adding limestone. So far, the results have been remarkable. From the article:

“Researchers found that by grinding up wool carpet and adding the mixture to the soil, they are able to bring even the most devastated land areas, like coal strip mines and slag fields in Wales, back to life. Their experiment demonstrated that wool-rich carpet provided a valuable source of major plant nutrients and organic matter and had the enrichment value equivalent to limestone.

UK Hillside - Before Carpet Recycling

You can see why this would be of interest in the carpet world — groundbreaking ideas on recycling — and how we can further help the environment through reusing carpet – are always of interest to the Carpet and Rug Institute and CARE.

4Recycling tackles more than just carpet — they also have soil-enrichment programs that use sewage and water treatment sludge, wood waste, food and beverage drink residues, lime, gypsum, textiles, animal byproducts, green waste, ash, paper crumble and other residues.The recycled wastes are spread on land for agricultural use or for the manufacture of soil in land restoration.

What an incredible way to take waste byproducts generated by humans and incorporate them back into the soil! Looking at the photographs, you can see that 4Recycle has successfully brought back barren tracts of land to lush, green fields that look like something off of a postcard.

UK Hillside - After Carpet Recycling

It’s a great example of how we, too, can continue to improve on recycling byproducts that we may have never thought possible. I can think of countless places across this country that would greatly benefit from land restoration and fertilization.”

Thanks, Werner!

~Bethany