Healthcare, Facility Managers Carpet Sustainability Facts

Caring For Patients and the Environment

~The Facts about Carpet and Sustainability for Healthcare Administrators and Facility Managers

This is the 16th in a series of 18 articles designed to share some of the Carpet and Rug Institute’s (CRI) best online assets – a collection of downloadable fact sheets.

Developed as easy-to-use, one-page position statements, the CRI Fact Sheets cover four main carpet-related topic areas: Indoor Air Quality, Asthma and Allergy, Cleaning Products, and Environmental Sustainability.

Each of these topics is addressed from the perspective of various market segments: carpet dealers and consumers; architects, designers and builders; school administrators and facility managers, and healthcare administrators and facility managers. There are also separate fact sheets explaining CRI’s Green Label Plus Indoor Air Quality and Seal of Approval carpet cleaning standards – 18 fact sheets in all.

The fact sheet on sustainability for healthcare administrators and facility managers begins,

"By choosing carpet, you’re being responsible both to patients and the environment. The industry is taking steps to reduce its environmental footprint. Energy and emissions have been drastically cut. And old carpet is being recycled back into new carpet production, or for alternative uses like building materials and auto parts. They’re steps that can make us all feel better today, and into the future." It continues:

What You Should Know About Susatainability for Healthcare Administrators and Facility Managers:

• Through the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), carpet companies are taking the initiative to work with government entities and product suppliers to develop market-based solutions for the recycling and use of post-consumer carpet. For more information, visit carpetrecovery.org.

• It is estimated that carpet recycling efforts currently have saved over 1.5 billion pounds of waste from being deposited in U.S. landfills.

• The industry works with individual healthcare facilities on recycling efforts. One example is Boulder Community Foothills Hospital (BCFH) in Colorado. The hospital used carpet tile with high-recycled content in its new maternity and pediatric service facility. The new carpet tile has 63 percent recycled content.

• The industry has also taken steps to be more green in carpet production. It is one of the only industries in the United States that voluntarily meets the Kyoto Protocol for carbon dioxide emissions. The emissions level today is the same as it was in 1990 – even though the industry produces 47 percent more product.

• The amount of energy used to produce a square yard of carpet has fallen 70% since 1990. The amount of water used has dropped 46% in the same time period.

• Learn more in the CRI Sustainability Reports on the CRI website.

CRI wants to be known not just as the science-based source of information about carpet, but as the first stop for any and all questions about this useful floor covering.

Click on this link for the complete list of Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) Downloadable Fact Sheets.

Next – The facts about CRI’s Seal of Approval program for carpet cleaning products and equipment.

~Bethany