Carpet recycling Effort

You can participate in a massive recycling effort just by purchasing carpeting made of polyester rather than nylon fibers, which is made from recycled plastic bottles. 

Nylon generally performs the best among all synthetic fibers as carpet face yarn, but it is also the most expensive. Typical price per kilogram for the plastic resins are nylon 2.50, polyester 1.20, and polypropylene 0.75. This price list provides a perspective on the economics of recycling as well. For example, if it takes the same processing effort to convert the fiber into resin, an operation on nylon would be most profitable. This also explains why most of the recycling effort is on nylon recovery. 

Nylon recycling has increased substantially in the last several years. Most recycling efforts have focused on recovery of carpet. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 3.5 billion lb of waste carpet are discarded each year in the United States, with about 30% of them made from nylon 6. (For more on carpet recycling, see Sec. 12.4.15.) Recycling systems for condensation polymers, such as nylon and PET, can more effectively use chemical depolymerization techniques than can systems for addition polymers such as polyolefins and PVC. Most of the efforts directed at nylon recycling have taken this route. 

Carpet Recycling. By the beginning of the century, about 4.7 million tons of residential carpets were disposed of annually in the United States, with less than 5% being reused or recycled (56). Scrap carpet is bulky and difficult to collect. Efforts are underway in the United States to reduce landfilled carpets by 40% by 2012. Carpeting is a complex product consisting of 40-60 wt% of yarn from PA-6, PA-66, PET, and PP, 4-6% of primary backing made from woven PP, 38-52 wt% of adhesive made from styrene-butadiene latex with calcium carbonate as a filler. 

Although FRC has become widely available from concrete suppliers, its use has been limited primarily due to cost considerations. Effort to reduce the cost includes limiting the fiber dosage and developing inexpensive fibers. A very attractive alternative, however, would be to use suitable recycled fibers from industrial waste which otherwise would be discarded, the carpet industrial waste being an example. 

Residential carpets are continuing to be more visible in MSW. Carpets are quite complex with polyamide/PP/PET face libers, PP backing, latex adhesive, and calcium carbonate as tiller. In addition, the recycled carpet will have a higher amount of dust particles. There have been efforts in the United States to collect residential carpet. As it is very difficult to separate the different components of the carpet, the reasonable way is to shred the carpets and pelletize it so that the pellets can be used in products such as plastic lumber. Only a small percentage of the face materials (nylonb and nylon 66) are recovered and recycled. 

Door and Pillar Trim Door and pillar trim did not come widely into use in automobiles until the 1960s [1]. A variety of materials, particularly thermoplastic substrates such as PP and ABS PP or ABS covered with vinyl skin, cloth, or carpet covered thermoset RIM substrates and covered natural fiber substrates are used in their construction. The trend is toward lighter materials that flow easily and are easier to mold during processing, to reduce the mass and therefore the material use [3]. The thermoplastic substrates are easily recycled. If a noncompatible covering material is added, the recycling becomes more difficult. There has been an effort to develop covered systems that are more recyclable for instance, PP substrate with a TPO skin. 

Most nylon recycling projects target carpet as the largest volume of nylon in MSW. Occasional programs are directed toward other waste streams. The Monofilament Recycling Project, initiated in Florida in 2001, collected monofilament nylon fishing fine in an effort to prevent some of the wildlife harm associated with discarded fishing fine. ... 

Nylon recycling has been growing rapidly, with most efforts focused on recovery of carpet. Estimates are that the U.S.A. produces 450,000 tonnes per year of nylon 6 carpet waste, about 25 percent of all waste carpet. ... 

Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) [65] is a joint industry-government effort to increase the recycling rate, the volumes of postconsumer carpet that... 

---