Design & Architecture (flooring)

Hand picked Mongolian goat hair makes up 80% of the face of this broadloom carpet. Other quoted qualities are of a “low lanolin, inherently anti-static fibre grown with low environmental impact.” Apparently the goat hair absorbs 98% of the non-heavy metal, biodegradable Ciba dyes, so there is little dye waste. Some nylon is blended in to the goat hair face, and a jute backing bonded on. And this is the one place where the story become a little unstuck (so to speak). PVC is the bonding agent. Now, normally we’d go “boo hiss” at the mention of polyvinyl chloride, but the brow wrinkles with this one. Tretorn are claiming (pdf) theirs is different to most. “This pure PVC is non-carcinogenic, non-oestrogenic and is also non-bioaccumulative and virtually no dioxins are produced during its manufacture.” They go further and boldly suggest that it “is completely inert and can be safely disposed via landfill or recovered via incineration at the end of its life.” This is contrary to most everything I learnt about PVC, whilst working with Greenpeace, so is fascinating stuff. More at ::Ecospecifier and the ::Gibbon Group (Flash Alert!).