Carpet-Burns: from Waste Carpet to New Material
by Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain on 12.12.06
A new eco-material was born when Kelly Atkins (then a BA Applied Arts student) accidentally ironed her carpeted bedroom floor, melting it into a hard plastic surface. Not very upset but rather inspired, Kelly indulged into three years of material research which brought her success as she managed to develop a new technology that give polypropylene based carpets, that normally would go to landfill, a second life as a new material. Her company Carpet-Burns soon became the sole supplier of this new environmentally friendly material. It is called HTC (Heat Treated Carpet) and could be described as plywood style rigid board with the old carpet’s pattern design. HTC can be drilled, sawed or moulded and is waterproof, durable, low maintenance and has a high resistance to staining. This new 100% recycled material can be used indoors or outdoors. Carpet-Burns itself still manufactures some end products such as note books, coasters and magazine racks but due to the amount of carpets sent to landfill, Carpet-Burns have realised that they can make a more significant difference by focussing on producing the material. So currently Carpet-Burns are looking for collaborations with other designers who are keen on using HTC. ::Carpet-Burns Thanks Nathan for the tip!
If former owner had pets, the mfg phase has got to smell nasty.
I spoke to a founder of carpet burns at london design week recently and something didnt sit right with the concept of heat treating carpet.
Then i remembered what the book 'cradle to cradle' had to say about product 'off gassing' - surely heating carpet to such a temperature that it melted (each board needs at least 4 layers of carpet) will release a lot of nasty chemicals to absorb the the skin and air.
Secondly this is 'downcycling' and only diverts the carpet from its journey to the dump for a short period - it will end up there anyway so there is no saving! The potentially useful chemicals in the carpet have been mashed together with heat making retrieval even more unlikely.
I would love to hear an experts view of the carpet burns manufacturing process and whether it is safe or not. Im betting most definately that its well intentioned by potentially hazardous.
According to their website, they don't use post-consumer carpet... so I really don't understand how this helps at all.
Well, presumably there are enough scraps and bits and irregulars from industrial processes to supply the demand for this material, but that simply points back one layer to inefficiencies in industrial carpet production.
I have to agree, though, that the ecological soundness of this process seems dubious, at best.