Carpeting has become ubiquitous in North America, covering more floors in homes, businesses, and institutions than all other floor coverings combined. We love it for its softness, dirt-hiding ability, acoustic muffling, and low cost. Recently, however, carpets have come under fire for their potential role in indoor air quality problems, and they’ve been questioned for their typically short service life. Carpets have come to have two strongly contrasting images in our culture: they represent the warmth and comfort of home, but also the worst of our fossil-fuel based, disposable society.
Most carpets are synthetic - nylon, polyester, acrylic - all of which are petroleum based products and thus not sustainable. The synthetic fibers are backed by materials such as latex, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), 4-phenylcylclohexene, or polyurethane which are also petroleum based as are the adhesives that are used to secure carpeting to floors in some applications and the latex padding used in others.
Then these carpets are treated, as part of the manufacturing process with dyes and with chemicals to repel stains, and retard mildew or fire
In addition to being non-sustainable or renewable, these materials - carpet, backing, adhesives and chemical treatments - tend to off-gas volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) to which many people are sensitive. They can develop a range of symptoms including runny and itchy eyes, breathing problems, skin reactions, headaches, and so forth. Even worse, SB latex which is used in 90 percent of carpets is a suspected carcinogen.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and Environmental Illness (EI) are on the increase as people become exposed to low level exposures whether chronic or in one onslaught. Volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), styrene, 4-PC, and formaldehyde are often the worst and some states warn people of their presence in carpets. Carpets are sometimes labeled as being dangerous to people with chemical sensitivities yet industry persists in using carpet adhesives and seam sealants cushions, and pads, emitting dangerous toxic chemical fumes.
Persons with allergies - even if not chemical allergies - are frequently urged to avoid living in environments decorated with carpet or heavy draperies because these materials are prone to collecting and holding dust, pollen, pet dander, and dust mites and must be cleaned frequently.
And, traditional methods for cleaning carpets use petroleum products which themselves can out-gas for a period of time after use.
Finally, while carpet seems to have a pretty short life in the house, it lasts forever in a landfill and, until recently, not a lot of effort has been expended toward recycling it.
Even with all of these drawbacks and with the cyclical nature of home decorating, carpet still covers 70 percent of residential floors. Thankfully, some manufacturers are now concentrating on materials and processes that make their products more worthy of environmental respect.
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Graeme Stephens has been running the largest owned carpet cleaning company in new Zealand for 24 years. IICRC qualified "master restoration technician"