Carpet waste

Carpet Matter

The UK produces around 400000 tonnes of waste carpet a year and only 10% is recycled properly. The rest is sent to the incinerator for energy production or end up in landfills.

Since most of the carpets are made from petroleum-based synthetic fibres, depositing the carpets directly into the environment is going to prove extremely harmful. The most common components of carpets are Nylon and Polypropylene, however, is very difficult to sort differents components out, and this makes it complicated to recycle waste carpet.

The Carpet project aims to raise awareness about this waste stream, as abundant in the UK as underestimated, by crafting new usable objects from unwanted carpet broadloom. By process carpet as common plastic material, I want to build a hot compression mould, exploiting the property of the thermoplastic material to change shape when it is heathen up.
As a modern bricoleur, I believe that we have to make using what is at our hands and already here.

Information submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank.

Ingredients