Carpet take-back schemes increase capacity for recycling, says CRUK
A rise in the number of carpet take-back schemes is increasing local capacity for recycling and offering wider opportunities for retailers seeking sustainable disposal routes for off-cuts, according to Carpet Recycling UK.
Commenting after the 2014 Buying Groups’ National Flooring Show, CRUK Director Laurance Bird welcomed the expansion of clean installation waste take-back schemes across the country, which offers many advantages for retailers.
CRUK members Abingdon Flooring, Designer Contracts and Oxbridge Flooring are among the latest schemes helping to capture more carpet off-cuts that are reprocessed into new underlay products.
“Participants who actively demonstrate their green approach in helping to divert carpet and underlay off-cut waste from landfill can benefit from enhanced customer perceptions, as well as reduced waste collections and lower disposal costs,” says Laurance. “This also helps them to differentiate their business from competitors.”
As well as being the perfect platform for CRUK to raise awareness of the potential logistics recovery routes being developed by manufacturers and distributors, the show also generated many enquiries from visitors requesting more information about membership and recycling options.
Laurance added: “It’s heartening to see high levels of interest in our work. One of our key targets is encouraging support and participation from across the total carpet value chain so that the resource burden is shared and more than 50% of the UK carpet suppliers join us.”
CRUK is the award-winning industry-backed association for recycling and reusing waste carpet with a target of 60% diversion from landfill by 2020. Some 400,000 tonnes of carpet waste arises each year in the UK.
Carpet Recycling UK welcomes enquiries from all types of organisations interested in finding new outlets for their waste carpet. It can be contacted on 0161 440 8325 or visit www.carpetrecyclinguk.com.
