A material flow analysis of carpet in the United States: Where should the carpet go?

Abstract

On average in 2018, each person in the United States (US) used approximately 28 m2 of carpet. Relative to other building materials, carpet has a short lifespan (4–25 years) and its frequent disposal requires notable landfill volume. Limited understanding of the types and magnitude of resources available from carpet disposals has limited exploration into their contributions to the circular economy. Here in, we analyze material flows of US carpet (1954–2022) and waste-material flows using production statistics from 1950 to 2018. Our findings show that ∼1.4 × 109 m2 of carpet has been disposed of since 1954, equating to ∼54.5 Mt of polymers and ∼48 Mt of carpet backing (a predominantly CaCO3 resource referred to herein as PC4). Our findings show annual nylon waste flows exceeded the mass of US nylon production and PC4 waste flows exceeded 30% of the mass of limestone used for cement finish milling. Replacing virgin materials with recycled carpet products could offset up to 7.5 Mt of greenhouse gas emissions, 2 kt of particulate matter (under 2.5 μm) equivalent in respiratory effects, and 15 TJ of fossil fuel depletion from virgin material production. These results demonstrate that disposed carpets could be a critical, underutilized material flow.