Closed-loop wool carpet recycling

Disposal of post-consumer carpets produces large volumes of waste for landfills where they do not readily degrade. Incineration is only possible in countries with the necessary infrastructure and increasing environmental pressure makes incineration unsustainable. We have shown that wool carpets can be used as a fertiliser with excellent results. Ground-up wool carpet, when added to the soil, greatly increases the yield (wet and dry matter) of grass grown. This closed-loop cycle (i.e., grass-wool-carpet-grass) is an efficient form of fibre recycling because the carpet to grass step is solar powered, unlike recycling of synthetic fibres. The suitability of ground-up wool carpets as fertiliser is confirmed by elevated levels of essential elements such as nitrogen (19%), sulphur (19%) and magnesium (7%) in the grass grown on carpet fertilised plots as compared to the control grass. The environmental soundness of wool carpet has been supported by the results of this simple experiment. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.