Rug pulled out from recycling: carpet padding recycling is taking a big hit, perhaps for Dubios reasons

Construction & Demolition Recycling, July-August, 2005 by Ed Thornhill

Why keep costs down, or, export jobs when we can quietly "environmentalize" them? Several carpet cushion manufacturers have announced they will no longer be recycling their own re-bond product in the manufacture of new re-bond. This move is sparked by pressure from California activists protesting the presence of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) used as a flame retardant.

The loud protests stand in sharp contrast to the following very quiet events:

* Thousands of people losing their income with no big GM layoffheadlines/fanfare, without 401(K)s, and some without even unemployment insurance. They didn't have high salary and cushy jobs--these people spent years getting up close and personal with carpet pad, with all the smells America's pets left behind.

* Immediate price increases for carpet stores and installers as they lose their recycling revenue and increase disposal costs.

* Probable large price increases as manufacturers battle for "higher grade" foam in a smaller market.

* Millions of yards of foam, enough to carpet most large counties and some states, once recycled, now grace our rivers, lakes, and landfills, along with all of the PBDEs.

* While America has invested heavily to divert only a small portion of the 6 billion pounds of carpet discarded per year, we now add almost 1 billion pounds of foam carpet pad.

* Another industry profits by burying past problems in our landfills.

This is not a search for job and market protection. It is an attempt to examine all sides and find the right answer. If only the extreme environmentalists express views, the cushion manufacturers will yield. Their only downside is selling higher-priced/higher-profit pad and it isn't their fault. All of this is at the expense of the industry, the carpet stores, the installers and the consumer.

THE SAD FACTS

The place to start is the problem, or lack thereof. There are no known side-effects of PBDEs--not one. Even in a Michigan case, where the substance was accidentally mixed in feedstock and fed directly to cows, this meat and milk went to the human food chain, and there is little evidence of detrimental effects--only a measurable difference in PBDE levels in the cows and humans.

Think of all the other chemicals we use every day that are also found in our blood. If we mixed them with animal feed, there would be no cows for food or milk. Yet, these products are used daily and considered safe when used correctly--and the levels in our blood are benign.

Activists don't know the source of the PBDEs that are being measured. Their own evidence suggests the source is probably closer to the food supply than carpet padding is. Real problems of the past that needed correcting, like asbestos, were always highlighted by "canaries" that showed the problem early. Canaries, of course, being those that work closely and personally with the substance and are the first to show signs of problems. In this case the canaries would be the recyclers. The current direction proposes the best answer is to shoot the canary.

If you want to know if PBDEs from carpet pad are harmful, look no further than the recyclers. With the warning volume as loud as it is, you'd think recyclers would be losing body parts everywhere. These people have been collecting/baling/breathing the millions of pounds of "worst of the worst" pad for years, PBDEs and all.

If PBDEs are cumulative in the blood, as is feared, recyclers should be examples of hundreds of years' worth of exposure to carpet pad and its PBDEs. If we are to eradicate their livelihood, surely there is evidence of harm. But where is the evidence? Where are the maimed recyclers?

Many recycling advocates recently began to applaud companies like Dell, who are beginning to take responsibility for their products at their end of life. The carpet pad industry led this trend and has re-consumed its product for years. That is until now, when some extremists want to saddle them with increased risks and costs. This is not because they are using a proven killing agent in their product, but because they are trying to reuse what was made years ago--when many lives were saved from fire by using this chemical that has not even been correlated to harm, much less shown as causing harm.

Some environmentalists harm their own cause when companies see risks to recycling--risk added by the extreme environmentalists' attacks. Is Dell next? It has PBDEs in its computer plastics.

Should we just go back to the 1950s and landfill everything? There will always be someone claiming "the sky is falling" over some past chemical that gets encapsulated and diluted with every loop in the recycling circle. Those that were here in the 1950s can tell you our planet was far from cleaner or better off. Our air and water ran with far more toxins than PBDE (if it is a toxin).

Now let's look at the cure, or lack thereof. The proposed cure is to throw away careers and a currently recycled product--shoot the canary. The advice seems to be that when the carpet pad and its PBDEs wash into our streams and rivers as trash, it is better than being recycled and reused.