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

When material is recycled, control is maintained over the PBDEs: The situation is manageable or fixable. It breaks down less when reused in new foam. When we landfill it, as is the current push, then it is guaranteed to break down--very fast--possibly in our ground water tables, rivers and lakes. So, why is that a solution?

Wouldn't it be a shame to eradicate jobs and the great recycling strides and then find that PBDEs were harmless, that the source was not carpet padding at all, or the cure was worse than the problem? We spend a lot each year to erase the quick decisions of yesteryear--and PBDEs are but one example. Let's not create another one.

THE CHOICE

Currently, companies are choosing among three approaches:

1. Riding the environmental wave to profit at the expense of their canaries, the landfills and future generations by landfilling risks and responsibilities.

2. Continuing as is--not necessarily caring as long as they are able to profit. They will ride the popular wave when it arrives.

3. Developing a more sensible approach of identifying the problem and providing appropriate solutions--not knee-jerk reactions at the expense of their consumers, their canaries or future generations.

In the end, public opinion, expressed by sales, will cast the answer in concrete--right, wrong or indifferent. If only the voice of the activists is heard, choice No. 1 is a sure winner--and many lose. It would seem we should support the one who stands up for their customers and the canaries, not burying it in the landfill--problem or not. There needs to be another voice.

Isn't the generation that grew up on carpet living longer and healthier lives than those before this re-bond "crisis?" Are there rampant problems among the re-bond recyclers? Is this a real problem or is this another occasion for people to lose their jobs over a small group shouting, "The sky is falling?"

To require a 100-percent guarantee of safety, as critics seem to want, would stifle the many benefits we enjoy and rely on today. There would be no space program; we wouldn't eat mushrooms or pork. We wouldn't be driving, flying or boating.

As a carpet installer said recently, water is known to have killed more people than PBDEs: too much, too little, too hot or too cold. Should we quit drinking? Swimming? Boating? Move away from lakes, rivers and oceans?

Let's keep this issue in perspective and not eradicate careers and increase costs over our ever-present "sky-is-falling" voices.

Those for sensible solutions should speak loudly, promoting and practicing buying decisions that support the sensible company that is heading in the right direction. Buy your pad from the companies that align themselves with sensible solutions. Tell others to do the same.

The carpet store buyer is the first one to make these choices, but the consumers are the last ones. The more they know, the less things will cost and the fewer careers will be trashed for no reason. And companies will have fewer reasons to walk away from their product's end of life.