As an ideal for future growth, sustainability is showing up in everything from building designs to home cleaners to carpet backing. It's the last one that is the focus here, since most people don't give a second thought to their carpet backing or how it might be affecting the environment. But things like that, the parts that make up a house, can have a huge impact on the environment in three ways:
1) How it is installed (materials used)
2) How long it lasts (before needing to be replaced, creating more landfill waste)
3) How it is constructed (and how it's construction affects the environment)
Multiply all three of these factors with home many new homes require carpet, and you've got an area that, while not exactly glamorous or talked about, has a huge impact on the environment- depending on how efficiently and sustainably it is done.
New technologies have improved carpet backing options in the last decade, so that there are now longer-lasting backing systems that can be installed with a minimum of chemicals. Plus, the materials used in carpet backing construction have become more eco-friendly, so in addition to lasting longer, carpet is now made in a way that doesn't use as many resources as it did in the past. So the march towards more sustainable materials and practices continues as technology makes more things possible.
Hopefully this trend (and the reframing of the word sustainable) is going to become the new norm, as we look for newer, more efficient ways to build the world we would like to pass along.
Published: November 29th pm30 5:26pm EthEST