Any Construction Waste Can Be Recycled, Even Carpet?

A week ago, Darlene, my little step-sister ran to me and told me that her science teacher taught them that carpet could be recycled.

– No it is not recyclable, was my answer. It could be possible to use it again, but surely not possible to recycle it.

She kept on arguing against me and even added that carpet recyclers had their own organization in U.S.A.. So I went on Google and searched for it. Well, the little girl was incredibly correct. There is really an organisation of carpet recyclers in USA. On top of that there was even a construction waste recycler in my area that handle such items. I found out Recyconstruction and Recymobililer in my province : they take care of recycling almost any  furniture, appliances, electronic material and construction debris. I had a conversation with a recycling specialist, Andre, and he was demonstrating to me all the material that are possible to recycle as of today.

– Carpet is recycled for the plastic it contains, it could either end up as a brand new carpet or anything else that is made of plastic.
– Wood waste are transported to an electric producer, who use wood to generate power. Their process is a smoke-free fermentation that has no impact on climate changes.
– Sheetrock are passed through some machines and transformed into powder, pulp as well as paint are removed, and the remaining gypsum can serve in agriculture or be used to build new panels.

And it goes on and on for all variety of recyclable material. I found it incredibly amazing to realize that we are standing there. To those expecting to earn money by selling their old table or carpet, It is important to add that there are fees to recycle those items.

– We used to work exclusively in the area of electronic recycling a while ago. It changed, since at one point we were exclusively recycling the items that we were getting because it was not worth to resell it,  we had to charge a fee to some material that cost more to recycle than to toss away. When we realized that people want to make a difference to the environment and were agreeing to pay a minimal fee to help with the handling of the material, we decided to add more recycling services that couldn’t be sustainable by their recyclable content to give an alternative choice to landfill.

– Luckily, the service received an exceptional feedback, as it came to life when people started to realize about their impact on the planet, personally or on a global level. Businesses and building managers are more than aware of the green advantages, reason why a lot of building managers are competing to become LEED certified.