Stumbled on a stat that blew my mind about carpet waste

Tbh I was reading through some industry numbers online and found out that something like 4 billion pounds of carpet ends up in landfills every year just in the US. That hit me hard because I've been installing for 18 years and never really thought about where all the old stuff goes after we rip it out. My local dump in Columbus charges $35 a ton for carpet disposal, but I bet most guys don't even know the full scale. You guys recycling any of your scraps or just tossing it all?

3 comments

3 Comments

leodavis10h ago

4 billion pounds? That can't be right, can it?

derek_perez6h ago

Yeah I swear I saw a report saying it was even closer to 6 billion.

-2

the_richard6h ago

Actually I was talking to a guy who runs a carpet recycling facility near Dayton and he told me something wild. He said the backing material on most residential carpet is made with calcium carbonate, basically limestone. So when it sits in a landfill it doesn't just sit there forever - it actually reacts with rainwater and leaches out a bunch of calcium and other minerals into the groundwater. He showed me test results from a nearby well that had double the normal hardness levels. Nobody ever talks about the chemical leaching part of carpet waste, it's always just about the volume. The recycling facility he runs grinds the old carpet into pellets for auto parts and those rubberized gym floors you see in schools.