In our increasingly recycling-aware society, a carpet is one of those things that usually does not get re-used – it is simply thrown away, and later, burned.
That could soon change, says an international team of scientists who have come up with a method to make wool carpets with all-natural backing that can be re-processed after a life cycle.
They replaced all synthetic substances and chemicals with organic materials.
The new project, called Erutan – or “nature” spelled backwards – is financed by the Dutch government.
Once a ERUTAN carpet has reached its end of life, it can become a substrate for the agricultural industry (for mushrooms as replacement for peat, countering desertification, landscaping). Development of the carpet will take place between 2010 and 2012, in co-operation with biochemists, chemists, textile engineers, environmental technicians, material engineers and economists.
(READ the story from the BBC)