(NC)-The path to be "green", to take the right action and make the best possible personal choices for the health and well-being of your home, family and the environment is a growing challenge that we all face.
With the growing number of environmentally-friendly home décor choices on the market, there is more than one side to environmentally responsible flooring options, and carpet has taken the lead role in the green revolution.
The "greenness" of a flooring product derives from a combination of factors... from how eco-responsibly it's made to the materials that go into the product to how it performs in your home.
Behind the scenes, and for more than a decade, carpet mills have been at the forefront of environmental efforts. Beaulieu Canada, for example, one of Canada's largest carpet producers is committed to environmental stewardship. Beaulieu Canada, according to Leslie Beaumont, director of marketing, has been applying the latest manufacturing expertise and fibre technology since the early 90's to improve efficiency, conserve natural resources, use renewable sources of energy (water, wind, solar power) and recycle and reuse waste to produce the latest looks in wall-to-wall carpet fashion specially designed to stay out of landfill longer and contribute to a healthy home.
Carpet can be manufactured from an array of different materials and the green rating of any style will depend on whether it is renewable, nontoxic, sustainable, reusable, or recyclable. Within the Enviro Select line of carpets offered by Beaulieu Canada, there is a new range of distinctive, high-performance, soft-touch nylon loop carpet styles that are actually recyclable at the end of their life. Diverted from an ultimate resting place as landfill waste, this carpet's SoftScape Plus nylon 6 carpet fibre can be reprocessed back into pellets, then into new yarn, then into new future generation carpet again and again with no loss in look or quality.
Another range of innovative carpet styles in the Enviro Select line are manufactured from plastic water and pop bottles. Beaulieu recycles more than 1.8 billion bottles or an estimated 110 million pounds of post-consumer waste a year and extrudes this polyester PET into polyester fibre, spins it into high quality yarn and tufts it into premium carpet for the home. Carpet made from recycled polyester PET offers superior stain resistance, colourfastness and thick, long-lasting luxury underfoot. More information on recycled carpets is available online at www.beaulieucanada.ca.
Indoor air quality is also an important consideration, especially since we spend approximately 90% of our time indoors. Compared to other interior finishes, carpet is the lowest emitter of VOC's (volatile organic compounds) and carpet on the floor, acting as a natural air filter, can actually improve indoor air quality.
If being "green" is an important element to your next flooring decision, be sure to give wall-to-wall carpet special consideration. More information is available online at www.beaulieucanada.ca on the "green" features of carpet and indoor air quality.
- News Canada