Investment in Waste Reduction Pays Off

A local Christchurch carpet company is doing their bit to reduce landfill, and is saving themselves thousands of dollars in the process. 

Whenever Carpet Court (Cashel St) installs new carpet for a client they also remove and dispose of their old carpet. This means that the company has an ongoing supply of used carpet available, and although it is generally not fit for reuse as floor covering, it still has other possible uses. Thanks to Waste Exchange, manager Mark Fitzgibbons now has a list of people who are happy to take much of it away and reuse it as weed matting. 

This seems a wonderful solution for both Carpet Court and their Waste Exchange clients, but it hasn’t always been a straightforward process. The store has two-three large trailer loads of carpet a week to dispose of, which is generally more than they can get rid of for reuse. Storing it until it was wanted was always a problem as warehouse space was limited, and used carpet must be separated from new carpet in case of contamination. Some lateral thinking solved that problem; by erecting a makeshift roof in the space between two container units some of that old carpet can be stored in a dry, separate place until collection. 

The other big problem for Carpet Court, and its Waste Exchange clients, was getting the carpet to its new owners. “We had a problem with people arriving to pick up the old carpet and not being able to fit it in their car” Mark says. So the company took a proactive approach – they spent almost $4000 to have a special high-sided 10x4 foot trailer built to hold the carpet. “We take the trailer on site when we have a job to do, and load the old carpet directly onto it” says Mark. “Then when someone wants to collect some carpet, they just take the loaded trailer away, and bring it back empty.” 
“The trailer did cost us quite a bit of money, but it will pay off cost-wise in the long run. It saves us the cost of disposing of the carpet. Our rubbish disposal had cost around $50,000 a year before, and our aim is to cut those costs in half. We now recycle cardboard and underlay foam chip, but each trailer of carpet we dump may cost us $80-100, so passing it to people to reuse it is good from our point of view. It is just a shame we don’t have more people who want it - we still have to dump some of it.” 

If you are looking for a cheap, effective and organic weed mat, then check out the listings on this website or contact Waste Exchange directly. We can put you in touch with Mark, or other possible carpet sources in your local area.     
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