Retired Engineer Behind New Recyclable Carpet

Centreville, DE, Jan. 12, 2009--Retired DuPont Co. engineer Dimitri Zafiroglu is the key development force behind a carpet that's designed to eliminate some of the stubborn hurdles to successful carpet recycling, according to a story at Delaware.online.

Branded as Paraweave, the carpeting capitalizes on Zafiroglu's expertise in materials structure and the carpet industry's frustration with finding ways to recycle the stuff, which by one account adds 5 billion pounds of amazingly resilient waste to U.S. landfills.

Currently suitable mostly for high-traffic areas and other non-plush uses, Paraweave is made with a thick felt pad -- itself made of recycled carpet -- topped by a thin layer of polyester fabric that's shaped into a woven texture.

At this point, Paraweave -- which is being marketed by Clean & Green Flooring in Richmond -- is made of 40 percent recycled material, and because of its construction, is itself easily recyclable.

"In a month, it will be at 60, and we are working to be at 85 and possibly 100 within 12 months to 18 months," David Armentrout, C&G's president, told the newspaper.

The team behind it includes more than a few former DuPont professionals, several of them still in Delaware.

C&G's parent company -- Xymid, also in Virginia -- was formed specifically to purchase and put to use a variety of DuPont fiber technology that was lying essentially dormant. Its founder -- former DuPonter William Spencer -- was the marketing force behind the company's successful Stainmaster brand.

C&G has been selling Paraweave for 18 months, but had refrained from a full-bore marketing push until early installations proved its primary functional advantages -- durability, soil resistance and cost. After a test installation at Disney World in Florida, the company found that the carpet retained most of its cushioning capability, despite enduring the equivalent of a thousand people walking across it every day for 10 years.

"We're running a company that has a product that we think is a paradigm shift for the industry," Armentrout said. "We intentionally are inhibiting its growth."

One of that industry's primary challenges now is finding ways to recycle carpet cost-effectively. In 2002, the industry promised to cut the amount of carpet that ends up in landfills by 40 percent. Currently just 4 percent of carpet is recycled, and more states are putting outright bans on dumping it in landfills.

The problem is, that same carpet that the industry spent millions to make durable is also very difficult to recycle because of its many components -- nylon, glues and other substances. It's hard to handle, heavy to transport and incredibly dirty -- Zafiroglu says that by the end of a carpet's life, almost a third of its weight is dirt.

"Recycling the stuff is pretty tough," Zafiroglu said. "There are so many dissimilar materials."

Paraweave, on the other hand, doesn't allow soil to penetrate, can be cleaned with a broom, weighs 25 percent less than a typical carpet, and easily breaks down into recyclable components.

Most of today's carpets require enormous amounts of energy and chemicals to manufacture -- and also to recycle, diminishing the environmental benefit. "We don't use heavy heat. We don't use chemicals. We don't have glues," Armentrout said. "As a result of not having glues, we don't have VOC [volatile organic compound] emission."

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