Process for recovering high value polymer from carpet selvage waste

A process for separating at least two components of a carpet selvage comprising the steps of:

• a. providing carpet selvage waste from carpet manufacturing comprised of tufts, primary backing, an adhesive and optionally a secondary backing,
• b. identifying face fiber type used in said tufts in said carpet selvage,
• c. removing and segregating said secondary backing from said carpet selvage to obtain a relatively pure stream of said secondary backing,
• d. removing said identified face fiber off said primary backing such that said face fiber is essentially free of said primary backing and residual said adhesive,
• e. segregating said removed face fiber in a mechanical system which segregates fiber by fiber type to obtain a relatively pure stream of said face fiber,
• f. removing the edge of said primary backing which does not contain said face fiber, and segregating it to obtain a relatively pure stream of said primary backing,
• g. collecting said relatively pure streams of material in separate bins and,
• h. baling, pelletizing or agglomerating said relatively pure material streams.