Use of waste carpet as backing filler for floor coverings

Abstract

The amount of waste carpeting that is landfilled or otherwise disposed of is significantly reduced, as is the need for the mining mineral fillers, by utilizing specially processed waste carpeting as a filler in the production of new hot melt carpet backcoating, roofing materials, or other similar products. Waste carpeting (post-consumer and/or waste from new carpet manufacture) is collected and size-reduced, typically in a first coarse size-reduction, and then after densification to a finer size-reduction. The size-reduced waste carpeting is added as filler to at least one other material, such as polymers in standard latex, EVA, or PVC carpet backcoatings, to provide a hot melt composite used in the manufacture of a useful product (like carpet backcoating), and then the composite material is used to make the useful product (such as carpet backcoating, which is used as a primary or secondary backcoating in the manufacture of new carpeting). The waste carpeting may provide between about 40-100% of the filler of carpet backcoating, with any remainder made up by conventional fillers, such as calcium carbonate.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.