Natural Carpets and the Environment

Most people don’t think of carpets as being environmentally friendly or otherwise, but your choices can make a big difference.

Many carpets today are produced from synthetic fibres because of it’s low cost and ease of use, however the manufacturing process does lead to pollution. Natural carpet materials such as wool and hardwoods are much better choices and they feel and look incredible.

It may seem that cutting down trees is a bad thing, but all wood in the UK is sourced from sustained forests which plant a tree every time they cut one down and provide habitats for wildlife in the process. Turning trunks into planks is a simple manufacturing process so the only significant environmental damage comes from transportation; combated by the forests themselves.

Wool is a similarly low impact product; simply manufactured from an endlessly sustainable source and typically with minimal transportation impact as so many carpets are made from pure British wool. Pure wool is used in the finest examples of carpet and is luxuriantly soft.

In recent years numerous other natural carpets have come into the market made from a range of materials such as sisal (a palm-like plant from Mexico), coir (coconut fibres), jute (a vegetable fibre from Asia) and seagrass (a marine plant found all over the world) form extremely durable fibres and modern techniques have found weaves that create soft and warm textures.

Grown over and over just like forests the farming of these plants through Fair Trade schemes is not only very low impact on the environment, it’s also helping people in many developing countries to develop businesses and build their own ways out of poverty.

The quality of these products and rising popularity is slowly pushing down prices so they’re even helping improve the synthetic carpet market, with recycled materials such as PET (typically made from recycled drinks bottles) the latest route to reducing environmental damage.

Whatever your budget, style or preference there are more and more environmentally conscious products available every day; ask our team about them in store or contact us any time to learn more about our natural carpets or real wood flooring.