Interface Carpet is a large carpet company. This description is from Natural Capital, p. 139: “Chairman Ray Anderson realized that not throwing more energy and money into holes in the ground (i.e. dumps) represents a major business opportunity. Interface therefore launched a transition from selling carpet to leasing floor covering services. People want to walk on and look at carpet, not own it. They can obtain those services at much lower cost if Interface owns the carpet and remains responsible for keeping it clean and fresh in return for a monthly fee under the company’s Evergreen Lease.”

Note that leasing is not an end in itself. What counts is what is done with leased goods. If the lessor simply takes back his goods and discards them, what benefit does that bring? One thing that Interface did was to move from large carpets to carpet tiles. Breaking up large surfaces into manageable pieces this way is an essential step in myriad large surfaces, including walls, concrete pads, rooves etc. It allows the replacement of worn or broken pieces individually and makes it possible to disassemble rather than demolish at the end of life.

The next thing I would like to know is whether Interface has found a way to design the fibers and backing that make up the carpet in such a way that they too are going to be reused. Is there a way to attach the fibers to the backing that allows repair or reuse? I haven’t found an answer to this yet but without that we are not talking about an optimum zero waste design.