In a recent post, we talked about some alternative floor coverings, but traditional carpeting isn’t a bad thing — as long as you’re not contributing to the heap of your local landfill by replacing it too often.

Carpeting is much more than a floor covering: It offers homeowners a beautiful package of noise reduction, warm insulation, slip safety and glare reduction. Given carpeting’s importance in today’s home, it makes sense to put a little more thought into the purchasing and maintenance of carpet.

After all, carefully choosing and taking care of your carpet can help keep it from prematurely joining the approximately 5 billion pounds of used carpeting that are disposed of in landfills each year. That’s billion with a “B,” a statistic courtesy of the Green Seal Choose Green Report.

Here are some things to consider:

• The quality of the carpeting often depends on the density of the fibers. This includes the gauge (the stitches per inch across the carpet), yarn thickness and pile height.
• Daily vacuuming can remove more than 80 percent of the dry residue that exists in your carpet.
• When you spill liquid on a carpet, clean it up as soon as possible to prevent fungal growth.
• Carpets with strong backings — or carpet tiles — are the easiest to repair. Using these carpet products can help reduce the need to replace damaged carpet.
• Higher-quality carpeting tends to release fewer volatile organic compounds in to the atmosphere.

Photo courtesy of Nolasknab on Flickr

Carefully choosing your floor coverings can help prevent another heap of discarded carpet from joining the approximately 5 billion pounds of used carpeting that are disposed of in landfills each year, according to the Green Seal Choose Green Report. Choosing the right floor covering might save you from ditching carpet a few years down the road, allow you to pick a covering that was manufactured using less energy or chemicals, or can be cleaned more easily — all of which help lower the carbon foot print you install under your feet.

  Here are a few options for picking your floor coverings while keeping the environment in mind:

• FLOR squares: FLOR is a line of design-inspired carpet squares for the home that lets homeowners create unique area rugs, runners or wall-to-wall carpet designs quickly and easily. FLOR is also eco-friendly, as it has some of the lowest Volatile Organic Compound emissions (VOCs) in the industry. Visit FLOR’s Web site to learn more and to see some of the color palettes that are available.
• Vinyl: Compressed vinyl flooring is also a sustainable flooring option because it’s made of VCT (Vinyl Composition Tile), a highly compressed tile that is made from recycled vinyl materials. It is widely used commercially because of its durability and ease of use. To learn more about vinyl flooring, especially if it’s for your kitchen, visit the The Flooring Lady.
• Cork: As a floor covering, cork is durable, provides great insulation, cushions the foot, is resistant to moisture damage and decay, is easy to clean and is known to last as long as hardwood floors. It is also an eco-friendly choice due to the sustainable harvesting practices and the fact that there is practically zero waste from the manufacturing process. The Green Home offers more information on cork coverings and installation tips.

Photo courtesy of pawpaw67 on Flickr