Ethical carpet guide published

A new guide has been published to help consumers find carpets from overseas that have not been produced using exploited child labour.

Not-for-profit body RugMark USA has produced the GoodWeave Rug Sourcebook, which lists over 70 companies in the US whose carpets and rugs are hand-woven without using children as workers, Furniture Today reports.

The body stated that since it started producing the guide in 1995, the number of children involved in the making of hand-weaved carpets and rugs has dropped from a million to 250,000.

Interior designer and RugMark USA board member Betty Wasserman said: "We as designers have a choice to make every time we recommend a rug to a client: Will we fight child labour or will we support it?"

One ethical way of sourcing carpet may be to use recycled material.

Researchers at the University of York have claimed a breakthrough that could save much of the carpet that currently cannot be re-used due to having latex-based adhesives.

The team has developed an alternative, starch-based adhesive that can be separated from the carpet material, something that is not possible with latex, rsc.co.uk reported this week.

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