I just returned from a design show in Chicago. While I was there, John Wells, the president of Interface, Inc., a billion dollar producer of carpet tile, told me about a fascinating new company project. If you’re at all cynical about the positive impact of big business on society, this one’s for you.
Seems that rogue fishing nets — ones that break away from their boats or get caught on reefs — are causing a huge environmental problem worldwide. A couple of years ago, Miriam Turner, who works in Interface’s European sustainability unit, got the brilliant idea of getting people in poor communities in the Philippines to collect those wayward nylon nets, package them, and ship them to Aquafil, the Italian company that supplies Interface with most of its carpet yarn. Aquafil melts down the nylon and extrudes it into new nylon fiber, which is spun into yarn and sent back to Interface to be made into beautiful carpet tiles.

Last year, 4,000 people in 24 Philippines towns collected enough fishing nets to not only supply Interface with enough nylon to introduce a carpet tile collection that uses 100% recycled nylon, but also to put food on their families’ tables and help clean up the awful mess at the bottom of our oceans.

Interface is expanding the project to Cameroon this year.