By Jamescj
United Kingdom 
Re composting.
One often sees old pieces of carpet thrown onto waste land. Very often it has started to decompose or is well into being composted. I can see that the nylon types of fabrics would not decompose but what about all wool carpeting? Would this be suitable to be put into a compost heap - between layers of the usual garden and kitchen waste?
17 Jul, 2012
Answers
Yes, Cammomile is right, carpet is usually used to keep the heat in. I have done this on my large compost bins on the allotment and after a year or two they do start to degrade. Eventually they will get incorporated into the heap, but as I say they are large bins. You are right about the woollen carpets, nylon will never work.
17 Jul, 2012
Any organic material will eventually rot away. So yes you can put wool in a compost heap along with feathers, leather, linen, cotton and so on. It just might take a rather long time to break down that's all. Like years rather than months.
17 Jul, 2012
I think it would be unusual to have 100% wool carpet as usually the mix is 70% wool.
17 Jul, 2012
If you wanted to put a wool carpet in the compost, though, I would chop it up well, and make sure that it is less than 5% of the mix. As Owdboggy says, you're likely to be screening out those bits of carpet for years to come, though it will slowly add nitrogen to the mix.
18 Jul, 2012
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Sounds a bit odd. I may be wrong but I think carpet is used to keep the compost warm and dark, not as compost material.
17 Jul, 2012