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Contact: Todd van der Kruik
Email: info@unioneighteen.com

ECO FRIENDLY DESIGN STUDIO LAUNCHES "RAW", A LINE OF ONE OF A KIND RUGS MADE FROM RECYCLED CARPET

**Design team creates hand-made rugs from virgin commercial carpet waste**

LONG BEACH, CA - NOV 29, 2007 - Union Eighteen design studio introduces “Raw”, a line of hand-made rugs comprised of one hundred percent recycled carpet. Establishing a process to design and manufacture fashionable, one-of-a-kind rugs, Union Eighteen can serve the consumer who appreciates great style, while doing their part to protect the planet.

Each one-of-a-kind rug is assembled by hand using scrap collected during the commercial manufacturing process that would normally be discarded. In association with one of the country’s leading and most environmentally conscious producers of commercial carpet, Union Eighteen has found a way to sustain the longevity of this virgin material, conserving energy and protecting the environment in an innovative way. “We were amazed by the natural variegation that occurs in texture and color as the pieces are joined in mosaic form,” notes Todd van der Kruik who founded Union Eighteen along with his wife, Meg in October of 2007. Reminiscent of the hand-made elegance seen in Tibetan rugs, no two are alike and are individually gathered, grouped and assembled by the duo along with their team of skilled artisans. Union Eighteen Co-Founder, Meg van der Kruik states, “The inherent durability of the commercial-grade nylon lends itself to a long and useful life beyond that for which it was destined“. The rich and varying textures occur in an almost organic way as the pieces join together to create an entirely new entity, both in design and texture. Meg states, “It’s like an amusement park for your feet! The texture is as amazing to the skin, as the individual design to the eye."

Sadly, up to 800 Million square yards of carpet are added to landfills every year that required 20,000 BTU of energy per pound to produce and will lay in waste for 50,000 years. Thankfully many large carpet manufacturers have begun to recognize the problem and take steps to reclaim and recycle this post-consumer material. However, each year there are still hundreds of thousands of pounds of virgin carpet that never reach the marketplace. These scrap bi-products of the manufacturing process are too small to serve any useful purpose. Typically, scrap is sold to recyclers who will grind it into fine pieces for use as filler in materials like carpet padding. Although this solution is more favorable than the landfill, it wastes the energy initially exerted to spin and dye the yarn, tuft, back and finish the carpet, load and transport to the recycler where it can finally be ground into cheap, non-recyclable filler.

Union Eighteen is a Long Beach, CA based design studio founded by the husband and wife team of Todd and Meg van der Kruik. Their focus is on creating sustainable art and interior products through the recycling and reuse of discarded source material. They bring years of successful experience in textile design, manufacturing, management, and art to the creation of Union Eighteen.

More information can be found online at www.unioneighteen.com.

Edited by Rick Sherrill Public Relations