Carpet

Carpet Recovery Opportunities

Opportunities exist to gain value from carpet waste; much of which is readily recyclable. Nylon fiber, the most prominent type of carpet fiber, is a valuable polymer and can be used in many different applications. Recovered materials from waste carpet can be recycled into a variety of new products. According to the Carpet Assistance Recovery Effort (CARE) website, more than 1 billion pounds of carpet has been recycled since 2002.

The carpet recycling industry has become tremendously resourceful and is mindful of the value of their product and the immense opportunities it presents. There are a number of options for managing waste carpet: direct reuse, refurbishment, recycling fiber into other plastic products, recycling carpet backing into new carpet backing, and "carpet-to-carpet recycling."

News & Events

• Flame-Retardant Chemical Linked to Lower Fertility —LA Times 1/27/10
• UK's Axion Recycles Carpet into Injection-Molded PP —European Plastics News 1/19/10
• Trials Achieve High Value Output from Polypropylene Recovery —Carpet Recycling UK 1/10

Policy & Legislation

• AB 2398, Perez – Product Stewardship for Carpet, California
  For more information on this bill, see 2010 State Legislation

What You Can Do To Help

• The single most important thing you can do is to buy recycled content carpet and carpet pad! The carpet industry claims that there is too little demand for recycled product on the market so it’s very important that you “vote with your dollars” to create the “market pull” for carpet recycling to work. For more information on everything you want to know about these products and where to find them, go to the Department of General Services Website.
  
  
• NSF/ANSI Standard 140-2007 for Carpet
  
  
• California Gold Sustainable Carpet Standard 2006

Resources

• CARE is the Carpet America Recovery Effort. The non-profit was created to oversee the goals and targets documented in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on January 8, 2002 by the carpet industry, a number of states, the federal EPA and a small group of non-governmental organization (NGO's).
  
  
• Letter from CalRecycle to CARE stating “at this time we are unable to justify committing our time and resources towards a project that, in all these years, has been unable to develop a financing mechanism – a fundamental requirement for achieving the goals of higher recycling rates.” 1/26/10
  
  
• Map of Carpet Reclamation Partners

Links

• CARE
  California carpet producers participating in CARE:
  • Los Angeles Fibers
  • San Francisco Carpet Recycling
  • Chamlian Enterprises
    
    
• Carpet Product Stewardship —U.S. EPA
  
  
• Carpet Recycling UK was formed as a not-for-profit association of companies from the carpet industry to take a lead in waste reduction by co-coordinating research and development, and it has now built up a significant knowledge base.
  
  
• INFORM Fact Sheet on Carpet Recycling