In 2022, CARE’s California Carpet Stewardship Program continued to invest in new infrastructure and ideas in order to increase California’s carpet recycling and collection capacity as well as seed research to increase post-consumer carpet (PCC) collection volume and product recyclability. As a result, in 2022:
- CARE made awards to two capital improvement grantees totaling approximately $650,000 along with five micro grantees totaling more than $61,000.
- Three new PCC collectors and one new reuse entity came online as a result of the micro grants program, helping CARE to meet its 2022 convenient collection and reuse goals. One other awardee is testing new fiber-identification technology and will share insights with the carpet recycling community.
- CARE made a $50,000 award under its New Collection Strategies/Small Infrastructure Award Pilot Program to investigate the impact and cost of collection from smaller sources. Results will be shared in CARE’s 2022 Annual Report.
- The Program launched Innovation & Design Grants to seed projects that create more recyclable carpet constructions and environmentally preferable PCC-content products. Awards will be announced in May 2023.
- Grant-funded capital projects begun in 2022 or earlier resulted in nearly 40 million pounds of recycled output or PCC in finished secondary products, along with more than 25 million additional pounds of PCC collected for recycling or reused.
- Micro grantees awarded in 2022 or earlier collected or reused over 4.2 million pounds of California-sourced PCC.
The Program’s Cycle 5M, Micro Grants for Collection/Reuse (up to $15,000 per project), is open to California-based entities until further notice; interested parties may apply through CARE’s easy-to-use online grant application form.
CARE anticipates launching new cycles of its Capital Grants and Testing Grants programs in May or June 2023.
For questions about the CARE grants program, please email Abbie Beane, CARE grants manager, at ABeane@CarpetRecovery.org or visit CarpetRecovery.org/CA-Grants