California – Page 3

CARE Announces 21st Annual Conference in Orlando, FL

January 18, 2023

Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) will hold its 21st Annual Conference for the national carpet recycling industry on April 25-26, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The theme of the Conference, “Carpet: Feedstock for the Future” highlights the recent developments in carpet recycling technology and opportunities that are moving carpet out of the waste stream to becoming a valued and sought-after input for manufacturing.

“Recent exciting advances in plastic recycling technology promise a new world of uses for recycled carpet material,” noted CARE Executive Director Bob Peoples. “These innovations mean that carpet is quickly moving to becoming a valuable material in the circular economy, a feedstock for the future. We have a lot to talk about in April!”

Confirmed speakers for the 21st Annual Conference include Marketing Insights President Santo Torcivia with a U.S. economic update; Floor Focus publisher Kemp Harr presenting on the state of the flooring industry; and Adnan Zeb-Khan, Director of GlobeEC Consulting and Scheme Manager at Carpet Recycling UK. Special guest speaker Bianca Rhym, Electrical Engineer with NASA, will talk about her project for recycling in-space plastic waste using 3D printing. Dr. Matthew Realff of Georgia Tech and Joshua Bacca of the American Chemistry Council will discuss chemical recycling and life cycle impacts. Collectors, processors, and manufacturers from around the country will discuss recent developments in recycling technology, the ID equipment challenge, Extended Producer Responsibility, and new products and markets. There will be ample time for networking along with the traditional CARE Recycler and Person of the Year awards announcement. See the full agenda here.

Registration for the Conference is open now.

What Is the Carpet Recycling Rate?

December 16, 2022

The California carpet recycling rate has made tremendous progress in the past few years. In 2021, the Program achieved an all-time annual high Recycling Rate of 27.9%, exceeding the 26% Plan goal for 2021 and reflecting continued annual growth despite the ongoing global pandemic. The California carpet recycling rate has soared over 320% since 2015 (including 2022 YTD.)

CARE’s 2022 recycling rate target is 27% and we are on track to exceed that at approximately 32%, up by over 14% in one year!

Calculating the Recycling Rate for Carpet

How is the recycling rate calculated? The formula is more complicated than it may seem and differs for carpet compared to some other materials. CARE calculates the recycling rate as pounds of Recycled Output (RO) divided by Total Discards. (The complex Total Discards calculation includes variables for Sales, Replacement, Demolition and Deselection, along with the average weight of carpet per square yard. See more in CARE’s 2021 Annual Report.) Total Discards in 2021 amounted to 242.8 million pounds, down 29% from 343 million pounds in 2016. The decrease in carpet sales increases the challenge of carpet collection, since the vast majority of collection is driven by the sale of new carpet.

Yield As a Measure of Recyclability

A metric called Yield is another way of looking at recycling efficiency. CARE’s yield percentage is calculated as pounds of Recycled Output divided by pounds of Gross Collection. Yield serves as the primary metric to measure changes in recyclability, which refers to how easily carpets can be separated into their component parts and ultimately recycled. As Yield increases, a higher percentage of Gross Collection is converted into Recycled Output, indicating an increase in overall recyclability of post-consumer carpet collected. The Program’s highest-ever Yield rate of 76.4% of Gross Collection, reached in 2021, supports the increased recycling rate and exceeds the Plan’s goal of 60% Yield. The yield rate has more than doubled from 2016’s 35 percent.

Comparison with the Recycling Rate for Mattresses

The stewardship organization Mattress Recycling Council uses the term “MRC Recovery Rate” to represent the percentage of material that MRC recyclers reused, recycled, or sent to biomass in a given year. In other words, it represents the amount of collected mattress material that is recycled or reused, not, as in carpet recycling rate, the amount of total carpet discarded. This MRC formula is essentially what CARE calls Yield. In 2021, the MRC Recovery Rate was 76.9%, up from 59.2% in 2017. If CARE were to use the MRC formula, our recycling rate would be about 74% today.

Onward!

Despite anticipated economic and operational challenges, CARE is confident that the percentage of carpet recycled in California will continue to improve, as technological innovation is supported by CARE’s technical assistance and services and the growth of chemical recycling that will start coming online in 2023.

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Carpet Assessment Increase Will Not Take Place

December 6, 2022

CalRecycle has disapproved CARE’s Five Year Plan 2023-27 as submitted in September. As a result of this:

The Carpet Differential Assessment increase scheduled for January 1, 2023 will NOT take place. The current assessment levels will remain in effect until further notice.

CARE will submit a revised Plan to CalRecycle in mid-January. We will communicate further when we know more. See also the Differential Assessment page.

CARE Micro Grants’ Ongoing Success

November 16, 2022

CARE introduced micro grants ($15,000 each) in 2017 in order to promote the additional* collection and reuse of California post-consumer carpet (PCC). Micro grants are awarded for infrastructure projects and/or purchase of equipment that supports the operational logistics of properly collecting and/or reusing California PCC.

Five grants awarded in 2021’s Cycle 4 demonstrate the positive impact of relatively small grants on the larger carpet recycling ecosystem. Funds were used for containers, machinery and a cement pad, all of which allowed businesses to collect more carpet so that it could be recycled. Together, these five grants led to nearly 2 million additional pounds of carpet collected in the first year of operations:

Aquafil Carpet Recycling, San Diego

For collection containers to provide on-site service to carpet retailers and other flooring stores who wish to source separate PCC for recycling.

DC16 JATTF, Fremont, CA

Wrapping machinery financed with a CARE micro grant allowed District Council 16 union installers and trainers to stack, strap and wrap post-consumer carpet tile for recycling or reuse.

Funds paid for a tile weighing and wrapping machine that allows union-based installers and trainers to stack, strap and wrap post-consumer carpet tile for recycling or reuse. The machine also weighs material to provide the construction industry with proof of recycling.

Hayward Transfer Station, Hayward

Specialized containers allow for on-site service to carpet retailers and other flooring stores that wish to source separate PCC for recycling.

Funds were awarded for collection containers to provide on-site service to carpet retailers and other flooring stores who wish to source separate PCC for recycling.

Rivera’s Fine Flooring, Morgan Hill

A cement pad infrastructure improvement at this CARE drop-off site allowed Rivera’s to keep PCC clean and organize the site for incoming traffic.

Funds were allocated for a cement pad to keep PCC clean and dry for recycling at this new public drop-off site. Rivera’s also has plans to construct a weather cover.

Serv-Wel, Los Angeles

This grant funded the construction of three large containers for collection of PCC at a regional distribution center for carpet in Southern California. The PCC is then hauled to a processor for recycling.

11 Million Pounds Collected

As of Fall 2022, 32 micro grants totaling $430,000 have been awarded by CARE since 2017, resulting in the collection of approximately 11 million additional pounds of carpet per year.

CARE expects to continue micro grant cycles for the foreseeable future. Retailers, haulers and other businesses involved in collecting carpet for recycling or reuse are encouraged to apply.

For latest details, see CarpetRecovery.org/CA-Grants

* The definition of “additional” under this program is PCC that was previously sent to landfill, alternative daily cover, waste-to-energy, kiln or used for carpet-as-alternative-fuel.

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CARE Grantee Case Study: Circular Polymers

October 4, 2022

Project Description

Circular Polymers' machinery — CARE grantee Circular Polymers deconstructs commercial broadloom post-consumer carpet into fiber and backing material and bales the fiber for shipment to manufacturers making new products.

CARE is operating under increasingly ambitious goals for carpet recycling, making it more complicated to capture and recycle as much carpet as feasible. Residential carpeting makes up about 70% of all the carpet discarded in California, and up until now it has accounted for almost all of the carpet that was recycled. Residential carpet has more high-value face fiber and similar backing across product lines, so recyclers focused on residential as the “low hanging fruit” that gave the most value with less effort. Commercial broadloom and carpet tile make up about 30% of discarded carpet in California. Yet because of its wide range of composition and less face fiber, most commercial carpet collected was not being recycled until recently.

A CARE grant allowed Circular Polymers, already a major force in carpet recycling in the state, to move into the commercial carpet recycling space. The CARE grant funded the purchase of U.S.-made machinery that allowed the company to accept commercial carpet and carpet tile for recycling – including traditionally hard-to-recycle polyurethane-backed tile – starting in 2021.

Location: Lincoln, CA

Grant Amount and Match: CARE grants $700,000; Circular Polymers invested ~$500,000.

Total Cost of Project: $1.2 million

Project Timeline: 2020-2021

“We are grateful for CARE’s support not just financially, but as an engine for collaboration in the industry.” Nick Fiore, President, Circular Polymers

Implementation Process

It took about six months for the new machinery to be delivered and set up. Circular Polymers was then able to process the 10% of carpet that they had been collecting but unable to use, as well as intentionally collecting and processing more commercial carpet and carpet tile.

Project Challenges

The initial challenge was the effort and sweat equity needed to design and install custom systems to process commercial carpet, which is made up of a wide range of dissimilar materials.

In the process, Circular Polymers identified that a significant amount of commercial carpet was comprised of hard-to-recycle mixed fiber carpet and included ten to 15 different backing systems. This led the company to focus on creating a cipher for discerning the different backing types and to build an outlet system for all of them.

Once everything was in place and demand for the end product established, the ongoing challenge was to maintain a flow of feedstock: to collect enough tear-out carpet to maintain the process. Circular Polymers is conducting outreach to commercial contractors to educate them that their tear-out could be recycled.

Project Benefits and Outcomes

The grant opened up a difficult-to-reach sector of used carpet for easier and more convenient recycling. Circular Polymers has recycled approximately 600,000 pounds of additional carpet monthly in 2022 for recycling since the grant was awarded in 2021; Circular Polymers’ output increased by 27% in Q1-2 of 2022 over the same period in 2021.

In addition, the company separates some carpet from the recycling stream that can still be used and funnels it to reuse outlets. The recycled commercial carpet material is reprocessed into products for the automotive, office equipment and building markets.

This is one of a series of case studies that illustrate the impact and logistics of grant funding on the carpet recycling industry in California.