Carpet America Recovery Effort (Care) - Carpet Recycling Update

It is estimated that each year about 5 billion pounds of carpet finds its way into landfills. Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) was started in 2002 to promote the recycling of carpet right across the United States. CARE is a non–profit, joint industry–government organization supported and funded voluntarily by the flooring industry.

The MOU was drawn up in 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia by members of the flooring and carpet industry along with representatives of the federal, state and local administrative authorities. One of the objectives is to increase the amount of recycling thereby reducing carpet waste by 40%. The progress toward reaching the goal is constantly analyzed, monitored and reviewed by CARE. The ultimate aspiration is zero carpet to landfills.

The problem posed to CARE right from inception was why bother with collection of post–consumer carpet unless an outlet was created for it. Another point was the creation of easy points for collection of carpeting.

CARE endeavours to address these issues by focusing on market–based solutions. CARE works in concert with the carpet industry to:

• Improve the collection infrastructure of post–consumer carpet.
• Acts as an information resource for economic, technical and market development avenues for the use of recovered carpet.
• Maintains statistical data and reports on progress toward goal achievement.
• Strives toward finding funding opportunities toward the final goal.

The last annual conference of CARE was held in Lansdowne, Virginia in April 2009. Care has currently been badly hit by the economic downturn. Its progress has been adversely affected by the slump on two fronts: the housing sector, its key collection resource; and the automobile industry, its key outlet for recycled carpet.

>Nonetheless during its first six years, CARE reports an accumulated diversion in excess of one billion pounds of carpet. Every year it has recorded a double–digit increase over the preceding year. Each of the three preceding years witnessed an annual diversion of over 225 million pounds of carpeting. Despite existing adverse conditions it hopes to achieve a diversion of over 200 million pounds of carpet in the current year.

The number of collection points has increased from 5 in 2002 to 59 this year. A collection outlet has been set up in over half the states in the U.S. to date.

In 2002 when CARE was born there were no machines to recycle carpet. Today machines have been developed that meet this requirement. Present day technological advances have machines that immediately identify the type of carpet and the fibers that were used as inputs. Machinery has been developed to convert recycled carpet into products and product lines for which markets have already been established.

An important aspect of note is that recycling of carpets has created 1100 direct jobs and 2200 indirect jobs according to a CARE survey. So far, CARE has directly contributed to the environment by preventing 238,000 tonnes of green house gas emissions, equivalent to 2 million barrels of oil not burned.

Recycled carpet has been converted into railroad ties, saving on timber and rock composite blocks among other uses.