CalRecycle disapproved the proposed Carpet Stewardship Plan (“Plan”) submitted by the industry-led Carpet America Recovery Effort (“CARE”) after a public hearing, held May 15, 2018 because it did not meet core requirements of California’s Carpet Recycling Act (AB 1158- Chu). CalRecycle staff and stakeholders in attendance provided public comments on the state of carpet recycling.
Thomas Helme, an environmental justice advocate from Valley Improvement Project in Stanislaus County supported CalRecycle’s decision, pointing out that as a rural jurisdiction with zero carpet recycling locations, residents are paying into – and not benefiting from – this program.
Sections of the Plan that did not hold up to statutory requirements included: grants/subsidies/incentives and the funding mechanism. In addition, the CalRecycle staff found insufficiencies with performance goals, adherence to the State Waste Hierarchy and program transparency with California fee money for effective oversight. Details are on the CalRecycle site.
“We believe that CARE has demonstrated it is not a good steward of California fee money,” said Heidi Sanborn, Executive Director of the National Action Stewardship Council, “We had a failure of Carpet Collectors in Sacramento who left two acres [of carpet] stacked two stories tall and left Sacramento County with a million dollar bill to clean it up.” After the collapse of Carpet Collectors in Sacramento, the CARE grant and subsidy programs should have included an audit system to be more careful with CA fee-payer money, ensuring carpet being collected is actually being recycled.
In 2010, California became the only state to require carpet manufacturers to implement and manage a stewardship program for carpet recycling. Since passage of the first bill, the carpet industry has failed to achieve the goals set forth by the legislation and CalRecycle has upheld fines for incompliance. A new carpet recycling law, AB 1158, sponsored by the National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC), went into effect January 1, 2018, changing carpet recycling requirements in CA. As a result, two large companies, Aquafil and Interface, communicated interest in opening facilities and creating green jobs in California.
Architects, designers, and procurement specialists play a critical role in driving a greener market by purchasing recyclable carpet. New carpet procurement standards increasingly call for easily recyclable products to align their construction practices with the circular economy, including San Francisco standards for carpet installed in city-funded projects like public schools, libraries, and government buildings.
For more information, visit www.nsaction.us.