Carpet Recycling Diverts 2 Billion Pounds Since 2002

Carpet America Recovery Effort: Carpet Recycling is Hot Trend With Two billion pounds of carpet diverted from landfills since 2002

You often hear people talk about how their jobs require them to “wear different hats”. Well, one of my favorite parts of my job begins when I swap my CRI hat for the one given to me by the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE).

Since 2002, CARE has been in existence to promote carpet recycling by finding new and better ways to recover the nylon and other materials that are used to make carpet, and, perhaps more importantly, developing new uses for the recovered material.

The group is making real progress. At its ninth Annual Conference held recently, CARE reported that in 2010, CARE members diverted 338 million pounds of carpet from the landfill – an increase of 9 percent over 2009.

Another milestone: in 2010, CARE members surpassed two billion pounds of carpet diverted from landfills since the organization’s founding in 2002. This is impressive, especially given the fact that it took six years for CARE members to divert the first billion pounds, but only three years to hit the two billion pound mark. Under CARE’s leadership, carpet recycling in the U.S has increased by 490%. Not bad.

More impressive numbers: of the carpet diverted, more than 271 million pounds were recycled back into carpet and other consumer products.

Matt Spieler wrote a great article in Floor Covering News on the meeting titled CARE: Industry passes 2 billion pound mark in diverting carpet – here’s an excerpt:

“Frank Hurd, CARE’s chairman said as a result of the efforts by the organization and the entrepreneurs involved in the effort, ‘CARE is doing things now that I didn’t think were possible when we started in 2002. For the first time, we are now recycling more post- consumer carpet into the plastic resins market. This is a market we expect to continue to grow.’

Beyond the products and applications mentioned at the conference, he pointed to the act of shearing the face fiber from carpet as an example of how technology has taken the initiative to new heights. ‘No one thought shearing carpet could be economically feasible. Now we have several members who are really making a difference with it.’

What makes the progress more impressive, Hurd added, is the fact ‘we are doing this in such tough economic times. It is a real credit to the entrepreneurs, who are the backbone of CARE, that we continue to make progress.’”

Details of the conference are on CARE’s website as well as all of the CARE 2011 conference presentations.

Congratulations, CARE!

~Bethany