CARE Diverted 296 Million Pounds of Carpet in '07

Clearwater Beach, FL, May 12, 2008—Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) said it diverted 296 million pounds of old carpet from landfills last year, with 275.1 million pounds being recycled.

That is a 17 percent increase in diversion and a 19 percent increase in recycling.

The group, at its annual meeting recently, noted several unusual circumstances last year.

 • Market conditions caused inventories of post-consumer carpet collected for recycling to increase significantly. Data gathered during the survey process indicates an increase of at least 19 million pounds in inventory during 2007. This material was not included in the baseline estimate of diversion described above, but depending upon the assumption regarding how much of that material will ultimately be recycled, it could represent an even higher level of diversion than reported in the baseline numbers.

• Efforts to avoid double-counting of diverted material were extended beyond the estimates used in previous years to include more detailed company-specific calculations. These calculations increased the overall accuracy of the estimates of diversion and recycling in comparison with previous years.

• The response rate to the survey was the highest it has ever been, with 32 companies providing complete quantitative data and another 4 companies providing partial survey responses. By comparison, last year only 19 companies provided quantitative data.

CARE also said it achieved a new milestone- 1 billion pounds of carpet have been diverted since its inception in 2002.

On average, CARE has recovered 149 million pounds of carpet per year, which translates into about 150 new direct jobs and 300 indirect jobs.

CARE said that  recovery of carpet has substantial environmental benefits. Last year the amount of carpet recovered avoided greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2.5 million barrels of oil, or the equivalent amount of GHG emissions absorbed by 27 million tree seedlings grown for 10 years.

CARE said it will focus on diversifying end markets that can use the high performance engineered resins coming from post-consumer carpet.