New Jersey City Considers Carpet Recycling Law

Margate, NJ, December 13, 2007-- The Margate, New Jersey City Commission is considering a law that requires carpet to be recycled, according to a story in the Press of Atlantic City.

The law, which passed on its first vote, would ban anyone from putting old carpet at the curb with their trash. Residents would be required to take it to a recycling center in Egg Harbor Township.

Franz Adler, a supervisor in Margate's Public Works Department, says the law won't actually be a major inconvenience to most people because most people don't rip out and replace old carpeting on their own. They have carpet companies come in and do the job, Adler says, and part of the job of getting rid of carpet now in Margate will involve taking the old stuff to where the Atlantic County Utilities Authority can recycle it.

"I see growing pains with it," Adler told the newspaper.

"It has to be dry, it has to be in 4-foot sections, and no more than 8 inches in diameter, and it has to be tied with string or twine.

The city would be the first municipality in Atlantic County to pass the ordinance.

Several other towns around the county are reportedly looking into their own carpet-recycling laws.

The agency charges $50 a ton to take used carpeting - a break-even cost for a material that has to be stored in a covered trailer and then hauled to CarpetCycle, the Elizabeth-based company that handles the carpet the ACUA collects.

Once carpet is in a dump, it never breaks down, and Adler says that burying carpet is very hard on the heavy machinery that the ACUA uses to handle trash at the landfill.