May 2023

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CalRecycle Approves Five-Year Plan

Following the April 18th public meeting, CalRecycle Director Rachel Machi Wagoner approved the revised California Carpet Stewardship Plan 2023-2027 as submitted on March 29th.

CARE Grantees Contribute to Attaining 2022 Program Goals

A 2022 CARE micro grant to Repurpose.Earth paid for equipment that enables this Inglewood-based business to create a more efficient and larger tile reuse operation.

In 2022, CARE’s California Carpet Stewardship Program continued to invest in new infrastructure and ideas in order to increase California’s carpet recycling and collection capacity as well as seed research to increase post-consumer carpet (PCC) collection volume and product recyclability. As a result, in 2022:

• CARE made awards to two capital improvement grantees totaling approximately $650,000 along with five micro grantees totaling more than $61,000.
• Three new PCC collectors and one new reuse entity came online as a result of the micro grants program, helping CARE to meet its 2022 convenient collection and reuse goals. One other awardee is testing new fiber-identification technology and will share insights with the carpet recycling community.
• CARE made a $50,000 award under its New Collection Strategies/Small Infrastructure Award Pilot Program to investigate the impact and cost of collection from smaller sources. Results will be shared in CARE’s 2022 Annual Report.
• The Program launched Innovation & Design Grants to seed projects that create more recyclable carpet constructions and environmentally preferable PCC-content products. Awards will be announced in May 2023.
• Grant-funded capital projects begun in 2022 or earlier resulted in nearly 40 million pounds of recycled output or PCC in finished secondary products, along with more than 25 million additional pounds of PCC collected for recycling or reused.
• Micro grantees awarded in 2022 or earlier collected or reused over 4.2 million pounds of California-sourced PCC.

The Program’s Cycle 5M, Micro Grants for Collection/Reuse (up to $15,000 per project), is open to California-based entities until further notice; interested parties may apply through CARE’s easy-to-use online grant application form.

CARE anticipates launching new cycles of its Capital Grants and Testing Grants programs in May or June 2023.

For questions about the CARE grants program, please email Abbie Beane, CARE grants manager, at ABeane@CarpetRecovery.org or visit CarpetRecovery.org/CA-Grants

CARE Names Persons of the Year at 21^st Annual Conference

Persons of the Year Wyatt Rollins and Joe Yarbrough with CARE Executive Director Bob Peoples at CARE's 21st Annual Conference.

CARE announced winners of the Persons of the Year Awards for 2022 on April 26th in conjunction with the organization’s 21st Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. The 2022 Persons of the Year are Joe Yarbrough and Wyatt Rollins.

Joe Yarbrough was named President of the Carpet and Rug Institute in 2014. A long-time veteran of the carpet industry, he has been involved with the carpet recycling industry for the past 20 years. He came to CRI from Mohawk Industries, where he had served as senior vice president for advanced manufacturing engineering. Earlier in his career, Yarbrough spent six years with Coronet Industries and was later vice president for manufacturing for Aladdin Mills when that company merged with Mohawk in 1994.

Wyatt Rollins has been a respected force in the carpet recycling world for many years. In addition to his variety of roles at Shaw Industries, he has been an active member of the CARE Board and Sustainable Plan Committee for years and currently serves as CARE’s Chair.

Executive Director Bob Peoples noted, “The industry’s accomplishments come down to the efforts of a lot of smart, hardworking folks. It’s a pleasure to be able to recognize these winners for their contributions to the success of us all.”

The well-attended Conference showcased recent developments for the carpet recycling industry, recycling technology, the ID equipment challenge, Extended Producer Responsibility, and new products and markets. The Conference welcomed international visitors from Australia, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom; Conference feedback has been uniformly positive.

New Drop-off Site Welcomed

CARE welcomes one additional public drop-off site this month:

• Pinnell’s Carpet One and Home, Angel’s Camp, Calaveras County



There are currently 133 CARE public drop-off sites servicing 57 California counties.

CARE supports drop-off sites by providing at no cost:

• A container for collection
• Third-party hauling to transport carpet material to recyclers
• Promotional materials for local government and the hosting facility
• Technical assistance from CARE staff
• Ready access to micro grants that support site set-up and collection equipment/infrastructure.

To find the CARE-sponsored drop-off site closest to you, visit the drop-off site map here. If there is a location, such as a supply house, landfill, transfer station or recycling facility that you feel would work well as a drop-off site for you and other flooring professionals near you, please email CARE with the facility's name, location and business phone number. A CARE staff person will call you to discuss your volume, learn more about flooring professionals’ needs in your area and work toward finding a solution.

In addition to public drop-off sites, CARE works with the recyclers who operate more than 200 private network collection sites around the state.