AB2398 Quarter 3 Report shows modest improvements and efficiency gains

There’s good news as CARE reports its quarterly results as the carpet stewardship organization in California under AB2398. There was a slight uptick in the gross weight of collected and recycled carpet during the past quarter. This was despite the closure of two carpet recycling businesses, which reduced processing capacity. While the gross collected pounds increased to 23.3M, it is estimated that it could be as high as 27M pounds when non-reporters are accounted for.

Gross weight of collected and recycled carpet in California

Another positive statistic is the decreasing amount of collected carpet that cannot be used and is disposed of by landfill. The trend hints that recycling efficiency is improving despite the continued trend of decreasing nylon face fiber. The face fiber data collected from California recyclers shows that nylon may have decreased by about 7 percentage points since the previous quarter while fibers reported as “other” were up.

Continued success in California requires improvements in existing processes but hinges on developing cost effective ways to recycle PET (polyester). CARE is still accepting research proposals from researchers at California universities interested in doing just that. But get your great ideas in soon, as the deadline for submission is this Friday, December 20.