The California Carpet Stewardship Program (CARE) has released its 2016 annual report after submitting it to CalRecycle. Highlights from the fifth year of the program include modest improvements in gross collection and net diversion of post-consumer carpet from landfills. Recycled output, a barometer of market demand for products made with post consumer carpet, increased by 8.6%, from 35 million pounds in 2015 to 38 million pounds in 2016. This increase resulted in an 11% recycling rate, up 1% over 2015, although it fell short of the 16% 2016 goal, according to the organization.
An average of 25% of all post-consumer carpet discards were net diverted from California landfills in 2016, up from 23% of discards in 2015. Diversion via energy recovery (sum of CAAF, Kiln, and WTE) decreased by 29% in 2016, falling to 21.02 million pounds from 29.73 million pounds in 2015. Gross collection of post-consumer carpet increased by 4%, from 103 million pounds in 2015 to 107.2 million pounds in 2016.