The Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) is forging ahead with its mission to increase the landfill diversion and recycling of post-consumer carpet. CARE’s new Five-Year Plan, which was fully approved by CalRecycle earlier this year, allows the organization to continue to support the carpet recycling industry in California in an effort to keep more carpet out of landfills, create jobs and promote more products made with recycled carpet, says executive director Bob Peoples.

It’s a positive year for the organization, says Peoples, and CARE is working diligently to meet all requirements and to hit the 24% statutory recycling rate by January 1, 2020. “Things are starting to move finally after several years of stagnant times,” said Peoples. “We are starting to get some movement, which is exciting. There’s a lot of attention with all the plastic waste around the world and marine plastic. That’s causing the people that are on the frontlines that make that stuff, especially around packing, to stop and say we have to own this. We have to do something about it.”

As a result, Peoples is happy to report that major names like Pepsi, Evian and Nestlé are making commitments to use recycled content in their products.

Additionally, brand owners are driving an interest in post-consumer carpet. “That’s causing the people that are generating it and processing it to say we need to invest in making more in a formula that you can use,” said Peoples. “So for example, in addition to doing all this carpet stuff, we have companies like Proctor and Gamble, Eastman Chemical, Indorama—the largest pet manufacturer in the world—saying we are going to take this stuff back, purify it so you can make brand new stuff out of it, but it will be derived from post-consumer.”

As CARE continues to grow, the organization has brought a new product and market development manager in California on board to further facilitate the growth of products and markets to meet its targets.

For more information, visit carpetrecovery.org.