The Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) announced, pending CalRecycle approval, the California Carpet Assessment will increase on February 1, 2025. If approved by CalRecycle, the new assessment amounts will be:

The most recent assessment request was submitted to CalRecycle on November 8th. CalRecycle will review CARE's Differential Assessments Plan Amendment for compliance with statutory, regulatory, and Plan requirements.

Public comments may be submitted here via email; deadline is Friday, November 22, 2024.

CalRecycle’s director has 60 days to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove CARE’s plan amendment (by January 7, 2025.)

Why the Assessment Increase?

CARE Executive Director Bob Peoples adds some background to the need for an assessment increase:

CARE has been asked why the assessment continues to climb. Here is a high-level summary of the factors driving the increase.

• CalRecycle put a new demand that we build to a 6-month reserve balance by the end of 2025. That is a huge 1-year lift requiring us to add approximately $13M dollars in 2025.
• Program growth and success means higher costs.
• A new union earmark of up to 8% of revenue annually is going to be a new liability of up to $4M per year! That equates to about 8 cents per square yard based on current sales.
• Sales continue to decline. Thus, the base over which to spread the increased costs keeps shrinking.
• Inflation has contributed but is expected to have a smaller impact in 2025.

The new law going into effect in January will add additional costs down the road. We are working to try and understand these new requirements.

The annual report contains all the details of how assessment funds are spent. Here is the 2023 high-level breakdown (see page 77 of the California Program's 2023 Annual Report): 

• 78% of total expenses were paid directly to recyclers as subsidies.
• 13% of total expenses were used to provide statutory (that is mandatory) services such as education & outreach, grants, public drop off sites.
• 9% of total expenses paid for program administration including: CalRecycle fees, staff salaries, contractor services, accounting and legal.

CARE is audited every year by an independent audit firm and periodically by CalRecycle. We have received clean, unmodified audit results for many years – the best rating an organization can achieve.

"I'm proud of the accomplishments by the carpet recyclers under this program," said Peoples. "I'm proud of the hard, dedicated work of our team in advancing the program. We continue to make progress every year and strive to meet all statutory and regulatory requirements demanded by the state. Everything we do is in pursuit of those statute objectives. I am completely open to ideas for how we can continue to improve, and CARE is available to you or anyone else to answer any questions."