With two simultaneous grand openings, on opposite sides of Ventura County, local carpet recycling capacity will triple on March 3. The Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center, with a public event at 2 p.m., and Gold Coast Recycling and Transfer Station in Ventura, with a private event that morning, will join Oxnard’s Del Norte Regional Recycling and Transfer Station in offering free drop-off of carpet and carpet pad.
Carpet and carpet pad must be delivered separate from other discards. Both the Simi Valley and the Oxnard sites offer free carpet recycling for both commercial and residential customers, while the Ventura site will be free only for residents.
Despite carpet collection that is free for drop-off in Ventura County, the actual carpet recycling process is expensive. Sorting bulky rolls by fiber type, separating components of carpet, and using reclaimed materials to manufacture new products, requires a lot of labor. Hauling from Ventura County to distant recyclers, such as Los Angeles Fiber, in Vernon, is also expensive. The program is possible due to a subsidy paid to recyclers from carpet-industry-led, non-profit organization, Carpet America Recovery Effort – CARE.
A coalition of carpet manufacturers formed CARE in 2002. With their sense of corporate responsibility perhaps heightened by legislative efforts to pass carpet recycling mandates at the time, CARE members agreed to voluntary goals, and then, in 2012, agreed to support Assembly Bill 2398, which began the system of funding carpet recycling with an assessment collected on the sale of new carpet. CalRecycle oversees and enforces the program, which includes ensuring the assessment funds are used in a manner consistent with the law.
CARE receives funding for this type of carpet recycling initiative from a state-mandated assessment placed on the sale of new carpet. That fee went up this month. Broadloom carpet with less than 10% post-consumer recycled content is assessed $1.05 per square yard, and if it has more than 10% recycled content, buyers are charged 96 cents per square yard. Carpet tile has different fees, at $1.49 per square yard for less than 10% post-consumer recycled content and $1.40 for more. This represents a rise of more than 37% over last year’s rates. While requesting this increase from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery – CalRecycle -, CARE responded to inflation, a need to improve market outlets, and requirements for grants and for increased reserve levels.
In the case of Ventura County, the single site in Oxnard, started with CARE funding in 2017, was not accessible enough to the population east of the Conejo Grade. For years, and most recently through CARE’s Local Government Task Force, the Ventura County Recycling Market Development Zone, which I administer, had been requesting CARE funding for additional sites above CARE’s minimum statutory requirements.
Three months ago, CARE offered one additional site to Ventura County and asked me to secure the best deal possible from a host site. Host sites must commit labor and space for receiving the carpet and loading it into trailers. Not all such sites are generous enough to accept this carpet free. However, first, WM, at the Simi Valley Landfill, and then Harrison Industries, at Gold Coast Recycling and Transfer Station, offered to meet this standard set when we first opened carpet recycling at Oxnard’s Del Norte Regional Recycling and Transfer Station in 2017. With two such great new offers, CARE agreed to support both, tripling Ventura County’s carpet recycling capacity.
Bob Hawse, owner of Hawse Abbey Carpet and Floors in Simi Valley, and Gilbert Sauceda, Sales Associate at Ventura Flooring 101, both said other flooring types are displacing carpet, but recyclability could add to carpet’s strong selling points. Both pointed out that carpet is “soft, quiet, and warm,” and Hawse added, “carpet is also good on stairs to avoid slippage.”
In the commercial sector, carpet tiles, rather than carpet rolls, help meet waste reduction goals. Commercial and public buildings (including the Ventura County Government Center) use flooring made from carpet squares, with nearly flat pile, because if a spill or other mishap damages part of the carpet, replacement can be limited to just the damaged squares. The rest of the carpet can continue to be used.
The public is invited to attend the carpet recycling opening at WM’s Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center at 2 p.m. on March 3, at 2801 Madera Road.
On the net:
David Goldstein
David Goldstein, an Environmental Resource Analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, may be reached at david.goldstein@ventura.org or (805) 658-4312
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