I had the pleasure of attending the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) sixth annual conference this year in Clearwater Beach, Fla. This group, a division of the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI), has the mission of developing market-based solutions for the recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet. Carpet manufacturers, recycling and waste management professionals, government officials, and environmentalists all gathered to help CARE toward its mission.

A Fitting Venue

The conference was held at the Sandpearl Resort. The facility has been open for eight months, and has applied for LEED Silver certification. It’s also part of the Florida Green Lodging Program. To achieve these certifications, the Sandpearl Resort has addressed water care and conservation with a geothermal pool heating system, water-saving faucets, toilets, showerheads, laundry equipment, and irrigation systems to save thousands of gallons of water annually. Sandpearl has been committed to the storage and collection of recyclable materials since the construction process. This includes everything from reducing heat gain with underground parking to using only biodegradable products for the organically grown food available at the restaurants and convenience stores — even for spa therapies. In addition, this beautiful resort also offers educational green tours of the facility twice a week so visitors can learn more about LEED and the environment.

Eyeing the Quicksilver

This year, we took a tour of the Quicksilver recycling center. This recycling center recycles nylon 6, nylon 6,6 and foam backing. Containers have been placed at carpet stores throughout the area to process the post-consumer carpet. Quicksilver will unload approximately seven to eight containers of carpet per day, which converts to about 27 to 30 bales of carpet. These bales are then sent to a recycling facility where it can be processed back into new carpet or converted into another product.

Forging Ahead

Since CARE was established in 2002, it reports that it has diverted one billion pounds of carpet from landfills! A full annual report is available at www.carpetrecovery.org.

Among the many projects that it works on, CARE was instrumental in the recently released NSF 140 sustainable carpet standard — after a five-year ANSI certification process. Sustainable Facility’s sister publication, ED+C, will be presenting an NSF 140 webinar with CRI on June 25th at 2:00 p.m. Georgina Sikorski, acting executive director of CARE will be the speaker. You can sign up to learn more about this sustainable carpet standard at www.EDCmag.com .

Do You CARE?

Left, Larrry Moot, 2007 CARE Person of the year winner. Right is Russ Delozier, 2008 CARE Person of the year.

If you are not familiar with CARE, I urge you to find out more, get involved and recycle the carpet on your projects. Whether you work with commercial or residential projects, please make every effort to divert from landfill and recycle that carpet. If you need further information on locations or additional information please be sure to visit www.carpetrecovery.org.

Sidebar: The People Who Make it Happen

Diana Brown with Bob Peoples at the CARE 2008 conference.

Each year CARE gives out awards to the members that have contributed to the recycling initiatives. Although I would like to recognize all of them, we only have room to focus on one — the CARE Person of the Year. This year’s winner is Russ DeLozier from Shaw Industries. For a full list of award winners, visit www.carpetrecovery.org .

Also deserving of recognition is Bob Peoples for his dedication to the carpet industry and CARE. Bob has been the executive director of CARE since 2004. This year, Bob has been given an opportunity to take his knowledge beyond the carpet industry. Although he has accepted the position of Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, we won’t lose him entirely — he will continue his involvement in the carpet industry on the board of director’s for CARE.