One of the goals of the differentiated fee program to be implemented next year is to provide consumers with financial incentives to purchase carpets with recycled content. | ND700/Shutterstock

If the carpet contains at least 10% recycled content, then starting from April next year, California consumers will pay a lower recycling system fee at the checkout counter.

Under Golden State’s current Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program, consumers pay 35 cents per square yard for all types of carpets, and the management organization Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) uses this money to fund collection and recycling systems. 

On October 28, CARE announced that it had obtained conditional approval from the state regulatory agency to implement a differentiated fee program in California. According to the new charging standard, consumers will pay 33 cents per square yard for wide-width carpets that contain 10% or more recycled content, while consumers will pay 35 cents for carpets with a lower percentage of recycled content. They will pay 48 cents per square yard for carpet tiles containing 10% or more recycled content, and 50 cents for carpet tiles with less recycled content (CARE recycled carpet tiles are more expensive than wide-width carpets). 

The differential charging method conforms to the concept of ecological regulation. The idea is that if a manufacturer’s product has a greater environmental impact and/or collection and recycling costs are higher, the EPR program will charge the manufacturer a higher fee to fund the collection and recycling system. For example, a packaging company may pay a higher cost per package for its multi-layer flexible packaging, which is usually not recyclable on the roadside and has low commodity value, while aluminum beverage cans are the highest on the roadside. Commodity value. 

According to the Sustainable Packaging Alliance’s EPR Proposal Guidelines, the packaging EPR bills signed into law by the states of Maine and Oregon include adjustment fee requirements. In addition, last year, three experts from the EPR project wrote an in-depth article for Resource Recycling on important considerations when using ecological regulation. 

As far as California’s carpet plan is concerned, it is of course that consumers, not producers, pay for it. One goal of this fee is to provide financial incentives for the purchase of recycled content carpets. For example, PET bottles are recycled to produce polyester fiber carpets. 

The difference assessment will take effect on April 1, 2022 and is required by legislation signed in 2019. Parliamentary Act No. 729 made some changes to the EPR program, including requiring the use of a differential charging method. CARE recently submitted a discrepancy assessment plan to the California Department of Recycling and Recycling (CalRecycle) and obtained conditional approval. 

In 2020, CARE achieved a carpet recycling rate of 21% in California, which was higher than the previous year's 19%, but still below the legal target of 24%.

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