2_15_09. Suggested Demo Materials:

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1 Welcome to this course on The Carpet Industry and Sustainability. This course is one of a series of presentations about Sustainability developed by the Carpet and Rug Institute, the national trade association for the carpet industry. Note to Presenters: Regular typeface script--italics typeface suggested activities or additional information FYI Suggested Demo Materials: (Several of these are on your course CD so that t you can print copies to distribute ib t or to participants, i t if you choose.) Green Source Magazine article New Standard Assures Sustainability in Carpets. (on CD) Carpet America Recovery Effort 2007 Independent Assessment prepared by Waste Alliance. Available on the CARE website at CARE Annual Report available at CARE website at (on the CD) Information from carpet-rug.org CRI Sustainability Report and use the Environmental/Sustainability Downloadable Fact Sheet appropriate for your audience (residential, A&D, etc.) CARE Fact Sheet (on the CD) Samples of pellets, fibers, and backings (no brand names), especially recycled or recyclable products, to show that quality is maintained. Any charts/graphs that might show sustainable efforts at a company (without company name). CARE Brochure (on the CD) Additionally, CRI has two other courses that cover the environmental aspect of the carpet industry. They are CRI 701: The Carpet Industry and Sustainability, and CRI 703: Sustainability: The Green Carpet Standard NSF

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3 This course will help you to understand the innovations in the carpet industry s recycling efforts. It will address sustainability and the key drivers of carpet recycling. We will identify ways to reuse and recycle carpet, address how much carpet is diverted from landfills as a result of recycling, and be able to identify new uses that companies have found for recycled carpet materials. 3

4 We are going to begin today by trying to get a global perspective on issues of sustainability and recycling. What are the drivers of sustainability worldwide? Then we will discuss the background of the carpet industry s movement towards recycling. Next we will discuss the progress we have been making as an industry and what the goals are. As we discuss progress, we ll talk about results to date and the contributions of industry and entrepreneurs. Finally, we will talk about some challenges in this process. 4

5 Before we talk about drivers of sustainability, let s define the term. Though relatively new, the term "sustainability" addresses how to make human economic systems last longer and have less impact on ecological systems. One of the first and most oft-cited definitions of sustainability is the one created by the Brundtland Commission, led by the former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The Commission defined sustainable development development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability means that we are placing importance upon meeting these needs for our children in the future, or our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren. We want to sustain the earth we have and the resources we use, so that future generations can have as much or more comfort and beauty in life as we have. 5

6 Sustainable practices must be economically, environmentally, and socially successful. A sustainable plan must be judged responsible, feasible, and effective by those three measures It would be easy to confuse recycling with sustainability. However, the truth is that recycling is only an activity within a sustainability program. Sustainability is an operational concept; it s a way of running an organization. For a plan to be sustainable, it must successfully meet each tenet of the triple bottom line. They work together most of the time and regularly overlap. Most of the time, the action will have positive social, economic, and environmental consequences. Sometimes the plan will have only economic and environmental consequences. For example, paying $50 to fix a leaking water seal on a machine is economically and environmentally responsible the lost water would have cost far more than the $50 cost of maintenance (economic benefit) and the saved water reduces the environmental impact. Sustainability is just that simple. The problem comes when these tenets don t clearly support each other. Although less common than most would expect, a little creativity is sometimes required to create a plan or operation that is truly sustainable. 6

7 Raise your hand if you ve heard environmental issues in the news this year. What are some of the headlines you ve been hearing? Tie their answers back in to the drivers on the list. For example, if someone mentions melting icecaps, say Yes, that is a good example of climate change. Keep the conversation centered around these news items as examples of global drivers of sustainability, which is also driving carpet recycling. As the world population increases, global competition for energy, water and raw materials will also increase. Other drivers include climate change, natural resource depletion, and government policies such as the possibility of restrictions on carbon like carbon cap and trade. Geo-political tensions, many of which are influenced by these drivers, has also affected the sustainability movement. Finally, the marketplace has adjusted its expectations to take sustainability into account. Consumers expect producers to take responsibility for the end of the product s life. That means customers expect products that can be reused or kept out of the landfill through recycling. Customers also expect recycled content in products. 7

8 Carpet is mainly composed of petroleum-based raw materials such as fiber and various backing systems. The tipping point occurs when oil hits a certain price point and the decision must be made whether it is more economic to buy virgin fiber or recycled fiber? These questions must be asked: Is there adequate volume? Is the supply consistent? Is the quality consistent? Is it economically viable? When it hits the equilibrium, you expect to see more use and purchase of recycled items because of the additional environmental benefits. On one side of the scales are virgin materials; the other side contains recycled materials. Supply and demand fight to tip the scales and determine which one is used and purchased more, virgin or recycled. 8

9 When we discussed drivers of sustainability, we touched on population growth. Population growth will be an important factor in the future of the carpet industry. New cities in emerging nations will require the use of many more natural resources. Construction in developing countries will require vast amounts of resources. Also, the emerging population is growing most significantly in its middle class. At this level there are millions of new consumers. This new middle class will consume more carpet now and will be looking for ways of dealing with expended carpets in 8-12 years. 9

10 In any given year, carpet accounts for over 1 percent of all municipal solid waste by weight, or about 2 percent by volume. The bulky nature of carpet and the variety of materials used in its manufacture often create handling, collection, and recycling problems for local and state governments. According to carpet industry estimates, approximately 4.7 billion pounds of carpet were discarded in the United States in 2002 which means that only 3.8 percent of total carpet discards were recycled in the United States in In 2009, the expected amount of discarded carpet will be approximately 5.9 billion pounds. (according to calculations on sales and life span by the Carpet and Rug Institute.) That is why landfill diversion is SO important and how it drives the recycling effort. 10

11 The carpet industry has had a long history of pro-active commitment to sustainable practices. Industry commitment to carpet reclamation and sustainability have exceeded $300 million in the past 10 years. And, they have developed innovative partnerships among a diverse set of stakeholders. Other industries recognize the carpet industry as a sustainability leader Manufacturers are working to manage the end of life of their products. To date this can be accomplished in four ways: 1. Reuse 2.Chemical Recycling 3.Mechanical Recycling 4.Waste to Energy Post-consumer carpet is able to be recycled back into carpet and carpet components. In addition, post-consumer carpet can be recycled into a feedstock for building materials, for example, in concrete, erosion control devices, plastics and asphalt. (More examples on slide 13). Carpet manufacturers have untaken a variety of recycling efforts since the early 90 s. One carpet manufacturer has a nylon recycling plant that breaks down post-consumer carpet and then turns it into the original material used to make nylon carpet fiber. Other manufacturers have been recycling carpet components into other carpet components, such as backing systems or pad, for almost two decades. ANSI/NSF makes provision for credit to be granted for End of Life Management techniques. The manufacturer has to document that the product is recyclable and that they participate in a recycling program. (For more information on this topic, see CRI 703, Sustainability and the Green Carpet Standard.) 11

12 Examples of reclamation and recycled carpet include creating polyester carpet out of recycled #1 plastic beverage bottles, recycling carpet into new carpet components, recycling of samples books and carpet cores and refurbishing used carpet modules. Let s look at an example a common water bottle. (Hold one up for the group.) Once a #1 plastic bottle is used by a consumer, it is considered a post consumer product. Bottles with the #1 designation on them can be chipped up and recycled into carpet fiber and backing. An interesting fact is that one carpet company is one of the world s largest recyclers of bottles, taking approximately 25% of all the plastic beverage and food bottles collected in North America and recycling them into carpet fibers. Other carpet companies recycled PET for both fiber and backing. The ability to recycle diverts an enormous amount of PET plastic from landfills. According to NAPCOR, recycling one ton of PET saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space. And, it takes fourteen 20 oz. PET bottles to make one square foot of carpet. Over 4 billion bottles come to the carpet industry of all colors and in all types of resins as are identified by the universal recycling numbers, 1-8. Then they are sorted and processed, and #1 bottles can be recycled for fiber. And, other numbered bottles, like #2 might be reprocessed into the white packaging peanuts. Then, the others bottles are flaked and made into items, such as caps for cores or for carpet cushion and others. Or, the flaked chips can be sold into injection molded parts for automotive use. Source: NAPCOR: National Association for PET Container Resources. 12

13 Entrepreneurs have been innovative in finding uses for recycled carpet materials. Here are some examples: Synthetic hay bales and filters Plastic parts Automotive component parts Composite railroad ties Composite decking Drainage field systems Synthetic pine straw Sound barrier for highways Geotextiles 13

14 Concrete composites COAL combined with PCC carpet into synfuels (synthetic fuels) Carpet to ethanol Carpet to carpet components Erosion control systems Pelletized carpet feedstock Fiber reinforcement for asphalt Shingles, Backerboard and Sheet Goods 14

15 We have discussed what individual companies are doing with recycling. But the carpet industry has gone beyond individual companies creating recycled products. They have come together to partner with the government and non-governmental organizations to create a national agreement on how to increase the amount of recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet, and to reduce the amount of waste carpet going to landfills. The name of the agreement is the Memorandum of Understanding for Carpet Stewardship (MOU). It is organized by a 3 rd party called Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE). CARE s Mission Statement read: To facilitate market driven solutions for the diversion of post-consumer carpet from landfills to meet the goals of the national Agreement on Recycling Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Some of the things the stakeholders agree to do through CARE are to: Enhance the collection infrastructure for post-consumer carpet. Serve as a resource for technical, economic and market development opportunities for recovered carpet. Develop and perform quantitative measurement and reporting on progress toward the national goals for carpet recovery. Work collectively to seek and provide funding opportunities for activities to support the national goals for carpet recovery. Facilitate a free flow of information and connect key participants across the nation. Additional information is available on the CARE website at 15

16 This graph shows the targets set by the Memorandum of Understanding. This agreement is meant to promote the concept of product stewardship, which asks manufacturers to reduce the environmental impacts of their products throughout its lifecycle. By the year 2012, they had set a goal to recycle more than 2.5 billion pounds of carpet. Each year the carpet industry has experienced double-digit growth in the quantity diverted. So even though end market demand has decreased during challenging economic conditions, including a reduction in housing starts/sales and a decline automotive sales, progress is still being made. Why does this affect recycling? Because reduction in housing starts/sales means less new carpet going into new homes. And, a reduction in auto sales means that less recycled materials are needed for plastic auto parts. Post-consumer carpet products are used to build houses. Although new carpet is part of the issue, the other products used to build houses that contain recycled carpet is the larger problem. There is plenty of old carpet available for recycling. The key is finding uses for it in the market place. (Automotive and building materials) Additional Information When the Memorandum of Understanding was created, they used a linear model to set goals for each year. (That is designated by the line label MOU Targets.) That linear model has been combined with a Bass Curve of Innovation, the S-curve line that is often used to explain what occurs when a new product/process enters the marketplace. It shows what might be expected during the initial product introduction and then during the acceptance phase. Whenever there s a new product/process introduced, like a cell phone, for example, consumers may accept the new item slowly at first. But then, there s often exponential growth in acceptance; and, after some time, the acceptance reaches a leveling off point and may even start to decline slightly. As a product increases in technology and demand, the price will decrease. *S-curve calculated by the staff at the Georgia Institute of Technology 16

17 Major carpet and fiber manufacturers and government entities have joined together to create the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE). CARE s mission is to develop market-based solutions for the recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet. They set a goal for this voluntary approach to divert 40% of carpet from landfills by the year CARE understands that the highest value of diversion is in the reuse and recycling of the product. This is why CARE s goals seek to use recycling and reuse at a higher level than waste-to-energy. In addition, the goals also include the following percentages of use of post consumer carpet (as shown in diagram at bottom right). Reuse: 3 to 5 percent of carpet annually by Recycling: 20 to 25 percent of carpet annually by Cement kilns: (use of recovered carpet as an alternative fuel source and as an additive in cement production): 3 percent annually by Waste-to-energy: 1 percent of carpet annually by Source: Carpet Data Discards. If you want to learn more, please visit the CARE web site at 17

18 This chart shows how much carpet has been diverted from the landfill, starting in 2002 and taking it all the way through The 296 million pounds for 2007 reached well beyond the estimated goal of 290 million pounds for the year. We are currently at about 5% total diversion; although the MOU target states we should have achieved 20% by this time. It was an extremely ambitious goal, yet CARE stakeholders do feel that the target goals will be reached some time in the future. 18

19 And, here s what s been accomplished in million pounds of carpet were diverted from landfills, with recycling leading the way at 93%. This Pie Chart reveals the means by which the carpet was diverted. Recycling: 93% Waste-to-Energy: 6% Cement Kilns: 1% Reuse: None If you want to learn more, please visit the CARE web site at 19

20 This graph shows the locations of the approximately 60 recycling and reclamation centers in the United States. Additional Information. (If you have an internet connection, you can follow this link to the map on CARE s website and show other parts of the website.) The chart is updated frequently, so for the most up to date chart, go to 20

21 Let s just assume we were able to divert 250,000 square yards from the landfill in a given year. What kind of environmental impact might that have? It would save landfill space, save energy, avert greenhouse gas and save water. We ll share the specifics in the next few slides. Note to Instructor: Sources for these figures were the Carpet Reclamation Impact Calculator, based on life cycle analysis by DuPont, and the Industry Assessment on Greenhouse Gas Diverted based on research by Zero Waste Alliance. If you want to learn more, please visit the CARE web site at 21

22 First, it would save 5,000 cubic yards of landfill space. 5.6 billion pounds is the estimated amount of carpet currently going to landfills, based on an 8 to 12 year average lifecycle, that could be recovered, recycled, and/or reused. Note to Instructor: t Sources for these figures were the Carpet Reclamation Impact Calculator, based on life cycle analysis by DuPont, and the Industry Assessment on Greenhouse Gas Diverted based on research by Zero Waste Alliance. If you want to learn more, please visit the CARE web site at 22

23 Then it could save 10 BTUs of energy (which could heat 55 homes for a full year.) Note to Instructor: Sources for these figures were the Carpet Reclamation Impact Calculator, based on life cycle analysis by DuPont, and the Industry Assessment on Greenhouse Gas Diverted based on research by Zero Waste Alliance. More information available at the CARE web site at 23

24 Additionally, 7M pounds of greenhouse gas would not be created. Note to Instructor: Sources for these figures were the Carpet Reclamation Impact Calculator, based on life cycle analysis by DuPont, and the Industry Assessment on Greenhouse Gas Diverted based on research by Zero Waste Alliance (2007). More information available at the CARE web site at 24

25 This chart shows the amount of carbon that could be offset from the atmosphere by recycling carpet. Basically, 1.96 metric tons of carbon would NOT go into the atmosphere if we recycled that carpet instead of sending it to a landfill. The carpet offsets are compared to creating and using virgin materials. If we were to use recycled materials versus creating the material from scratch, we would save 1.96 Metric Tons Carbon Equivalent per each Ton of carpet recycled. For example, if a company used virgin material in the production of a product, that would release 1.96 MTCE more carbon into the atmosphere than if the company would have used recycled material to make the same product. Source: CARE Independent Assessment Zero Alliance 25

26 3 million gallons of water would be saved. Remember, 5.6 billion pounds is the estimated amount of carpet currently going to landfills, based on an 8-12 year average lifecycle, that could be recovered, recycled, and/or reused. Based on these calculations, we MUST work toward these goals! Note to Instructor: Sources for these figures were the CARE Carpet Reclamation Impact Calculator, based on life cycle analysis by DuPont, and the Industry Assessment on Greenhouse Gas Diverted based on research by Zero Waste Alliance (2007). 26

27 Since there were 296 million pounds of carpet recycled, and each 1 million pounds recycled creates two jobs, the total number of jobs created by these recycling efforts has been 592! So, the human impact is substantial. Source: Carpet America Recovery Effort, 2007 Independent Assessment org/pdf/assessment/2007 Assessm ent.pdf 27

28 How much discarded carpet is available? Well, in a city of 1 million people, an average of approximately 17 million pounds of carpet will be discarded in that area annually. Source: entaions/thursday/delozier_collections_101.pdf. 28

29 CARE s main challenge is to bring all the links of the chain of recycling and sustainability together. First, we must facilitate and bring together five different processes: collection, sorting, processing, more end use outlets and marketing the concept of carpet reclamation. Collection: First the carpet must be collected and consolidated by whatever means into large useable quantities. Sorting: Generally, it is sorted by fiber type; although it may also be sorted by the type of backing or by whether it s broadloom or tile. Barriers to effective recycling of carpet include the lack of an established infrastructure for collection and processing of discarded carpet, especially from residential sources. In addition, carpet manufacturers and recyclers have been concentrated in the southeastern United States, resulting in logistical issues for carpet recycling in other parts of the country. 29

30 Then CARE must work to facilitate venues for the processing link. Processing involves preparing the post-consumer carpet into a useable form for the end market, such as shredding, stacking, rolling, baling and depolymerizing. We also have to facilitate the development of more end use markets and applications for recycled materials. With more and more green building initiatives, we feel that specifiers will be requiring the use of recycled materials in their specifications. 30

31 And, as far as the marketing link, CARE stakeholders must First, let people know that carpet recycling is a viable option, and second, let people know there are products that contain recycled content. Tools to increase awareness include: Expanding end use markets and publicizing those. CARE Conference CARE Website Entrepreneur Meeting Annual Reports Conference Exhibits Presentations Press Releases and media Interviews Government Partnerships Carpet Industry Partnerships NGO Partnerships Procurement Specifications 31

32 And, there are other challenges that must be addressed. For example, we must find a way to provide geographical coverage across the U.S. We must facilitate and support funding for partnerships in the carpet recovery effort. We must work to find more new products and buyers for all collected fibers, and encourage the procurement of recycled products, both in private industry and on government contracts. We must be sensitive to economic cycles and how that affects reclamation; we must find a way to document the various processes involved, and we must work to help entrepreneurs who want to get into the recycling and reclamation business to start and grow their businesses. 32

33 In summary, The carpet industry is a leader in sustainability and one that other industries look to for helping to set standards. The carpet industry is an innovator in recycling. Carpet recycling will only increase. 33

34 CARE works with the Carpet and Rug Institute to develop science-based information and insight into how carpet and rugs can create a better environment - for living, working, learning and healing. We hope you will visit the website for more in-depth information on the Carpet American Recovering Effort. What questions do you have? 34

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