Onerous recycling bill voted into law in California

AB 863 will have implications that haven’t been considered, CRI said.

California AB 863, which makes changes to the state’s existing carpet recycling stewardship program while drawing the ire of the flooring industry, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom late last month.

AB 863 replaces the current carpet recycling program with what many flooring executives say is a complicated new program that is both untested, unproven and more costly. Note: The recycling of resilient flooring, turf and pad—which was in the original bill— was not included in the final bill.

Flooring retailers said the new mandates will increase costs for California consumers while forcing manufacturers to have one set pricing for California dealers and a separate rate for retailers elsewhere.

“The passage of AB 863 is detrimental to the state of California, California consumers and the entire carpet industry—and it upends progress that has been made by the industry to advance the state’s ambitious environmental goals,” said Russ DeLozier, president of The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI). “While there will be ramifications with this legislative outcome, including implications for consumers, manufacturers and retailers, we look forward to collaborating with all stakeholders—including industry, the legislature, the administration and CalRecycle—on future efforts to improve the program and continue working toward California’s ambitious environmental goals.”

DeLozier said the current carpet program’s successful and ongoing results, administered by the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), now face an uncertain future as AB 863 will have implications that have not been carefully or thoughtfully considered, observers say.

AB 863 requires all producers to join a single plan under CalRecycle to sell covered products in California. Further, the bill increases enforcement penalties and ineligibility for CARE to up to $25,000 per day and establishes audit standards to improve CalRecycle’s ability to oversee the program. Finally, AB 863 allocates 8% of funds dedicated to workforce development through approved apprenticeship programs to improve carpet recycling practices throughout the state.

AB 863 would also require carpets sold in California to have 5% recycled content by 2028 but would not allow carpet makers to count material from plastic bottles toward that mandate. It’s designed to force carpet makers to use more recycled carpet material into new carpets.

AB 863 would require carpets sold in California to have 5% recycled content by 2028 but would not allow material from bottles to count toward that mandate.

Retailers not happy

Not surprisingly, California retailers were not pleased with the new law, which they see as another tax. “The tax keeps going up and up,” said Brett Hemphill, owner of Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets, Costa Mesa, Calif. “It started off at a nickel, and we are on our way to a dollar. I think CARE realizes the consumer is seeing a big number for the ‘stewardship fee’ on their invoice and are questioning it. The next step is to hide the fee by having the manufacturer include the fee in its pricing. Then the manufacturer will have to have a different price list for California dealers. I am so disgusted with the whole deal. Flooring dealers are just puppets in the game.”

Rick Oderio, owner of Conklin Bros., San Jose, Calif., was similarly blunt. “This makes me angry,” he said. “California is a disaster. It is nothing more than another money grab. I’m afraid California is lost.”

Janice Clifton, owner of Abbey Carpets Unlimited in Napa, took a more measured approach, adding she was not clear on how AB 863 will affect her business but acknowledged it will greatly impact the companies and organizations currently working on recycling carpet.

“I feel recycling of carpet has been increasing every year and it is getting easier to find recycling centers, so I’m just not at all sure why this bill was necessary,” she said. “I haven’t seen anything to let us know exactly how it will affect our customers. We are used to paying for many things for recycling purposes in California so most of my customers don’t care about the fee. I’m not sure how they intend to move forward with this new legislation, so we will need to wait and see.”

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