Weaving sustainability into carpet could be manufacturers’ responsibility

What’s harder than choosing that new carpet? Recycling your old one. But that could change.

A bill to expand producer responsibility by requiring they develop and finance a recycling program for used carpeting was laid over Tuesday for possible omnibus bill inclusion by the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division.

Rep. Rick Hansen

HF2267, sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul), seeks to create a “product stewardship” model based on past successes in the state with electronics and paint recycling.

Details of how the program would be developed and implemented would be the responsibility of producers, who would need to submit a plan to the Pollution Control Agency by March 21, 2021. That plan would need to be approved by the PCA in order for producers to sell carpet in the state after July 1, 2021.

An assessment would be applied to all new carpet sold in the state to fund the program.

”Extended producer responsibility allows for the entrepreneurs to work this out,” Hansen said. “…We are drowning in garbage.”

Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt attested to the need for carpet recycling.

The county has been working on recycling issues for over 20 years, Reinhardt said. Yet, while the amount of carpet waste is increasing each year, the percentage making it into recycling is not.

Nick Fiore, a founder of Circular Polymers in California, said if recycling is subsidized in the early stages, the industry will grow. California mandated carpet recycling eight years ago, and the subsidizing of that effort is now paying off, he said.

Fiore went so far as to indicate that he would be willing to build in Minnesota if a state carpet recycling program is implemented.

Kirk Koudelka, assistant commissioner at the PCA, said the agency supports the proposal and already has protections in place that would ensure trade secrets would not be revealed through recycling activities.

The companion, SF2300, sponsored by Sen. Chris Eaton (DFL-Brooklyn Center), awaits action by the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Legacy Finance Committee.