by Suna Bayrakal, PhD
Director, Policy and Programs
After Governor Hochul signed the legislation last week, New York became the second state after California to enact a carpet EPR law – and the first in the nation to include artificial turf. PSI was cited by NRDC and others as playing a significant role in advancing the legislation. “The enactment of New York’s carpet EPR bill benefited from two decades of advocacy from experts across the country, including those from state and local governments, environmental groups, and carpet recyclers,” said Scott Cassel, PSI’s CEO and founder. “This next-generation carpet EPR law is yet another indication that the overwhelming public sentiment is for producers to take responsibility to prevent negative impacts from their products and packaging all through their lifecycle.”
Spearheaded by Senator Brian Kavanagh and outgoing Assemblymember Steve Englebright, the bill passed both the Senate and Assembly in May and was expected to be signed quickly by Governor Kathy Hochul. Enactment was delayed in part by controversy over a proposed insertion of language that would have expanded the definition of “recycling” to include “chemical recycling” technologies such as pyrolysis, which many organizations, including PSI, consider energy recovery as it. The additional language was not included in the law.
Although the national average for carpet recycling is 5%, the rate in New York is just 1% — each year, the state sends 515 million pounds of unused or discarded carpet to fill up New York landfills or be burned in waste-to-energy plants. Local governments and businesses spend more than $22 million annually to dispose of it.
The New York carpet EPR law is a significant upgrade to the nation’s first carpet EPR law, enacted in 2010 in California, which was heavily promoted by the carpet industry. The New York law establishes mandatory goals for recycling and post-consumer content in new carpet, convenient collection statewide, education and awareness, and the phase out of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from new carpet production. It will also establish a multi-stakeholder advisory board to advise producers and the state, which oversees the program. Requiring carpet producers to finance and manage the collection and recycling of scrap carpet removes the financial burden of managing this bulky material from local governments and taxpayers and will reduce the energy needed to make new carpet, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and saving valuable natural resources.
The bill will also help create permanent full-time recycling jobs. Since the enactment of California’s law and two subsequent amendments, the state has created 500 direct and indirect jobs and, in 2021, achieved an annual carpet recycling rate of 27%. Projections show that New York could achieve those same goals in fewer than five years, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 165,000 tons per year, which is equivalent to taking 32,000 cars off the road.