Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) held its Seventh Annual Entrepreneur Meeting on October 27, 2010 at the Hilton Garden Inn Millennium Center in College Park, Georgia. CARE hosted over 97 representatives from over 90 different organizations with a vested interest in the carpet recycling industry.
According to CARE Executive Director Georgina Sikorski, the purpose of the CARE Entrepreneur Meeting is, "To focus on the needs and issues of the entrepreneurial carpet collection and processing community in a collegial and open atmosphere, while providing an informal networking forum for the attendees of the meeting."
Judging by attendance at this year's meeting, interest in the carpet recycling industry continues to grow. For more than half of this year's attendees, this year's event was their first CARE meeting.
To help acquaint new attendees with the details of carpet recycling, Dee Cassell, president of The Reclamation Depot, hosted a Carpet Recycling 101 information session, where she pointed out that carpet is one of the top ten most common items in the country going to landfills. "Understanding what the collectors do, how to approach the market, and the significance of pricing to the market can help an entrepreneur put a successful business plan together," explains Cassell.
Attendees also addressed emerging opportunities in the carpet recycling industry, California's recently-enacted AB 2398 Carpet Stewardship legislation, Carpet as An Alternative Fuel (CAAF), the emerging Canadian Carpet Reclamation Effort (CCRE), Plastic Specification Sheets, and the increasing market outlets that use post-consumer carpet feedstock.
"The 2010 Entrepreneur Meeting was a tremendous success, with more than 80 entrepreneurs in attendance, all looking to create green jobs. Given the poor economy and uncertain political climate, the enthusiasm shown by CARE members demonstrates the ideal that American ingenuity and hard work leads to success," said Sean Ragiel, president of CarpetCycle and Entrepreneur CARE Board Member.
CARE was formed as a result of the Memorandum of Understanding for Carpet Stewardship (MOU), a national agreement signed by members of the carpet industry, representatives of government agencies at the federal, state and local levels and non-governmental organizations. CARE works to develop market-based solutions for recovering value from discarded carpet in order to facilitate the achievement of the organization's ultimate goal of a 40% diversion rate of post consumer carpet from the nation's landfills.
Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE)
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