Werner Braun: Recycling carpet, executive directors

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August 17, 2012

Werner Braun: Recycling carpet, executive directors

Anonymous The Dalton Daily Citizen Fri Aug 17, 2012, 08:58 AM EDT

It’s often said that good things come back around.

Sometimes, that applies to people, too.

It’s certainly the case with the “coming back around” of Robert “Bob” Peoples as the new executive director of the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE). He was actually the first executive director of CARE, holding the post beginning in 2004, and he led the organization for four years before leaving to take the reins of another executive post.

Most of you probably know CARE is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing landfill diversion through the reuse and recycling of carpet. What makes CARE an especially attractive organization in the 21st century is that it provides market-based solutions to better the environment while creating economic incentives for recycling.

It also promotes the use and development of products containing materials derived from carpet. CARE members include independent carpet recyclers, carpet manufacturers, dealers, retailers, suppliers and non-governmental organizations.

Since CARE was founded in 2002, the organization has diverted more than two billion pounds of carpet from landfills in the United States.

And just in the past year alone, CARE has racked up a number of impressive accomplishments which were recognized during the Carpet and Rug Institute’s (CRI) annual meeting earlier this year. They include:

• 333 million pounds of carpet wastes being diverted from landfills in 2011

• 250 pounds of diverted carpet being recycled back into carpet and other consumer products

• The CARE Certified Collectors Program being launched in 2011, which now uses the services of 75 certified collectors across the nation

• The nonprofit carpet recycling group increasing its membership to more than 400, a 17 percent gain

Bob’s experience with CARE dates to before CARE even had an executive director. As a dedicated volunteer during the organization’s early days, Bob was named “CARE Person of the Year” for 2003.

Bob has a very impressive background. He earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry and mathematics from Montclair State University, a master’s in science in physical organic chemistry and a doctorate in physical organic chemistry from Purdue University.

Before coming to CARE the first go-round, he worked as director of nylon technology at Solutia. He served most recently as the executive director of the American Chemistry Society’s Green Chemistry Institute.

It’s clear that Bob’s experience in sustainability, the carpet industry and the CARE organization itself make him the ideal choice to be our next executive director.

While CRI Vice Chairman Brendan McSheehy headed the search committee for this opening, he joked, “I guess this proves that executive directors can be recycled as well as carpet.”

We look forward to working — and recycling — with Bob to move CARE’s goals of used carpet diversion and recovery meaningfully forward.

Werner Braun is president of the Dalton-based Carpet and Rug Institute.

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