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March 28, 2024

Illinois Senator wants to tax your carpet –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On March 10, 2021

Springfield, IL. (ECWd) –

On March 3, 2021, Illinois Senator Melinda Bush SB0345, entitled the “Carpet Stewardship Act” which would implement “fee” or “assessment” (tax), per square yard, for all carpet sold in the State of Illinois.

Synopsis As Introduced
Creates the Carpet Stewardship Act. Provides that for all carpet sold in this State, producers shall, through a clearinghouse, implement and finance a statewide carpet stewardship program that manages the product by reducing the product’s waste generation, promotes its reuse and recycling, and provides for negotiation and execution of agreements to collect, transport, process, and market the product for end-of-life carpet recycling and carpet reuse. Requires the clearinghouse to be incorporated as a nonprofit. Provides that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency must approve the carpet stewardship plan for the plan to be valid. Establishes requirements for review of the plan, carpet stewardship assessments, and requirements for producers, retailers, and distributors of carpet. Requires the clearinghouse to submit annual reports to the Agency and pay specified administrative fees. Provides enforcement provisions for the Act. Establishes requirements for State procurement of carpet in the future. Contains other provisions. Effective immediately.

 

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38 Comments
  • Tracy Smodilla
    Posted at 13:46h, 10 March

    why don’t we just stop recycling the same old money-grabbing state legislature?

    • Gene Knierim
      Posted at 10:59h, 16 March

      She is insane.

  • jannie
    Posted at 15:03h, 10 March

    Never heard of this before, but CA has had it since 2011. It’s done to stop filling up the landfill with old carpet. I did read where in St. Louis & Farmingham MO there have recycled tons of carpet and kept it from the landfill. I think that idea is smart. In 2019 the legislation was proposed in IL and fought by the Floor covering Manf.. Is this tax the answer I don’t know, but we (public) will end up paying anyway, with the costs to our cities (towns) of the landfill.

  • PK
    Posted at 15:52h, 10 March

    Honestly, I like the idea of doing something better with worn-out floor coverings. However, it seems that industry, not government, belongs in the driver seat.

    Last year around this time, the Honorable Senator Melinda Bush filed a bill aimed at solving another environmental problem with shopping bag tax. I liked that idea too. However, unlike the industry onus for “Carpet Stewardship,” individual consumers can readily steward plastic bags.

    Here’s a sniglit for the rogue plastic shopping bag unsympathetically freed from its original purpose:

    bagblight, a noun, pronounced [bag-bē-līt] or [bag blight]
    One or more plastic shopping bags appearing as wind-blown litter in row-crop fields between fall harvest and spring planting.

  • jamie
    Posted at 16:19h, 10 March

    she can reuse my old carpet, the dog peed on it….I’ll pee on it too for good measure.

  • Jimmy Dominguez
    Posted at 17:02h, 10 March

    When does it stop! When do these politicians begin to tighten the belt on spending and stop using our tax dollars as their piggy bank for their pork projects.

    • Kathie H.
      Posted at 23:29h, 10 March

      We wouldn’t be in this dire situation if the Fair Tax passed.

      • PK
        Posted at 10:06h, 11 March

        Oh well, you have the Cannabis Tax Act and gambling fall back on.

      • Jeff Haynes
        Posted at 02:31h, 12 March

        Uh, no.

        • Greg
          Posted at 13:37h, 12 March

          Don’t forget the wonderful Illinois State Lottery that has single handily saved Illinois schools!

      • Joe
        Posted at 11:02h, 13 March

        There already is a fair tax. Everybody pays the same rate, how can it be more for than that? You must be referring to the tax plan that makes everybody who earns more than you may a higher rate. In who ‘s world, besides yours, is that fair? If you think you’re not paying enough, please feel free to send the State more of your money!

      • NiiteCat
        Posted at 13:27h, 13 March

        The flat tax is a fair tax. There is no law in IL prohibiting those who think they haven’t paid enough tax from sending the state an extra “conribution”. Don’t complain, just send IL an extra monthly check, there’s no limit on what you can send them. BTW, the same goes for the Federal Govt. too.

        For example
        Current IL tax rate 4.95% – straight, no deductions or credits
        Income: $1,0oo,ooo Tax: $49,500
        Your property taxes are probably just as high or higher at this income level
        Income: $100,000 Tax: $ 4,950
        Income: $10,000 Tax: $495 and at this income level you probably don’t even owe this depending on deductions or tax credits. You’d get a refund.
        What is “unfair” about this?

  • Kevin Grab
    Posted at 17:16h, 10 March

    Switch to vinyl or hardwood let’s tax her lipstick and glasses and have her get a refund on her college education WTF

    • Mark
      Posted at 02:50h, 11 March

      Unfortunately as usual, she has no clue that EVERY floor covering is an environmental issue but so is the cost increase to implement all this crap. Vinyl is a petrochemical as is the polyurethane that’s on wood, or the plastic that sits on top of a relatively strong fiber board also known as cardboard in laminate. Then the fastest growing segments of flooring isn’t carpet. It’s least expensive and taxing it anymore puts people on the edge of being to redo their homes maybe out of reach for the people who can’t afford it already. Unfortunately, people like this don’t think down to the human cost. It’s just being politically correct to look like she cares. She doesn’t even understand that the mills do a good job of recycling, but to add a tax, she just crushed the people living on slave wages already to give the mills a reason to move to a cheaper labor country like every other industry. The mills like this too. They don’t want to pay the wages here when they can go to China and get child, prison, and eve slave labor to make the products. thus crushing an industry still pretty dominated by America. But even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is for the guaranteed $15 dollar an hour range. Not because they care about people making a living wage because in Illinois, that’s just slightly above the poverty line. They are for it so they have a “legitimate reason” to take manufacturing somewhere other than here. All vinyl floors don’t break down in and fills, either does laminate, and wood can usually take decades unless it’s out in the elements. The finish protects it much like a weather seal would.
      But look at the lesser amount of flooring that will be sold. People at the mills will be laid off and eventually put onto a Universal Slave wage if they comply and take this toxic poison that’s not a vaccine, it’s a very dangerous attempt to mess with your DNA and RNA. making you more transhuman than human. There’s people scratching their heads right now wondering what the neck I’m talking about. Just don’t take especially the second poison toxin whe. you see all the people’s negative reactions to it. Not to mention the deaths from doctors who believed in this because they were indoctrinated into believing they know what’s best. I’ve had so many doctors injure me and one sitting in prison right now. they aren’t smarter than you. Most just love the money and go along with what Big Pharma says. I happen to know more than Fraudici and Bill Hate’s. They are into eugenics and world population control. People need to wake up because this will kill jobs in this country which is ALWAYS THE GOAL. From manufacturing less because we can’t keep up with slave labor costs and remain competitive, we’ll lose the manufacturing jobs there, the shipping jobs for the truck drivers, we’ll need less installers because there won’t be as much of ANY FLOORING PRODUCT TO INSTALL. Especially the most affordable one of all. Landlords that haven’t been able to collect rents since the Covid Scamdemic started need to put carpet in all the time to rent a place out. The garbage this ignorant person is talking about is absolutely nothing compared to the chemicals sprayed on our foods, the barium, the ionized aluminum, and so many other chemicals dropped from commercial jets on the population that is breathed in and passes through the blood brain barrier and along with “vaccines” are just some of the reasons that autism has explode which was never spoken f when i was a kid. Either was Alzheimer’s which was rare, and Parkinson’s was starting to become a problem by design too. ALL are the entire reason we have such a sick population!.
      I’ve been in the flooring industry since 1984. My wife and I started our first store in 1990. This is just another smokescreen to screw the people that are hoping to enter the market and force people when there are no more jobs to accept this poison shot in order to get their Central Bank Crypto Currency “Universal Income” which will be 100% trackable which has always been the goal. You all need to wake up. First to the fact there is a God and he loves people. Secondly, we aren’t free in America anymore. we only have the illusion of freedom.. disagree if you want, but there’s is no legitimate reason to wear a mask. It’s like asking a chain link fence to stop a piece of dust. But it is poisoning you with too much CO2 instead of more oxygen which makes you hypoxic which raises your cortisol levels which weakens your immune system. See Doctor Buttar who is on brighteon.com or minds.com, gab.com, anyone speaking the truth us deplatformed from Goolag. Stop being ignorant and look into the mask and don’t ever trust the CDC or Fraudici who changes his mind like I change my underwear. He’s the highest paid non-elected bureaucrat in Washington D.C. He also stands to make billions along with Gates and the pharmaceuticals who it’s been illegal to sue no matter what happens to you or your kid. since the mid eighties when these pharmaceuticals got together and told congress they were going to stop making them because too many people were getting sick and dying. If you want to sue now, you have to sue the federal government but I’m sure you can’t print money at nauseum which is why the dollar will not remain the world’s reserve currency much longer.. But this was nonsense in the grand scheme of things. but too many people trust government. Fools. . .

      • PK
        Posted at 10:30h, 11 March

        1.5% of landfill in Illinois is comprised of worn carpet and pad. The thermo-plastic resins used to make carpet fibers (nylon, polyester, polypropylene, etc) have a residual value far above the 1.5% going rate. Senator Bush chairs the senate committee on environment, so I’m pretty sure she knows a helluva lot more than you give her credit for.

  • Nik Groothuis
    Posted at 19:06h, 10 March

    Really,, woo THINKS of all this stuff? When is enough, enough??🙄🤷

  • Larry Ferguson
    Posted at 20:35h, 10 March

    Tax and Spend the Democrat playbook!

  • Roger Hann
    Posted at 21:31h, 10 March

    Another way for Illinois to take your savings. By taxes. Most crooked State.

  • Debbi
    Posted at 22:24h, 10 March

    You already pay sales tax on it. This is an asinine idea!

    • PK
      Posted at 00:21h, 11 March

      Welp, it helps to read the bill first.

    • bb
      Posted at 06:29h, 11 March

      Why not just set up carpet recycling centers Or mandate the co. Selling the New carpet to take old and recycle it? Where is the more Important coverage of the Gov’s giving FED Liheap$$ and snap or other American benefits to illegal yrespassers?Isnt this Fraud? We can not sneak into costa rica,canada,russia and fraudulently portray ourselves as legal immigrants and entitled to free school luches,free clothes,free utilities,free rent,free medical care,free food.Pritzker is supposed to uphold the State and Federal Constitutions and represent US,not the world.Many Americans could use utility,rent,and food help and deserve it.

      • PK
        Posted at 10:17h, 11 March

        Consumers can demand products, like carpeting, be manufactured with some recycled materials. I’ll put in for the carpet manufacturing industry, as it exists in the state of Georgia, to incorporate a more sustainable and environmentally friendly business models.

      • MJM
        Posted at 23:10h, 11 March

        That is exactly what it does. It mandates the manufacturer recycle it, but the consumer has to pay for it. I think it is needed, I have seen the results of the chemicals in landfills, and it will only get worse with time. Bush knows what she is doing on this one, I hope it passes.

  • NiteCat
    Posted at 22:45h, 10 March

    We had this at one time when Olson Rug in Chicago was still in business. All you had to do was send your used carpeting & woolens to them and they paid the freight charge for you to send it. Then they recycled the carpeting and woolens, spun new yarns and created new carpets in stock styles & colors or anything of the customer’s choosing. Look up their story on the internet fo things. Quite innovative for a company that was established in 1874 survived through 2 WW’s and remained in business until around the mid 60’s. The years after WWII began the dowfall of the company as the Fed. govt. stepped in with new rules on the manufacturing of carpeting.

    • Mark
      Posted at 03:05h, 11 March

      That’s true but it’s been decades regardless of what their samples say. My wife’s uncle worked at the one in Chicago so many years ago and they stopped making their own carpet at least 60 years ago. and when the did do that, they made it with wool, not a petrochemical fiber. Wool is the only carpet you could see the backing on when it wore out. I actually got one of their closed store phone numbers for a few years when we and some others put them out of business near where one of my stores are now. After a year their number became available and they were not in business in the area anymore. The moring a year later when their nuber became available, I got it so the people that had bought from them would call for them, but they were out of business.So we would explain to them why we got their number and picked up some business until their older customer base died off. they needed flooring anyway and we were better than they were and sold THE EXACT SAME PRODUCTS BUT THEIRS WERE PRIVATE LABELED. That’s how they got away with saying they still manufactured carpet. They had a label that said, “Made Exclusively for Olson Rug” which how did I carry the same products then? Because they were living off their past until they couldn’t anymore. There’s I believe a few still around but they are so overpriced it was sad when I hired one of their salespeople and they weren’t aware of this this then tiny shop could make a fair margin and crush them still..

  • w
    Posted at 06:33h, 11 March

    Anyone miss the article on Rep.Talvers trying to illegally Grab power by acwuiring the ability to detain,arrest,and have prosecuted Americans even Without Due Process??wtf,are these clowns trying to see if we are paying attention?We the people want less taxes,less corruption,less waste,and more reasonableness!! 🙂

  • Dwight Kay
    Posted at 09:55h, 11 March

    W, I have read about Talvers’ Bill as well as all the other junk Bills filed by his progressive colleagues on the the left side of the isle. They care not about process or the Constitution. Sadly, these progressive lefties have the votes to do more harm to Illinois. There is no worse state in the nation, fact. Possibly, maybe, saving Illinois can happen. But this will require that Cook and DuPage Counties are carved out and made the District of Illinois.

    • 1
      Posted at 02:39h, 12 March

      I agree with the comment left above by my former state representative, Dwight Kay. Illinois can only be saved by splitting Cook and DuPage Counties of from the rest of Illinois. Perhaps my current state representative, Amy Elik, can propose this.

      • G. H. Merritt
        Posted at 11:42h, 17 March

        You said, “I agree with the comment left above by my former state representative, Dwight Kay. Illinois can only be saved by splitting Cook and DuPage Counties of from the rest of Illinois. Perhaps my current state representative, Amy Elik, can propose this.” You may not realize it, but there is a very active movement in Illinois for the constitutional formation of a new state. Our nonprofit organization, New Illinois, currently has a presence in about 60 counties. IL Rep. Brad Halbrook of Shelbyville recently filed HR0102, a resolution for the 51st state. You would be interested to know that we have a committee in DuPage County, as there are many people there who don’t like the fact that the Chicago/Cook political machine has gerrymandered the suburbs to the point where the people are not represented. We also have a committee on the fringe of Cook County where a few years back different townships had a referendum to leave Cook County. Please see our website at http://www.NewIllinoisState.org

  • Ang
    Posted at 14:36h, 11 March

    Aren’t Illinoisans paying enough as it is to prop up insane sky high public “servant” salaries?

    Take for example the suburban La Grange Park Police Department, which has bern dragged into court multiple times over everything from false arrests to excessive force with a taser.

    http://files.courthousenews.com/2009/12/28/TaserCop.pdf

    Take a look at how high above other police these salaries are:

    https://salary.bettergov.org/person/timothy-d-contois-d225412b/

    https://govsalaries.com/hernandez-felix-j-101707883

    You get sued. You cost money to defend or settle lawsuits to just make it go away, so you get paid above average?

    Village Manager Julia Cedillo paid “109 percent” higher than average.

    https://govsalaries.com/cedillo-julia-a-101777199

    Well paid public “servants” for having been dragged into court for allegedly tasering a diabetic 11 times while the subject was in the middle of a diabetic seizure! Nice gig. No wonder Cook County property taxes are so high.

  • 1
    Posted at 02:41h, 12 March

    This proposal is ridiculous. This state senator wants to impose a tax and big government bureaucracy to recycle discarded carpet. I support recycling discarded carpet, but not by using tax dollars or a government bureaucracy. Carpet recycling needs to be handled by the private sector.

    I wish Illinois politicians would spend as much time devising ways to lower taxes as they do scheming ways to raise taxes.

    • PK
      Posted at 08:25h, 12 March

      Not really. The “Clearing House” the senator proposes is to be a not-for-profit private company, not more state government. It’s not clear that the size of the Illinois EPA, the governing “Agency” would get larger, either. It helps to read the bill not just the news headline.

  • Biff Spiff
    Posted at 15:47h, 12 March

    Is the tax higher if if matches the drapes?

  • Dash Riprock
    Posted at 17:19h, 12 March

    Please people, vote this nutcase out of office. This so the make sure they get their pensions. That’s all they really care about. Time to vote out all democrats.

  • GW ONE
    Posted at 11:29h, 14 March

    As many Republicans as Democrats take legislative pensions.. I applaud legislators that refuse a state pension. The majority of the legislators whom take the pensions are in Springfield just for the benefits. All legislators taking a pension, then talk about fiscal conservatism et al., are hypocrites. A public servant would not take a state funded pension.

    • Greg
      Posted at 12:12h, 14 March

      These legislators wrote the pension law for themselves! Full pension after 6 years?

      Full time state employees have to work a lot longer than that!

      Part time legislators should not get a pension, No other part time state employees do!

  • GW ONE
    Posted at 09:33h, 16 March

    Illinois Legislators recently voted themselves a pay increase. For all their subpar work they now are the second highest paid career politicians in the Nation. For many legislators this is the best, perhaps only job they can earn $80k annually for work, part time work. And without term limits, these mostly worthless legislators become enshrined in Illinois government. And the results?
    Illinois is in a moral and financial gutter, considered by all measures the worst run state of them all.

  • PK
    Posted at 10:09h, 27 March

    And also now in the Senate’s State Government Committee, a bill that makes changes to Illinois Administrative Law, SB2557. A news headline for the bill could read:

    Illinois Senator Wants Corporate Stewardship

$