Carpet is a very significant EU waste stream with around 1.6 M tonnes arising each year as waste.1 Most carpets are made primarily from finite resources in the form of oil-based plastics that could be recycled and yet recycling rates are less than 3% in the EU and reuse rates an even smaller fraction. 2 There are also significant concerns about the hazardous substances they contain and the impact these can have on indoor air quality and health. There is therefore a huge opportunity to reduce the environmental and health impact of carpet and recover far more of the resources they contain. The carpet sector is also an important one economically. The EU is the second biggest market in the world for carpet after the US, as well as being one of the largest producers: Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are the EU’s leading manufacturing countries. Overall around 65% of EU demand for carpets is fulfilled by EU-based manufacturing (high compared to other textile products), creating jobs in leading companies such as Associated Weavers (BE), Balta (BE), Beaulieu International Group (BE), Brintons (UK), Forbo (NL) and Tarkett (FR, and its subsidiary Desso, NL). Greater circularity offers to bring even more jobs to this important sector, replacing a small number of jobs in incineration and landfill with far more jobs in closed-loop recycling for example.3 Despite all this, there are no policy instruments helping to drive greater circularity at the EU or Member State level and hence an opportunity to fill that gap, so as to accelerate progress towards more sustainable production and end-of-life management of carpets placed on EU markets. The vision is that by 2025 all commercial and household carpets (broadloom and tiles) put on the market pose no health risk and are separately collected, reusable and fully recyclable – as a result carpet recycling rates are steadily increasing. 4 It is worth noting that closed-loop recycling will only happen as better-designed carpets gain market share. This Toolkit, aimed at governments of EU Member States, suggests a wide variety of policy instruments with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as a key element. Although the purpose of this Toolkit is to provide guidance to national governments, many of these measures could be effectively applied at the EU level as well or in collaboration with several governments. Member States will no doubt vary in what they feel able to progress in the short to medium term and hence the Toolkit offers options on the supply side (waste management and market ‘push’) and the demand side (market ‘pull’), that might be used together, varying depending on the level of ambition. Two policy packages are suggested by way of showing how policy instruments could be combined. Package 1 provides a fully mandatory EPR-led approach, designed to meet the needs of Member States with the highest Circular Economy (CE) ambitions. EPR is used here not only as a vehicle to deliver and pay for high levels of recycling, but also to provide a meaningful incentive for better design through modulated fees, working to supplement minimum eco-design ‘essential requirements’. Other instruments are suggested to help drive demand, including a Green Carpet Mark to provide clear consumer information and mandatory Green Public Procurement. Package 2 is suggested as an alternative to, or precursor to, Package 1 where an EPR approach is not immediately possible, using additional ‘essential requirements’ rather than modulated EPR fees to drive eco-design and mandatory take back and taxes being used to respectively facilitate and pay for the waste management aspects. The demand side instruments remain as for Package 1. The main body of the Toolkit provides further in-depth explanation of the individual policy measures and discussion around the rationale for these various policy options and how they might best be applied. By applying these measures, governments can seize the circular economy opportunity that exists in this sector and set a precedent for other sectors. The benefits of implementing these measures are in moving carpet waste up the waste hierarchy, with an associated reduction in GHG emissions which will enable governments to more easily reach their EU targets, reduced toxicity of carpets, which will improve indoor air quality and improve health, and creation of new employment opportunities.