{"id":280190,"date":"2026-04-22T12:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280190\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:33:10","slug":"how-the-oscars-red-carpet-got-recycled-while-others-get-trashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/280190\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Oscars’ Red Carpet Got Recycled \u2014 While Others Get Trashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe red carpet<\/a> got a lot of attention at the Oscars<\/a> this year \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t just because of who was strolling on it.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn March 16, the day after the 2026 ceremony, production assistant Paige Thalia posted a TikTok of herself arriving at the Dolby Theatre. As crews broke down the awards show setup, she had hopes of taking a piece of the carpet home to use as a rug in her apartment. The video follows her stumbling upon dumpsters with rolls and rolls of the Oscar red carpet inside and lugging one section back to her place as prized new decor (after a good vacuuming).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe TikTok quickly went viral, racking up more than 6 million views, with hundreds of commenters expressing shock and horror that the Oscars carpet would be used for just a few hours and then be thrown away. Suddenly, the Academy found itself getting beaten up on social media as yet another grotesque example of Hollywood\u2019s wasteful ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs it turns out, though, there\u2019s a bit more to the story.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor starters, the dumpsters full of Oscar red carpet material were actually en route to being recycled, confirms Rob Thiess, co-director of the California Carpet Stewardship Program of CARE (the Carpet America Recovery Effort). Thiess tells THR that CARE has worked with Event Carpet Pros Inc., which supplies the Oscars carpet, for the past four years; from the Dolby, the carpet is transferred to the Los Angeles Fiber carpet recycling center in Vernon, where it is broken down into pellets. Theiss says these carpet pellets can be made into about 125 different products, including computer cases and car parts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Academy adds that the Oscars carpet is itself made from recycled materials.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, this sort of environmental mindfulness is not the norm. Hollywood puts on hundreds of events each year \u2014 premieres, galas and FYC events \u2014 and the majority of the time those red carpets are not recycled. More often than not, they end up in the trash, particularly those with customized designs, logos and cuts that make it tough to be reused.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Circular Polymers<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo many people still don\u2019t know that carpet is recyclable,\u201d says Theiss. CARE supports more than 179 public drop-off sites throughout California (which is drastically ahead of other states in this initiative) and collects 80 million to 90 million pounds of carpet per year, but most of that comes from residential sources. And so he is making a push to get Hollywood on board as well, having already locked up a deal to recycle the carpet at next year\u2019s Super Bowl in L.A., on top of his work with the Oscars. But because entertainment events are so fragmented \u2014 with different studios, streamers, event planners and carpet companies involved with each one \u2014 it has been slow going to organize a carpet recycling system for the larger industry.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cQuite frankly, it\u2019s really low on the totem pole when it\u2019s dollars and cents on the front side and making sure that production goes smoothly,\u201d Theiss explains. \u201cWhen it comes to breakdown, it\u2019s just, \u2018Get it out of here, on to the next,\u2019 \u201d as he admits it\u2019s \u201cnot a glamorous thing\u201d to think about.<\/p>\n

\n\tSheila Morovati, founder and CEO of environmental nonprofit Habits of Waste and a longtime advocate pushing to make Hollywood more sustainable, notes that carpets don\u2019t necessarily need to be broken down into pellets to get re-purposed. She points out that carpets could easily be donated to schools or homeless shelters after their big moments. Or, perhaps more likely in the bottom line-driven entertainment industry, she suggests studio storage facilities \u2014 much like the storerooms used for costumes \u2014 where \u201cred carpets can go and live and be clean and ready to be installed. And then they just roll it back up and bring it back into these warehouses so that the studio just holds onto it,\u201d which would save on the cost of getting a new carpet for each event.<\/p>\n

\n\tEnvironmental Media Association CEO Debbie Levin also makes a case for increased use of rentals: \u201cI don\u2019t understand why renting a carpet would not be the way to go because then it\u2019s being reused constantly. They\u2019ve got every color in the world, and you really don\u2019t need a logo on a carpet because [photographers and press] are not shooting that.\u201d She adds, \u201cThere\u2019s so much material that goes into a carpet, and not all of it is made from the greatest materials, so at least if you\u2019re using it 50 times, you could feel better about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt would, of course, take extra thought and planning to make this happen, which may be a tough ask for a business focused more on the big on-camera backdrops than on how to properly dispose of the backdrop afterward. But, as Theiss notes, that disposal process is key, especially for carpet material that \u201cdoesn\u2019t break down for 100 million years; it doesn\u2019t produce methane gas, it can\u2019t be collected and make power generation out of it. It\u2019s just an unruly material that fills up our space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continues, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to think about our future, our kids or grandchildren and what we\u2019re leaving. We have how many capped landfills and how much material is in there that won\u2019t break down? So [it\u2019s about] really focusing on that and then taking those materials and turning them into new products.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appears in The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s 2026 Sustainability<\/a> Issue. Click here to read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The red carpet got a lot of attention at the Oscars this year \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,48049,49041,1673],"class_list":{"0":"post-280190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-la","9":"tag-la-headlines","10":"tag-la-news","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","13":"tag-los-angeles-news","14":"tag-oscars","15":"tag-red-carpet","16":"tag-sustainability"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}