Article Number : 1056 |
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| Date | 5/16/2006 10:47:17 AM |
| Written By | LGM & Associates Technical Flooring Services |
| View this article at: | //floorbiz.com/BizResources/NPViewArticle.asp?ArticleID=1056 |
| Abstract | Dalton—Shaw Industries has purchased 100% ownership of Evergreen Nylon Recycling in Augusta, Ga., from DSM Chemicals North America. Evergreen, which was previously owned jointly by Honeywell and DSM, closed in 2001... |
| Article | Dalton—Shaw Industries has purchased 100% ownership of Evergreen Nylon Recycling in Augusta, Ga., from DSM Chemicals North America. Evergreen, which was previously owned jointly by Honeywell and DSM, closed in 2001. Shaw assumed Honeywell’s ownership during its recent acquisition of the company’s fiber division (FCNews, Sept. 19/ 26). The subsequent DSM buyout gives Shaw full ownership, including control of planning and investment in the facility’s return to production. The Evergreen plant employs patented technology that converts nylon carpet into caprolactam, the raw material used to make nylon 6. Type 6 nylon is used in such applications as residential and commercial broadloom, engineering plastics, auto parts, sporting goods, films and packaging. The recycling system at the Evergreen plant is designed to utilize post-consumer carpets in a “cradle-to-cradle,” closed-loop process. This sustainable process allows nylon fibers to be recycled over and over again without the loss of any aesthetic or performance properties. “There’ve been many questions regarding Evergreen from our customers,” said Steve Bradfield, Shaw’s director of environmental affairs. According to Randy Merritt, Shaw’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, initial interest in reopening Evergreen was driven by the demand for more post-consumer recycled material content from specifiers and carpet users in commercial markets, but residential “green” initiatives are clearly on the upswing. “Evergreen will provide the additional nylon recycling capacity to offer consumers the opportunity, for the first time, to choose residential carpet styles produced with significant post-consumer recycled nylon content. “The collection system will offer them the possibility to recycle their nylon carpet when they’re ready to replace it, not just once, but every time,” he explained. “There will be a variety of collection partners,” said Bradfield. “It will certainly be through a wide variety of Shaw dealers as we want to take advantage of our relationships. Carpet leasing, as it was proposed many years ago, has never really taken off. And there are many reasons for that, one of which is financial because leasing is just not an attractive option for many corporations. “And I don’t think the leasing of residential carpet is ever going to catch on because it’s a nightmare,” he added. “But what you can do with your dealer partners is simply give them the best possible price on the front end with the understanding that Shaw has built a system of collection and we would like very much for that carpet to return to that system. It’s almost a quid pro quo: We keep the value high and prices as low as we can and, in return, our customers load that post-consumer system for us.” Vance Bell, Shaw’s executive vice president of operations, said the mill’s goal is to reopen Evergreen as soon as facility upgrades and carpet collection capabilities are put in place. “We’ve been building our Evergreen project teams, and they are already working on technical issues and actively building the collection network to supply the plant. Evergreen will be part of a system of efficient post-consumer carpet collection, recycling and value recovery on a large scale. Committed To Recycling “The collection system is expected to collect as much as 300 million pounds carpet waste annually,” he noted. “Shaw is committed to significant reduction of broadloom going to landfills through technologies that recycle nylon from carpet tile.” Other Shaw initiatives for recycling backing materials and utilizing carpet in waste-to-energy gassification will benefit from the collection system as well. As Bradfield noted, not all of the 300 million pounds of waste will go to the Evergreen facility. “In fact, we need about 100 million pounds of nylon 6. So, what we do is help our waste customers, and carpet customers, who are sometimes one and the same, to find a home for all of their carpet. “The system used will be Shaw’s,” said Bradfield, “but I suspect, as time goes forward, there will be many alliances made, even with competitors because it doesn’t always make sense to have separate collection systems in terms of different parts of the country or different product types. Those are yet to be fully fleshed out but you can bet that Shaw will operate a nationwide system and it will collect many different kinds of carpet, not just nylon 6.” It is not known at this time how many workers will be employed at the plant, or when exactly the plant will reopen. At press time, Bradfield said, no one had been named to head the operation. “We’re bringing the systems up at the plant that have been mothballed,” he explained. “But we do not know what we are going to find. It looks like DSM did a wonderful job of idling the plant and making sure the systems could come back up without a lot of cost and trouble. “DSM had said there are a number of modifications that need to be made in order to make it more efficient,” he added, “and those modifications will be made before it is reopened. So, we are sinking quite a bit of capital into it.” —Louis Iannaco |