Atlanta, GA, Sept. 26—DuPont has successfully completed an environmental initiative to upgrade and expand its nylon carpet reclamation center in Calhoun, Georgia. In addition to receiving, sorting, baling and packaging used carpet, DuPont has added equipment to recover nylon at the facility.

In August, the facility reached its full operational potential of producing 1,000 pounds of recovered nylon per hour. The process involves recovering a clean nylon 6,6 resin from used nylon carpet recovered in the DuPont carpet reclamation program. The facility is capable of sorting up to 50 million pounds of used carpet per year.

“Combining both the sorting and recycling processes in one location vastly reduces the energy, time and costs it takes to complete the recycling process," said Dave Bouton, business director of DuPont Commercial Fiber. "This expansion demonstrates the commitment by DuPont to implement successful environmental initiatives. Before any alterations are made to our programs and processes, DuPont considers the total impact of those changes on the environment without affecting the performance of its fiber."

Since 1991, the DuPont carpet reclamation program has reclaimed more than 60 million pounds of carpet. DuPont has the first and only viable carpet reclamation program that reclaims and recycles all types of used commercial carpet. Recycled content is used to manufacture carpet fiber, resilient flooring tiles, carpet cushion, sod reinforcement and automobile parts. This year, DuPont Antron expanded recycled content capability to virtually all DuPont Antron Lumena solution dyed nylon products.

Copyright 2001 Floor Focus Inc