Govenor Sonny Perdue, right, & Shaw's Vance Bell

Dalton—Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue called Shaw Industries “innovative and creative” during a recent visit to the company where he toured two of the mill’s environmentally friendly facilities—Plant 81 and its Waste to Energy (WTE) plant.

Shaw is the only company in the nation to boast the WTE facility which converts carpet and wood manufacturing waste to steam energy through a process termed gasification, noted Vance Bell, the mill’s executive vice president.

“This unprecedented energy conservation technique will power nearly 70% of Plant 81,” Bell said.

“Projects like these save, serve and give value to the state of Georgia,” said Governor Perdue. “I try to model the state government after these same principles. In addition, it helps Shaw by saving money and showing concern for the environment.”

Developed in cooperation with Siemens Building Technologies, the conversion process works by turning manufactured and post-consumer carpet waste along with wood flour, the dust generated from trimming during laminate manufacturing, into steam. The steam then provides power to the plant. With three years of planning and nearly one year of operation under way, the project will eventually save the mill up to $2.5 million per year, explained Bell.

Gary Nichols, Shaw’s energy manager who heads up the project, said the facility is estimated to convert 14,100 tons of combined post-industrial and post-consumer carpet waste and 9,000 tons of wood flour per year. “The company is studying ways to use the remaining waste by-products,” he noted.

According to Steve Bradfield, director of corporate environmental affairs, the gasification facility is a demonstration and move toward Shaw’s commitment to the future.

In support of Shaw’s Evergreen Nylon Recycling operation in Augusta, Ga., Russ DeLozier has been named post consumer carpet collection manager as part of the company’s Manufacturing Staff Operations Group. In this newly created position, DeLozier’s responsibilities will include defining, implementing and managing the collection and preprocessing of nylon 6 post-consumer carpet waste as feed stock for the facility. It may collect up to 300 million pounds of all types of carpet annually, not all of which will go the Evergreen.

Since joining Shaw in 2004, DeLozier has held various positions, most recently risk management. Prior to that, he was with Dow Chemical Co., as production leader for the company’s Styrofoam Plant.

In a related move, David Harless has been named special project/process engineer within the mill’s fibers division. He will be responsible for the engineering changes the company is making to improve efficiency of the Evergreen process prior to the restart of the facility. Most recently he was technical manager at the company’s Thomson Fibers plant.

Ray Johnson, group director of Shaw Fibers manufacturing, noted the mill is well positioned to make Evergreen a viable enterprise. “With higher monomer prices resulting from oil price increases, combined with our engineering changes to improve plant efficiency and our nationwide network of Shaw customers and other collection partners, we intend to provide an ongoing post-consumer recycling routeback to nylon”

No firm date for the plant’s re-opening has been set.