World’s largest manufacturer of carpets,
Shaw Industries, has gone for some innovative energy generating efforts utilizing waste carpets that comes by was of production.
The said energy saving project is announced in collaboration with
Siemens Building Technologies and speaks of the corporate commitment of the company towards saving ecology.
The process for converting carpet and wood manufacturing waste into steam energy leads to lower plant emissions, greatly reduced post-manufacturing carpet waste in landfills, and savings of up to $2.5 million per year, are the benefits of the new project planned for Shaw's factory at Dalton, Georgia.
Shaw has been successful in developing sustainable carpet products that can be continually broken down and reused again, returning carpet to carpet through closed-loop or 'cradle-to-cradle' recycling.
The facility, which is scheduled to be fully operable by the end of 2005, will convert by-products of Shaw's manufacturing process - carpet selvedge, seam waste and wood flour - into gas which will fuel a boiler to produce more than 50,000 lbs of steam per hour. Shaw will then use the steam in its manufacturing operations in Dalton.
Shaw vice president of manufacturing Bill Barron says the project will convert about 16,000 tons of post-manufacturing and post-consumer carpet waste, and 6,000 tons of wood flour, per year.
Over 25 million tons of post-consumer carpet has been deposited in landfills, comprising 2% of all landfill waste and through this project, Shaw's post-manufacturing carpet waste destined for the Dalton community landfill will be virtually eliminated.
Bob Peoples, executive director of the US
Carpet and Rug Institute, has that estimated about five billion pounds of post-consumer and post-manufacturing carpet was landfilled in the U.S. in 2004.
Shaw will save millions of dollar per year in steam production costs. "Shaw now has in the plans a firm, fixed energy price for its Dalton, Georgia plant," said Clark Wiedetz, energy business development manager, Siemens Building Technologies. "With the fluctuation of oil and gas prices, that could be a huge competitive advantage in a price sensitive industry."
Under its existing Environmental Guarantee program, Shaw is already collecting, transporting, and recycling any carpet tile made with EcoWorx, its environmentally-sustainable carpet backing. As well as offering an alternative to the industry standard PVC backing at a comparable cost, EcoWorx is developed with 40% less weight, while maintaining or improving all performance categories.
Shaw guarantees it will pick up EcoWorx at the end of its life, at no charge to the customer, and recycle it into more EcoWorx, enabling the company to use the same materials in a perpetual loop. When paired together with Shaw EcoSolution Q carpet yarn, the end product can be sustainable recycled carpet to carpet and backing to backing, the company states.
Shaw Industries
