DALTON— Shaw Industries and DAK Americas have formed a joint venture, Clear Path Recycling (CPR), to produce recycled PET (RPET) from post-consumer plastic drinking bottles.

While Shaw will be the majority owner,” Vance Bell, the company’s CEO, noted “we will work in a true partnership and create the RPET both will utilize in their respective businesses.”

He added the first phase of the new facility, to be constructed in Fayetteville, N.C., at DAK’s Cedar Creek site, will process 160 million pounds of post-consumer PET bottles. Construction is expected to begin mid-year, with the plant operational in the first quarter 2010. The second phase is planned for completion in 2012, bringing the operation to capacity at 280 million pounds (about five billion bottles), and making CPR the largest PET recycling operation in North America.

DAK currently operates a PET resin making facility on-site with significant infrastructure in place that the new JV will utilize.

The plant will produce RPET flake—a clean, processed, shredded PET—which is used as a raw material for Shaw’s ClearTouch BCF fiber.

Hal Long, Shaw’s vice president of manufacturing, added a majority of CPR’s output would be used for flooring fiber by Shaw.

Shaw uses RPET in other areas as well, most notably in its EcoLogix commercial carpet cushion, that contains 88% post consumer recycled content.

Bell added the JV will also reduce landfill use. Over one million cubic yards per year of space will be conserved and approximately 2.5 trillion BTUs will be saved annually, equal to the amount energy needed to power 18,000 U.S. homes per year, according to government data.