FLOORING: Eco-friendly efforts & carpet from Mohawk Flooring
August 8, 2007
What are your eco-friendly carpet options? We will put that list together for you soon. In the meantime, we wanted to deliver some news from one carpet and flooring manufacturer that is publically calling attention to their efforts to ease pressure on the environment: Mohawk Industries. They have started some early hype around what looks to be some further eco-friendly carpet and flooring options that will be available this Fall.
Historically, Mohawk is/has been a supplier of flooring for both residential (and commercial) applications. Mohawk offers a complete selection of carpet, ceramic tile, wood, stone, laminate, vinyl, rugs and other home products. These products are marketed under the brands Mohawk, Karastan, Ralph Lauren, Lees, Bigelow, Quick Step, Dal-Tile and American Olean.
Mohawk Industries, focuses on environmentally friendly business practices that benefit the consumer, the environment, and the bottom line. For example, since 1999, Mohawk has recycled more than 17 billion plastic bottles for use in its PET (polyethylene terephthalate) carpet. With increased consumer interest in protecting the environment, Mohawk wants consumers to know that there are a variety of high-quality green options when it comes to flooring.
“It’s easy to say you’re green, but it’s not so easy to actually be green,” said Frank Endrenyi, vice president of sustainable development at Mohawk Industries. “We’re thrilled to offer consumers top-of-the line flooring that has a proven green story to go along with it.”
“We’re taking carpet fiber literally from the field to the floor,” said Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum, chairman and chief executive officer, Mohawk Industries. “We’re looking forward to giving our industry another remarkable innovation — one that will benefit our consumers, and the environment.”
Mohawk claims innovation in eco-friendly products and practices with a wide range of projects, including recycling programs, use of renewable fuels, and energy- and emission-cutting efforts. The company touts themselves as the largest recycler in the flooring industry, Mohawk diverts more than three billion pounds of pre- and post- consumer waste from landfills each year. More than 500 Mohawk products — carpet, carpet tiles, laminates, and ceramic tile — contain recycled materials.
Carpet Made from 100% Post-Consumer Material
Mohawks’ everSTRAND(TM) PET carpet is made from 100 percent post-consumer materials. The Company extrudes the PET fiber from the three billion plastic bottles that it recycles each year — that’s one in every four recycled plastic bottles in North America.
At its Greenworks Center in Chatsworth, Georgia, Mohawk also recycles old carpet removed from office buildings and homes across the country, and then processes it into the plastics industry as well as other applications such as carpet cores. Carpet is rolled around these cores for transportation and storage. Typically, carpet cores are made from cardboard and discarded after each use. Mohawk saves thousands of trees every year by making reusable plastic cores from post-consumer materials.
Mohawk can process all major types of synthetic carpet fiber: nylon, polyester, and polypropylene. What’s more, the Mohawk Greenworks Center uses patent pending technology to process 100 percent of the carpet –fiber, backing, and latex — and recover 90 percent of all materials for reuse.
Renewably-Sourced Residential Carpet Fiber
In a partnership with DuPont, Mohawk will launch its carpet featuring SmartStrand(R) with DuPont(TM) Sorona(R) renewably sourced polymer this fall. Not only does this luxuriously soft carpet offer extreme durability and revolutionary stain protection, it will also soon be partly produced from renewable corn sources rather than petroleum.
“This carpet represents a new frontier in sustainable flooring,” Endrenyi noted. “For every seven square yards of carpet featuring SmartStrand(R) with DuPont(TM) Sorona(R) renewably sourced polymer produced, we save a gallon of gasoline.”
Mohawk Greenworks
The Company’s green efforts are being promoted under the “Mohawk Greenworks” umbrella. For more information regarding all of Mohawk’s key Greenworks projects, visit http://www.mohawkgreenworks.com, or their company blog at www.greenworksblog.com.
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what happens to the sorona carpet after it comes out of the home
Are you kidding me? I will NEVER buy carpet made from a food source…and just to “save” one gallon of gas? Have you seen how ethanol and other food sources converted to fuel and taking food-sources (corn and soybean come to mind) to make non-food products is crushing the world’s food supply?
Wow, Sheryl way to be ignorant. We have a surplus of food (i.e. corn) in the United States and we throw away most of it anyways. Its bad when the government pays 60% of my county not to farm their cornland. Yes, ethanol will never catch on because it takes more energy to produce it then it puts out, but come on. Its great that they’re using renewable resources and recycling instead of drying up the planet of what little nonrenewable resources we have left. It doesn’t just save “one gallon of gas,” think about all the energy it took to drill the petroleum, the shipping costs, the manufacturing costs, more shipping costs, and if everyone thought like you, we’ll have nothing left of this planet by the time you die. This is just the type of carpet I’ve been looking to buy, and should be the norm in 10-20 years anyways.
I think its a shame that Sheryl from St. Paul cares so little about the environment. Today’s design and construction industry is continuously trying to sustain our natural resources and save our planet. Using food-sources for carpeting is a great idea… the food sources are a renewable source and oil to make gasoline is not. She needs to broaden her horizon and see the wonderful things that companies like Mohawk are trying to do for us. Way to go!! I wish every company was as Eco-minded as Mohawk.
Andrea,
Corn and soybean are not as eco-friendly as you think, due to the high demand it’s not only affecting the food supply as Sheryl pointed out but it’s also causing entire forests to be destroyed for farming, just google for pictures of the Amazon in Brasil, it’s amazing how fast it’s disappearing.
Well, if you think about it we are at a point in time where almost every decision is going to affect everything else. How else can companies transition to producing green if not by using the most renewable and available crops such as bamboo, corn and soy. I say “Kudos” to all of those companies pushing harder to make it there business and not just trend. W have been losing rain forest and fighting global warming long before Al Gore wrote his book. This just might have to be the way things go in order to try and make progress for our industrial mistakes?
There is another manufacturer that has a nylon carpet fiber, more durable and longer lasting than PET, that can be recycled over and over and over again. It actually is decreasing the dependance on petroleum. Shaw’s Anso Nylon is great. Check it out at http://www.shawgreenedge.com. And, it doesn’t make you pay more for everything else because corn costs have gone up.
Shaw’s Green Edge nylon is a type 6 Nylon that while it can be depolyimerzied the process is actually not as efficient as depolyimerizing PET fiber. Additionally claiming that Nylon 6 is more durable than PET is not necessarily true anymore.
PET fiber has come a long way since it’s early days as a synthetic wool substitute. Different constructions, specifically high twist heat set constructions are helping PET gain market share. If you want to see where the future of the market is look at where the R&D money is being spent. Dupont after selling off their nylon division is pouring large amounts of money into PET development because of its environmental benefits.
On the bio-based side, watch for soy to edge corn out in the near future. Due to the increased demand for corn due to ethanol production, research is being made in different rapidly renewable resources. There are already multiple manufacturers producing backing made from soy.
Finally, watch for residential carpet to go square. Residential carpet tiles are breaking into the market in a big way. Manufactures including Flor, Berkshire, and Milliken are all moving towards the residential carpet tile market. Berkshire Flooring already has a PET fiber made from post-consumer recycled content and Milliken is in the R&D stage of a similar product.