Shaw Completes 100% Ownership of Evergreen

Dalton, GA, April 25, 2006--Shaw has purchased 100% ownership in Evergreen Nylon Recycling LLC, the nylon recycling operation in Augusta, Georgia, from DSM Chemicals North America, Inc. Evergreen, which was closed in 2001, was previously owned jointly by Honeywell and DSM, and Shaw assumed Honeywell’s ownership on the recent acquisition of the company’s fiber division. The subsequent DSM buyout gives Shaw full ownership, including control of planning and investment in the return of the facility to production. The Evergreen plant employs patented technology that converts nylon carpet into caprolactam, the raw material used to make nylon 6. Type 6 nylon is used in such applications as residential and commercial carpet, engineering plastics, automotive parts, sporting goods, films, and packaging. The recycling system at the Evergreen plant is designed to utilize post-consumer carpets in a “cradle-to-cradle,” closed-loop process. The sustainable cradle-to-cradle process allows nylon fibers to be recycled over and over again without the loss of any aesthetic or performance properties. “There have been a lot of questions regarding Evergreen from our customers,” says Steve Bradfield, Shaw’s director of environmental affairs. “The reason we haven’t released much information in the past few months is because of our ongoing negotiations with DSM after the Honeywell acquisition. We wanted to get ownership settled and initial plans in place before discussing this important initiative.” According to Randy Merritt, Shaw’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, initial interest in reopening Evergreen was driven by the demand for more post-consumer recycled material content from specifiers and carpet users in commercial markets, but residential “green” initiatives are clearly on the upswing. “Evergreen will provide the additional nylon recycling capacity to offer consumers the opportunity, for the first time, to choose residential carpet styles produced with significant post-consumer recycled nylon content,” Merritt says. “The collection system will offer them the possibility to recycle their nylon carpet when they’re ready to replace it, not just once, but every time they choose to replace it. The company is taking advantage of existing relationships with key customers and end-users to support the collection efforts.” Vance Bell, Shaw’s executive vice president of operations, says that the company’s goal is to reopen Evergreen as soon as facility upgrades and carpet collection capabilities are put in place. “We’ve been building our Evergreen project teams, and they are already working on technical issues and actively building the collection network to supply the plant. Evergreen will be part of a system of efficient post-consumer carpet collection, recycling, and value recovery on a large scale. The collection system is expected to collect as much as 300 million pounds of carpet waste of all types annually,” says Bell. “Shaw is committed to significant reduction of carpet going to landfills through technologies that recycle nylon from broadloom and carpet tile.” Other Shaw initiatives for recycling backing materials and utilizing carpet in waste-to-energy gasification will benefit from the collection system as well.

Related Topics:Shaw Industries Group, Inc.

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