StarNet Member Signs on to Industry Recycling Prog
Richmond, VA, November 20, 2006--S.Kent Walker, president of Walker's Carpets & Interiors, has always hated throwing things away, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
It's "more than just a waste -- it's a missed opportunity," he said.
So it isn't surprising that he dislikes throwing out old carpet, even though it's one of his floor-covering company's daily tasks.
Recently, he found a way to avoid it entirely.
It began last year with a trip Walker and his sales representatives took to the reclamation plant run by Collins and Aikman Corp. in Georgia.
"We saw shipments of used carpets coming in," Walker said. "They have a plant that grinds it up and regrinds it, and in the final process, it's made into the backing for new carpet. We saw the whole process. That got us excited about it."
Back in Richmond, he arranged to have a reclamation trailer set up outside his Glen Allen business. His efforts are paying off.
So far, he has collected enough used carpet from his company's commercial projects to fill the trailer as much as twice a month.
That's good news, because used carpet -- most of which is nonbiodegradable accounts for about .08 percent of the 625 billion pounds of post-consumer waste that ends up in American landfills each year.
Five billion pounds of used carpet may be hard to visualize. Imagine it this way: It's enough to fill 666,700 tractor-trailers.
"It's a staggering quantity of material," said Fred Williamson, director of special projects for the StarNet Commercial Flooring Cooperative.
StarNet is a commercial cooperative whose 155 members have 250 service locations in North America. Walker's Carpets & Interiors is one of its members.
Nationally, StarNet and the nonprofit Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) diverted 225 million pounds of carpet from the landfill last year. Manufacturers turned the used carpet into a variety of products, including railroad ties, carpet backing and roofing materials.
Walker launched his first reclamation project with Henrico County's Dumbarton Library.
"We told the county that we were going to take the old carpet and have it reclaimed," Walker said. "We put it in large boxes and pallets, shrink-wrapped it and filled our reclamation trailer up."
When combined with the used carpets that Walker's company removed from the Virginia Department of Corrections' Academy for Staff Development and Virginia Commonwealth University's Gladding Hall dormitory, the reclamation effort saved 35,000 pounds of carpet from being dumped in landfills.
Around Oct. 1, the tractor-trailer traveled to Collins and Aikman's reclamation plant in Georgia, where the used carpet was turned into carpet backing.
"As of today, it may be installed on another floor," Walker said.
In recognition of the significant amount of carpet saved from the landfill, Walker presented Henrico County officials with a StarNet/CARE Reclamation certificate.
"These certificates recognize these customers for making a difference in our environment and our future," Walker said.
Fred Drake, buildings and grounds manager for Henrico County, displays the certificate in his office. "Henrico encourages recycling strongly, and what Kent is doing fits right in with that program," he said.
With the cost of petroleum -- the raw material in carpet manufacturing -- climbing, an increasing number of carpet manufacturers have begun offering reclamation services, and Walker now sends his used carpets to a variety of sources.
Because it costs slightly more to reclaim carpet than it does to put it in a landfill, Walker charges a small fee for the optional service.
"We absorbed the cost for our first shipment to get the program off the ground," Walker said.
Walker even offers the use of his trailer to other floor-covering companies in the Greater Richmond area. "If they package it up, we'll have it shipped out for reclamation and recycling, for a small fee."
