At The Mohawk Group, we consider it good business to create products and processes that are good for the environment. That's why, in the past ten years, we've made dramatic reductions in energy use and waste even while tripling our number of manufacturing plants. We're finding ways to make carpet last longer and creating new uses for old carpet.
In fact, basic lifecycle analysis is at the heart of Mohawk's environmental policy. Simply stated, the longer a carpet lasts, the lower its impact on the environment. See the lifecycle story here.
The Mohawk Group is proud to work with innovative suppliers who bring us new ideas to increase our returns. And we applaud those in our industry pursuing environmental initiatives.
After all, environmental responsibility is everybody's business.
At the Mohawk Group, we recover and reuse solvents in our quality control labs. We reuse some of our latex waste water in soil amendment, as it is rich in calcium carbonate and actually makes a positive contribution to the soil.
At our Laurens Park (GA) plant, 70% of all production waste is reused or recycled. We're even reusing spent heat to generate new heat, with a closed loop steam heating system to make the most of the energy we need to generate that heat. Expanding on reductions.
We research and select environmentally friendly chemicals. Even chemicals that are not considered hazardous waste are monitored when disposed of to ensure environmentally safe disposal. Used oil is picked up for recycling.
We've reformulated products to eliminate hazardous materials and replaced many solvent-based materials with water-based alternatives. And water we take from the river at our Laurens Park (GA) plant gets used in our production process, treated, and then returned to the environment substantially below contamination limits set by the state's Environmental Protection Division standards for clean water.
Every year, The Mohawk Group uses 27 million pounds of leftover carpet scrap, to manufacturer a premium carpet underpad to replace conventional carpet cushions made from non-renewable resources.
More significantly, the primary type of nylon Mohawk manufacturers is Type 6 nylon, a recyclable fiber. Carpet made with Type 6 nylon can be reclaimed, the fiber repolymerized, dyed and extruded again, with no reduction in fiber strength.
Our ColorStrand? Infinity carpet fiber contains a minimum of 25% post-consumer carpet and 25% post-industrial content. In its first two years alone, Infinity kept millions of pounds of Type 6 nylon out of landfills, and it sells for about the same price as nonrecycled carpet.