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The New Textiles of the New South
The biggest players in the carpet and rug business are not carpets and rug providers, but rather “floor covering” providers. Most of the leading companies have entire divisions for the hard surface products they once knocked—wood, laminates, and tile. By spreading their wares into these horizontal markets, they’ve redefined their core competence as a product line much broader than fiber. This has led to a more diversified, and therefore, more sustainable industry. At the residential level, the market for solid color wall-to-wall carpet, once the staple product of broadloom mills, has matured, if not peaked. The more attractive growth prospects are in custom patterned area rugs that still leave a margin of finished hard flooring exposed. Taking up the slack are higher unit volume sales to the ‘contract’ market. Here manufacturers respond to the design specifications of architects and designers—many representing green building perspectives—for offices, workplaces and public facilities. Shaw Contract is the leader in this area. Based at its Cartersville, GA, Plant X location, Shaw Contract has achieved a technological and ecological breakthrough in its development of EcoWorx, a 100% non-PVC, sustainable backing system for modular and 6-foot carpet. Shaw Industries has been de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange, for all the right reasons. The giant firm, now a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, is guided by legendary investor Warren Buffet. His brand of patient capital also enables the Dalton-based giant to pursue the research and development breakthroughs that can reinforce its lead.
Rounding out the environmental picture is Shaw’s own EcoSolution Q (TM) fiber, which contains 25-100 percent post consumer and post industrial recycled contents. This nylon 6 BCF yarn is also fully recyclable. Eco Solution Q is equal in performance and quality to other solution-dyed, branded commercial fibers—it is colorfast, easily maintained, and resistant to bleach. When Eco Solution Q face fiber is combined with EcoWorx backing, 100% recyclable carpet is produced. In cradle-to-cradle sustainability, backing and yarn face are separated, broken down, and reprocessed. Backing becomes more backing, and yarn becomes more yarn, again and again. Mention the environment in the early 1990’s, and the textile industry would immediately become defensively postured. The industry was faced with a drumbeat of media exposes on the bothersome issue of indoor air quality and the “new carpet odor” that was once in all new carpet as a by-product of the latex component, 4-PCH. The industry became more proactive. The industry research proved that the odor was harmless, according to the Carpet and Rug Institute, but the industry understood that the perception that the odor was “bad” was pervasive. They have changed the formulation of the latex to almost eliminate the “new carpet odor” as well as intensely communicated the lack of health effects from new carpeting. As municipal solid waste landfills in densely populated areas reached capacity, the millions of pounds of discarded carpet also received heightened scrutiny. From its national office in Dalton, the Carpet and Rug Institute felt compelled to counter the resulting image of an uncaring and irresponsible industry. This year, the trade association released a comprehensive report on the industry’s sustainability achievements and best practices. The report wasthe first for the industry’s trade association under the new leadership of Warner Braun. In the mid-1990’s, some pioneering companies, it turns out, were tinkering in their labs with bold new approaches to the underlying chemistry of their products. But the limited yield on their ‘downcycling’ efforts wasn’t much to crow about, at least not initially. What happened next was a quick series of research and development breakthroughs leading the industry in the direction of sustainability and product desirability. Among the companies willing to stake an early claim on product take-back was Collins & Aikman Floorcoverings, based in Dalton. It has received wide recognition from design professionals and green-building practitioners for “walking the talk” of environmental responsibility, even to the point of recycling compatible used carpet from its competitors. C&A’s trademarked Infinity Initiative guarantees that none of its covered product line would go to a landfill. An entire facility was constructed in Dalton for extruding post-consumer carpet tiles into material for new carpet backing. Chemical fiber producers argue, with good reason, that complete ‘cradle to cradle’ recycling requires a new generation of carpet fibers, not just ramped-up collection and remanufacturing efforts. BASF Corporation in Dalton offers its engineered “SAVANT” filament in answer to the technical challenge of unlocking the chain of polymers in nylon. William McDonough, the high priest of green architects, hails SAVANT’s certified 90 percent recycled content as a ‘classic example of ‘upcycling’ — making a product with higher performance attributes than the original product being recycled. With each innovation, it’s becoming obvious that environmental improvement means more than regulatory compliance, emissions reduction and energy conservation. The textile company serving environmental markets most directly is Synthetic Industries of Chickamauga, Ga. From low-tech origins providing sandbags to the U.S. military three decades ago, SI has grown by branching into premium carpet backing, concrete reinforcement, construction materials and geotextile products for civil engineering uses. From preventing erosion on riverbanks to stabilizing roadways and lining landfills, SI’s advanced fabrics are literally in touch with the earth. In 1994 the SI Environmental Resource Reduction Action (S.I.E.R.R.A.) conservation program was established reducing air emissions, energy consumption, water and solid waste. Since then SI has received more than 20 awards from national, regional and environmental organizations including the Governor’s Award from the State of Georgia and Top Corporate Recycler in the State of Tennessee. In addition, SI was the first textile company in the United States, and one of the first in the world, to achieve ISO-14001 Certification. In conclusion, the emerging products of the textile industry are genuinely ‘new and improved,’ and society is better off, in measurable ways. The carpet industry has come to its own understanding or unique application of sustainability, as is perhaps necessary for all industries seeking to apply the principles to the practice. In the process, it has raised the bar for product responsibility in scores of other industries.
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The economic landscape of the textile industry—Concentrated in the corridor linking Chattanooga, TN, and Dalton, GA,—has changed dramatically in the last decade. This historically Southern-based industry continues to successfully redefine itself. Just about everybody—the giants and the smaller companies—are finding new markets that capture the growth of current customer preferences and innovative environmentally sound applications of their products. By doing so, companies have invested in research and development initiatives that are reversing stereotypes of the industry as being wasteful and offering typically low paying, relatively undesirable jobs. Today, the industry is becoming bold in many areas of sustainability and technological transitions to higher-paying jobs that reinvest in the prosperity of the communities where they are located. This is not your grandfather’s industry anymore. Just consider these paradigm shifts over the past decade:Printable Version | Email to a friend | Add to favorites | Larger font
