The green story
Invista’s other new product, 1127, has quite the green story. Designed to go into cut pile constructions, it offers a bio-based renewable raw material—a nylon extract from the castor bean. “We are going to put a small percentage of it in this product,” Griffith said. “It’s being driven pretty hard by Tuftex right now. It’s going to be called ExtraBody II EcoSoft. The bio content comes later this year.”
Rich also touted Mohawk’s green story, noting the rise of carpet’s newest fiber, triexta, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary.
“Our SmartStrand triexta line has set a new, higher benchmark in performance by combining durability, built-in lifetime stain protection and softness, all with a renewable resource, corn sugar, in the fiber. We’ve had strong dealer support in helping us carry the triexta message to consumers thanks to the high retail visibility of SmartStrand.”
Another major innovation, Rich said, is EverStrand PET BCF carpets. “All Mohawk EverStrand and Mohawk EverStrand BCF carpets include post-consumer recycled content from plastic bottles. Additionally, Mohawk provides on-demand certification letters to document how much recycled content is used in every EverStrand carpet style.”
Tim Blount, nylon business leader at commercial producer Zeftron, said within the commercial fiber industry nylon 6 continues to gain market share over nylon 6,6. “Nylon 6 offers equal performance and a better environmental alternative because of its true, closed-looped recyclability. Although some manufacturers have had some success in recycling nylon 6,6, they still cannot offer the 100% closed-loop recyclability that nylon 6 offers.
“We continue to provide the marketplace with Zeftron nylon’s premium branded nylon 6ix fiber systems,” he added. “We guarantee 25% recycled content in every color and continually refresh our color line. Zeftron has existed as a premium branded fiber system for 40 years and we continue to offer yarns known for their high style, performance and, most importantly, their recyclability. We continue to promote our 6ix Again commercial carpet program and are always looking for ways to add value to our brand, like our MBDC Cradle to Cradle Silver certification, our performance certification program and maintaining a fresh and current color offering.”