DALTON—Shaw Industries earlier this year purchased GeoHay, a manufacturer of patented, environmentally friendly barrier filtration products made from recycled carpet fibers.
GeoHay opens a new channel for Shaw’s re-use of the post-consumer carpet it collects nationally, noted Vance Bell, Shaw’s CEO. “This is new territory for Shaw. But with more than 3.5 billion pounds of post-consumer carpet ending up in landfills every year, we know we must look beyond the traditional flooring industry for additional solutions.”
Shaw already gathers more than 100 million pounds of post-consumer carpet per year from its national collection network and with it creates new carpet at its Evergreen, Ga., facility. It also turns other carpet waste into energy to help fuel its manufacturing operations.
Dan Hargett. GeoHay’s CEO, called the acquisition a perfect fit, noting “Shaw’s post-consumer carpet reclamation program and its commitment to sustainability through innovation make it an ideal investment partner as we look to the future for our need to support a continued rapid growth rate.” Georgina Sikorski, executive director, Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), applauded the acquisition, saying it is “an important step in ensuring continued diversion of post-consumer carpet from the nation’s landfills.” Hargett said GeoHay products are created with 100% reclaimed carpet fiber and play an important role in controlling erosion and storm water run-off. To emphasize his point, Sikorski said last year alone GeoHay was installed along a 6-mile section of a construction site of the Foothills Parkway in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along Walton County, Fla., beaches during the Gulf Oil spill (FCNews, July 5/12, 2010) and as part of a habitat-reclamation project for the endangered Cold Water Darter fish on north Georgia’s Conasauga River.
For more information on GeoHay, call 770.719.2583.
For more on Shaw’s carpet recycling and reclamation efforts, call 706.275.2983.
For more on CARE, call 706.428.2127.