Shaw achieves zero waste to landfills at three sites
-- Home Textiles Today, 1/21/2010 3:44:00 PM
Dalton, Ga. – Three Shaw Industries facilities – two Tuftex carpet manufacturing plants and one fiber extrusion facility – now post zero waste to their local landfills.
The three sites, two in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., and the third in Clemson, S.C., have re-directed their waste to “alternative channels of recycling and reuse,” Shaw said.
Shaw’s Tuftex risk/environmental manager, Bill Woyshner, explained achieving zero landfill status for the two California plants was an initiative designed to support both a regional zero landfill initiative and Shaw’s own corporate waste reduction goals.
With the largest local landfill in the Los Angeles area slated to be closed in 2013, “Shaw is helping the City of Santa Fe Springs meet [its] waste diversion goals by implementing a zero waste to landfill initiative,” Woyshner said. “As a result, we recognized a clear opportunity to demonstrate that zero landfill facilities are not only achievable – they can contribute to the sustainability of an entire community – in this case, our own.”
Added Tuftex carpet director Jim Cusick: “Because the facilities were already operating at a very high level of efficiency, each plant was already sorting and recycling every possible type of waste on site and through local partners like New Green Day, RJM and Serv-Wel Disposal. The final step was finding a method of recycling or reuse for the break-room waste generated each month.”
That break-room waste is now being sent as an alternative fuel source to produce electric power, Cusick stated.
Shaw’s Clemson, S.C.-based extrusion plant has partnered with Phillips Recoveries to achieve its zero landfill status.
“Phillips changes the solid state of our industrial compacted trash to the consistency of garden mulch by shredding and then grinding it,” said Gene Rowell, Plant 8T environmental health and safety manager. “Phillips Recoveries customers then use this material as a means of liquid absorption for the treatment of non-hazardous waste.”
Like its counterparts on the West Coast, the Clemson plant also recycles waste paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal, with local firms.
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