One of many carpet inspections during tufting. >> Photo by Diana Brown.

At the confluence of the Maury and James rivers in the rural town of Glasgow, Va., one of The Mohawk Group’s plants is situated at the perfect “crossroads location” for a manufacturing facility. With no shortage of water supply and easy access to Route 11 (a major thoroughfare that predates modern Interstates) as well as nearby railroad tracks, the plant broke ground on its present site on Dec. 26, 1934, and during the course of the last seven decades has expanded to its present size of 1.5 million square feet — a massive 34-acre facility encompassed all under one roof. It is here that The Mohawk Group’s sustainability commitment touches on four tenets: Extended Product Responsibility; Resource Conservation; Product Manufacturing; and, Product Performance.

Sustainable Facility and Environmental Design + Construction Group Publisher Diana Brown and I had the opportunity to participate in a guided media tour of The Mohawk Group’s Glasgow plant in October 2007. I had flown into Richmond the weekend prior to visit with family, and took the scenic route along I-64 over to the west side of the state, fully enjoying the early-fall change of colors in the surrounding Blue Ridge mountains as I drove by Charlottesville and on toward I-81. After spending the night in the historical district of neighboring town Lexington, Va., which is home to the Virginia Military Institute, Diana and I enjoyed a morning drive through the Shenandoah Valley and on to Glasgow.

Derik Broach, of Broach Media, Diann Barbacci, director of Sustainable Design for The Mohawk Group, and Buck Leslie, director of customer visits for the Glasgow plant, welcomed us to the facility and gave us a detailed overview of the location and the history of the company, as well as some background on The Mohawk Group’s ( www.mohawkgreenworks.com ) environmental initiatives. Mohawk Industries is the largest flooring manufacturer in the world for both residential and commercial applications, and offers a comprehensive selection of carpet, ceramic tile, wood, stone, laminate, vinyl, rugs and other home products. Commercial brands under The Mohawk Group umbrella include: Karastan Contract, Lees carpets, Bigelow Commercial, Durkan Hospitality and Daltile.

As Buck explained, visitors to the Glasgow facility are privy to nearly all of the major processes involved in carpet manufacturing, including:

• Yarn Dyeing and Manufacturing;

• Heatsetting;

• Tufting Machinery (42, total, onsite);

• Twelve-foot Finishing Operation;

• Tip-Shearing;

• Inspection; and

• Modular Manufacturing

The plant employs 1,250 people and produces 180,000 square yards of broadloom carpet and 190,000 square yards of modular / six-foot carpet in an average five-day workweek.

Donning our neon-green safety vests, safety glasses and earphones (to be able to hear our tour guide over the din of machinery), the group departed from the main offices and headed onto the vast expanse of manufacturing floor.

The facility is ISO9001 certified as of 1998, and is also ISO14001 certified for environmental management systems. And in 2004, Unibond RE received Environmentally Preferred Product (EPP) classification by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) as containing 20% post-consumer recycled content by total product weight. The plant produces some 20 million square yards of modular carpeting per year.

In 1935, the plant processed wool. Today, it is all Nylon. The Yarn Recovery Program is interesting, as these “socks” are pulled into this huge machine; all of the yarn material is re-dyed black for full reusability. The aim of this program is to “reduce, reuse and recycle,” and the black dye again represents recycled content. These socks are then fed into the 42 tufting machines at the Glasgow facility; anywhere from 2,500 to 5,00 yards are produced during one shift.

The enormous looms (Tri-Ax Multi-Tuft machines) form a colossal “forest” in the center of the facility, which as Buck pointed out, “one might need a trail of bread crumbs to make it out!” It’s literally an enormous maze of machinery.

Dematerialization

Components of The Mohawk Group’s Encycle Backing Containing 35 percent pre-consumer content. >> Photo by Joseph H. Mayton III.

“Sustainability that works” is the company mantra. Mohawk Industries in more than 150 years old and has annual revenues that exceed $7.5 billion. “We’re an honest-to-goodness carpet manufacturing facility — any type of flooring. We’re entrenched in hard and soft-surface,” Buck said.

During the course of the extensive walking tour, we partook in presentations on the fiber/yarn dyeing process, as well as enjoyed an up-close look at the maintenance, quality assurance, product design and product capabilities.

We learned that Encycle spent several years in R&D as the company focused on dismantling the PVC line of products. Encycle is a non-PVC modular backing technology developed by The Mohawk Group. It is designed with three thermoplastic layers and zero water-based components, which enables the backing to be recycled into itself without separation. Encycle also incorporates 35 percent pre-consumer recycled content by total product weight and according to the company utilizes 28 percent less virgin raw materials.

The finished-good warehouse houses 1.5 million square yards of modular carpet inventory. Also located in the Glasgow facility are physical and color-testing labs, a warehouse of yarn and finished goods, manufacturing management offices, and the Design Resource Center, which is a complex that develops new running-line products and provides design-work / samples for custom products.

Through the initiatives put into practice by The Mohawk Group, eco-friendly products and processes are further enhanced and the company’s strong focus on sustainability lends to investment in state-of-the-art technologies and the development of new avenues in sustainable flooring.



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