Mohawk Receives Recognition for Greenworks Center

Mohawk Industries, Kennesaw, Ga., has been awarded two 2008 Green Dot Awards recognizing the company’s recycling facility, the Greenworks Center in Chatsworth, Ga.

The company received third place and honorable mention in the “services” category in the 2008 Green Dot Awards, which recognize businesses that have high environmental standards and meet the needs of the present without adversely affecting future generations. The Farmani Group founded the Green Dot Awards in 2006.

“This award is a mark of distinction for Mohawk,” says Lewis Perkins, director of sustainable strategies for The Mohawk Group. “This facility was not developed by a blueprint, but by a visionary organization that upholds sustainability as the bedrock of its organization.” He adds, “The Green Dot Award affirms our role as a leading environmental steward and innovator not only within the carpet industry, but also among our customers’ communities.”

Mohawk and its Greenworks Center will be recognized at The Green Dot Awards gala on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.

Mohawk’s Greenworks Center reclaims all major types of synthetic fiber, which make up more than 75 percent of the carpet industry’s waste stream, according to the company. The Greenworks Center works with the C.A.R.E. (Carpet America Recovery Effort) initiative and Mohawk’s own ReCover reclamation program to reclaim carpet.

The Greenworks Center processes 100 percent of the carpet it receives, including fiber, backing and latex, Mohawk says. It also manages a variety of thermoplastic non-carpet recyclables, helping to further minimize the amount of carpet that finds its way to the landfills. Recycled material processed at the Center go “carpet to carpet”—face fiber to backing, backing to backing and in the near future face fiber to face fiber. Mohawk currently produces more than 500 products composed of recycled content.

Along with the reclaimed materials that will go carpet-to-carpet, Greenworks Center processes a percentage of the materials to be used in engineered resins that are shipped to Mohawk’s engineered resin partners. This material can then be used to produce chair components, consumer accessory products for lawn equipment, storage containers and hundreds of other plastic components containing post-consumer content.

More information about Greenworks and Mohawk’s other sustainability efforts is available at www.mohawkgreenworks.com.