North American Technologies Group, Inc. has been awarded a grant from Carpet America Recovery Effort to continue research into the use of post-consumer carpet as a raw material for its TieTek composite railroad tie.
CARE members, including Shaw Industries, Mohawk, Solutia, BP Amoco, DuPont, and Honeywell, represent the key names in the carpet industry. CARE is involved in turning discarded post-consumer carpet into valuable feedstock and products.
"We send an estimated 4.7 billion pounds of carpet to the landfill each year. It is the goal of CARE to reduce that total amount by 40 percent by the year 2012. CARE has taken a proactive approach to increase activity in the marketplace in the research, recovery, and product development, and marketing areas. Our goal is to grow in momentum and diverted pounds in years to come," said Frank K. Hurd, CARE chairman.
NATK's subsidiary TieTek, Inc. manufactures TieTek composite railroad ties from a mixture of recycled raw materials. TieTek has already been successful in using recycled tires, plastic buckets, bottles, film and other recyclable materials. The grant is for TieTek, Inc. research and development efforts into the use of recycled carpet as one of the raw materials in the production of the composite railroad ties.