T H E E N V I R O N M E N T

Today’s Waste Becomes Tomorrow’s Product Cycle-Tex pioneers recycling within the carpet industry.

BY Peggy m 2 e Y Carpet Editor

ecycling is a word that is politically and socially cor- rect in today’s world. R Recycling also has forced

mindus t r ies to deal with environmentally sensitive issues and reducing waste.

Cycle-Tex Inc. is the only com- pany located within the heart of the carpet industry - namely Dalton, Ga. - that is collecting and repro- cessing the industry’s packaging waste. Many companies are involved with recycling, but it is a very broad base and there is still much to be done.

cycling waste plants to deal with woven polypropylene bale wraps, but Cycle-Tex is the only company currently handling both polypropy- lene and polyethylene packaging waste.

Amoco and Exxon have built re-

Built On Garbage The company was incorporated

in February 1989 by H. Phillip Neff, president, Bart Campbell, vice president of manufacturing, and Linda Nelms, vice president of administration. The trio believed it was possible to build the business by recovering and reprocessing packaging waste from the carpet industry.

By recycling, the firm uses waste materials headed for landfills as the

primary feedstock for its conversion processing. The difference between a product that is “recycled” and one that is “recovered” is that the recov- ered product goes directly back to the form it once had. Neff feels that carpet companies can segregate their waste products so that more can be recovered.

“This would create a small profit center. Not only will they avoid the cost of transporting carpet wastes to landfills, they can recover it,” he said.

“Waste products from carpet lines vary tremendously with each individual manufacturing run,” Neff said. “For instance, an average fig- ure would be about 3 percent waste on a 30,000-pound lot. That waste costs companies about $26 a ton for disposal in landfills. Keep in mind this price is for the Dalton and surrounding areas. In other places like New Jersey, the cost is as high as $175 a ton. And that‘s not all. Stricter environmental reg- ulations could add taxes and other costs to that amount.”

At present, landfills only accept carpet selvedge trim that is baled. Otherwise it is too difficult to han- dle. When landfills receive the baled waste it is stacked in blocks and buried. Later, if there is a reuse found for it, it can be dug up and used. Although very few prod-

ucts can be made with unknown polymers, one known source is the plastic lumber business. These companies can use a co-mingled polymer mix, Neff said.

labeling Sources “Many things need to be done,

and the first stage is to get proper labeling to identify content,” Neff said. “Todav’s

in the interim stage now, and even- tually it will be disrnvered what c a ~ l be done to reuse. Fiber companies such as DuPont, BASF and Monsanto have these projects to undertake. ”

Some things are being done, though. The Carpet and Rug Institute (CFU) is working with its members on a labeling program and other projects, and there are some carpet mills that have become involved,

48 H I April 1993

Editor’s Note: The author is vice president of Hydroscience Inc., St. Helena Island, S.C., an environmen- tal engineering andp lanningm

, Ask people for their perceptions

of the environmental agenda under the new administration and many will say that they expect much tighter environmental programs under Clinton/Gore. Environ- mentalism was a major topic in the recent presidential campaign with Clinton and Gore supporting strong environmental programs and Bush claiming that extreme environmen- talism would result in a si@icant loss of jobs.

The reality is that the new administration will probably not result in sudden environmental changes but will enhance the current programs.

There is widespread public support for environmental pro- grams throughout society. This transforms into broad political support that is enhanced further by media support. These pressures have brought forth new issues such as wetlands preservation, species protection, indoor air quality, global warming and ozone depletion. This trend of new environmental arenas is likely to continue.

Compliance Comes First Before worrying about new

environmental programs, industry should be sensitive to the current and pending requirements. Compli- ance has not yet been achieved with the existing regulations that will be expanded and tightened. New regulations for existing statutory provisions will be developed. The existing authorities have not yet been re&ed h!!y k- regdatim.

requirements reached an all-time high under the Bush administra- tion. The EPA collected more fines under Bush than it recorded in its entire previous history. Whenever a federal statute is authorized by Congress, the sanctions for non- compliance almost always increase. Criminal prosecutions have become sigtllficantly more common. These

Enforcement of environmental

By Robert G. Gross Environmental Analysis: New Administration To Stay The Course - For N O ~ , ‘ ,:+

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April 1992 47

trends also are likely to continue.

ments will affect the way American industry does business, and they will force changes to a greater extent than any other previous environmental legislation. The Clean Air Act Amendments are expected to result in expenditures up to $30 billion a year, which is approximately 25 percent greater

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amend-

&&I the present spendingfor all environmental programs combined.

Regulation Will Tighten The effects of the Clinton/Gore

administration are somewhat predictable in certain areas and unpredictable in others. The admininstration’s plan has the Clean Water Act re-authorization at the top of its agenda where new standards for non-point source pollution are expected. In the air program, regulations are expected to be released and implemented

more quickly than in the Bush adminstration. Clinton may change or reverse several of Bush’s clean air decisions.

It is unlikely that the difficult issues associated with RCRA and Superfund will be resolved in the near future. Areas such as the mixture and derived-from rules and industrial non-hazardous waste will linger for a while. When RCRA is re-

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authorized, it is likely to include a ban on incineration and higher recycling goals.

Although Clinton and Gore believe that a healthy environment can exist with a strong economy, history has demonstrated that environmental programs often result in the loss of jobs. With the administration’s emphasis on the economy, it will be difficult to balance environmental goals and economic burden. This may be one of the administration’s more difficult issues. 0

COME S E E THE FUTURE I N H A L L 4 , B O O T H 1 9 0 9

the other members of the successful Gaston machine family.

Circle 1 17 on Reader Service Card

uses this material for the manufac- ture of flower pots.

What would be an alternative to landfills or recycling’? “Some com- panies could build huge incinera- tors to bum the waste and, in tum, generate additional electricity that could reduce their utility expenses. The second option is research and development work in recovering a polymer by chemically dissolving it back to its original state. This re- search work can only be done by the major fiber producers,” Neff said.

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The Cycle-Tex Inc. facility in Dalton, Ga.

“There is a cost for everything, and I believe at some point the car- pet manufacturers that are ex- truding will use cola bottles to make carpet yarn. The 2-liter cola bottles are being used in some ar- eas now, and it is a high-quality feedstock for polyester yarn,” Neff said. Some of the companies work- ing in the conversion of cola bottles, according to Neff, include Wellman Industries, Hoechst Celanese and Image Carpets.

Neff feels the biggest break- through will come not necessarily in technology, but in the market‘s acceptance of recycled products. “On the one hand people demand we recycle, but on the other they won’t buy it. So what can we do? It‘s a slow-moving process at best, but . . . we’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg with recycled waste materials that can be put into use- ful products.”

Creating A Market Cycle-Tex has developed a mar-

ket for batches of carpet waste products of various colors. Olefin yarns of one color cannot be re- covered into a diserent coiored yarn, Neff said. However, the firm tums batches of multi-colored waste products into black pellets that are being sold to companies that will use them for manufactur- ing in the injection molding indus- try. And it could be as many as 15 colors mixed together, he said.

eral filler such as talc or calcium carbonate and sold to com-

A product is blended with a min-

pounders. This fills specifications for the automotive injection mold- ers. It is one of many items of re- cycled content that is used in the automobile trade.

the service agricultural area, where products made include chicken feeding troughs and feeding bins for storing hay. The horticulture area

Other application areas include

The Process Cycle-Tex built a plant to house

two 6-inch intrusion lines plus preparatory equipment that could reprocess polyethylene and polypropylene packaging waste. Neff said their primary supply sources are packaging stretch film of linear low-density polyethylene, a carpet wrap material of low-density polyethylene, woven bale wraps of polyethylene, and extruder purges and strand waste of polypropylene. Materials from these sources are

A coyl S E E THE FUTURE

Sample Gaston Low liquor ratio sample dyeing machine dyes 30 to 65 pounds (14 to 30 kg), duplicating shade and fabric quali- ty for full-sized produc- tion machines.

Circle 1 19 on Reader Service Card I April 1993 A!!I 49

c * sorted by polymer groups and pos-

sibfe%olor. “We then remove contaminants

such as paper, wire ties and tape, and then reduce by chopping the product into small sizes in order to feed the throat of the extruders,’’ Neff said.

The firm also has a warehouse where soft, loose waste is baled. Some of the plastic is hand cleaned to get it ready for processing.

Recycling is similar to fiber ex- trusion in that it uses extruders to melt and filter the polymers. The process includes sorting, collection, transportation and inspection, then possible further sorting, size reduc- tion, extrusion, pelletizing, blend- ing, quality control check and packaging.

During the extrusion process, the polymer is filtered to further remove contaminants and to pel- letize the product. Then it is blend- ed in a silo before packaging in heavy-duty shipping boxes. When the reprocessing of the packaging waste is complete, what‘s left is a clean, mixed-color polymer pellet that is usually sold to a com- pounder for extrusion molding or to a film blower for recycled film pro- duction.

Cycle-Tex has enjoyed its rela- tionship with many of the carpet industry‘s leading manufacturers. Some of these include Shaw, Beaulieu, Queen, Collins & Aikman, Milliken, Horizon, J & J and Synthetic Industries.

According to Neff, Cycle-Tex has either helped these companies establish an intemal recycling pro- gram for collecting and removing packaging waste or the firm has been available to assist them in developing products they can reuse themselves.

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Co-op With DuPont CYCl ‘Pa-L,n Loo- -z.<,,%-.n+-A .e- I LA uLLI1 bLolgjllaLLu

by DuPont as its co-operative agent in working with DuPont‘s cus- tomers who have established in- house recycling programs. “I feel Cycle-Tex played a key roll in assisting DuPont’s development of a compatible [plastic] label instead of a paper label,” Neff said.

“This enabled DuPont‘s cus- tomers to collect the packaging waste without the labor of removing

paper labels, so Cycle-Tex could process this waste into a higher end-use. At present, this waste is being used in making thin-gauge household utility bags. DuPont paid the price on the front end for developing compatible labels, but

Many companies are involved

with recycling,

I r but there is still much

to be done.

now they - and particularly their customers - have an established outlet for their shrink film packag- ing waste,” he said.

The label is made from poly- propylene and can be recycled. The recycled trademark on the label has a number 5, which indicates the

content is polypropylene. The 2- liter cola bottles are coded with the number 1, indicating they are poly- ethylene terephthalate (PET). These numbers are part of an intemation- a1 plastic container code system used by all in the business.

A Joint Effort Since 1989, Cycle-Tex has been

responsible for removing and re- processing approximately 8-9 mil- lion pounds of packaging waste that otherwise would have gone to landfills.

Neff, Nelms and Campbell each strongly believe that future growth for carpet manufacturers will be tied to those companies that realize their responsibility in reducing industrial waste and using prod- ucts that incorporate recycled waste.

“It‘s a joint effort,” Neff said, “and the carpet industry must design products with alternative recovery methods and potential recycling use in mind when they are in the product development stage.” 0

I N H A L L 4 , B O O T H 1 9 0 9

dyeing and dying machines to meet the needs of the future -- today. Circle 121 on Reader Service Card

April 1993 A ! I 51

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