Global flooring manufacturer Mohawk Industries offered few specifics in its 2023 impact report regarding consumption of recycled plastics, and little appeared to have changed from the previous year’s report.
The company’s Summerville, Georgia, facility contains one of the largest integrated recycling operations in the U.S., Mohawk said in the report. The facility has recycled an average of almost 6 billion PET water bottles each year for the past decade, the company said in the report.
By comparison, the 2020 report said the site recycled “more than 6 billion bottles in 2020 alone.”
When contacted by Plastics Recycling Update for more details, a Mohawk representative declined to comment.
Major processor and end user
Over the years, the company has bought such a significant share of post-consumer PET bottle bales that some in the industry refer to the “Mohawk effect” or “Mohawk index,” as bale pricing often reflects the level to which Mohawk is purchasing bales.
Mohawk is vertically integrated, with its own recycling plant, fiber extrusion and carpet manufacturing plants, said Mark Dye, vice president of recycling operations, in the report.
In 2023, Mohawk upgraded its PET flake washers, resulting in reduced water and chemical consumption while improving flake quality.
“The cleanliness translates into improved performance in our downstream processes,” Dye said.
The recycled PET market has shifted in recent years from textiles including carpet representing more than half of recycled PET consumption, to packaging consuming the majority.
“The fiber market has been in constant decline since it hit its peak in 2017,” said Andrea Bassetti, Americas team lead for plastics recycling at ICIS.
In 2023 Mohawk launched its PETPremier carpet, which contains fiber made using recycled PET bottles. And although the company does not report sales volumes, its U.S. and Canada flooring sales for the year fell by 9% from 2022, an indication of the economic downturn evident throughout the housing and construction sector.
“Reduced market volumes led to low industry utilization rates and aggressive competition in the marketplace,” Mohawk said in its February 2024 press release discussing Q4 and full-year 2023 earnings. The company added that sales volumes had been below normal for the previous 18 months, and that customers were opting for lower-cost options such as vinyl sheet flooring amid inflationary conditions.
Mohawk Group’s EcoFlex ONE carpet tiles have an average of 76% recycled content, the company said, and each square yard contains the equivalent of 28 PET bottles.
To start 2024, Mohawk Group began expanding its take-back program to include carpet pad, luxury vinyl tile/stone polymer composite, sheet vinyl, laminate, vinyl composite tile and engineered wood products, the company said in the report.
“Our product take-back programs evaluate product condition and contamination and find the best outlet to maximize resource stewardship,” Mohawk said in the report, adding that its nylon and PET carpet fibers, LVT, insulation and tile are 100% recyclable.
In 2023, Mohawk recovered 44.9 million pounds of end-of-life products through recycling and repurposing, representing approximately 58% of its manufacturing waste. The company also converts discarded carpet fiber into nonwoven rug pads.
