Shaw and Mohawk were among the companies honored during the Carpet America Recovery Effort's conference in Lansdowne, Va. last week. Shaw Industries' Evergreen Nylon Recyling plant was recognized with the EPA/CARE Innovations in Recycling award. Mohawk Industries was named CARE Recycler of the Year.

"CARE's goals of finding market-based solutions for post-consumer carpet and diverting carpet from landfills cannot be achieved without the kind of vision and commitment exemplified by the individuals and companies we honor this year," said Georgina Sikorski, CARE's executive director.

Winner of the EPA/CARE award, Shaw's Evergreen plant in Augusta, Ga., has recycled more than 220 million pounds of post-consumer nylon 6 carpet and more than 36 million pounds of post-consumer carpet filler since the plant opened two years ago. Additionally, the plant uses waste-to-energy processing, which reduces the use of fossil fules, CARE noted.

Also honored with an EPA/CARE award was Ron Greitzer, president of Los Angeles Fiber Co. His company has recycled more than 464 million pounds of post-consumer carpet in the last nine years, which is more than 40 percent of the accumulated poundage of recycled carpet reported by CARE since it began collection data in 2002.

"Clearly, without Mr. Greitzer's efforts, CARE would not have reached its 2007 milestone of one billion pounds of post-consumer carpet recovered," CARE said.

Mohawk was recognized for its GreenWorks Post-Consumer Recycling Center, which converts post-consumer carpet into engineered resins that can be used in a broad range of post-consumer products. In 2008, the GreenWorks Center, located in Chatsworth, Ga., collected 15 million pounds of post-consumer carpet for processing into thermoplastic nylons and other materials. Most engineered resin sales were with Nylon 6,6, but Mohawk also developed automotive, furniture, and housewares applications, among others.

Also at the meeting, Brendan McSheehy Jr. was named CARE Person of the year. Actively involved in carpet fiber research and recycling since 1993, McSheehy has served as chairman of various CARE committees and is director of research and development for Universal Fiber Systems.