Flooring is Going Green at Knockout Carpet
Posted on Mar 08, 2013
Going green - as in developing and selling environmentally friendly and safe products - is the hot concept right now, and the flooring industry is no exception.
The advantage the flooring industry has is that it has been developing environmentally conscious products for the last quarter century.
Once infamous for the toxins released by new carpeting, Tom Knockenhauer, owner of Knockout Carpet on West Main Street in Chester, says these toxin issues were long ago addressed by the industry.
"The toxins have been gone since the 1980's," he said. "The carpet industry has led the way with environmentally safe products, to where today, over half of carpeting is made from recycled products."
Shaw Industries, one of the major Georgia flooring companies, has been a leader in developing what it calls the Shaw Green Edge, and these are the products that Knockout Carpet offers.
Being environmentally friendly to Shaw means a lot more than just producing flooring free of toxins, and even more than using recycled materials in carpets, wood and rubberized floors.
Shaw's objective is the cutting edge concept of cradle-to-grave production - producing environmentally sound products like carpeting and carpet pads, that, at the end of their useful life, can be collected and recycled back into new Shaw products over and over again.
Knockenhauer said that being one of the main carpeting sellers and installers in the area was an incentive to be one of the first to offer green products, "It's something I wanted to do," he said. "We've been the main Okemo Resort installer for years, and Okemo is at the forefront of doing things green."
Knockenhauer said that he is often on the road installing flooring, so he recommends that anyone interested in seeing his samples at his shop in Chester call ahead at (802) 875-4409 to make an appointment.
This story originally ran in the February 13-19, 2008 edition of "The Message For the Week". Story and photo by Robert F. Smith, editor.
