News » Newhey Reduce Carbon Footprint
Newhey Reduce Carbon Footprint
Wednesday 17 Feb 2010
Newhey Carpet’s conservation of energy and the consequent reduction of our carbon footprint is a continuous process and part of an ongoing pursuit that is regularly monitored by dedicated staff.
The benefit is not only for our planet but also for those who live on it, which of course includes our customers. Savings resulting from updating to more energy efficient equipment and manufacturing techniques contributes directly to an improved pricing stability of our product.
Newhey Carpets is one of the industry’s leading Companies in keeping up with plant renewal, refurbishment and new product development during a time that others have struggled to maintain their status quo. At every opportunity since the new millennium Newhey have re‐equipped, re‐trained and promoted new energy efficient improvements.
The areas that have seen a major contribution is Production output per kW used. Ten years ago a square meter of carpet used 0.545kw to produce. Today using new efficient Colortec to produce a similar product this has been reduced to 0.377W./m2. approx. 30% less energy.
Accrued savings are re‐invested in supporting this momentum as new systems generally present new associated costs to maintain efficiencies. Nevertheless, the benefits can be measured each time we compare the old with the new.
Newhey Carpet’s recent contribution to reducing our carbon footprint has been the development and introduction of a new Hot‐melt Secondary Backing Carpet machine. This machine removes the need to use a traditional wet process to apply a latex back coating to the carpet. Any wet process generally requires drying and water evaporation. Our new process neither use water nor the equivalent energy that is needed to dry it. The product is also more suitable for re‐cycling.
In addition, we have re‐roofed almost the whole production area with high insulated composite roof panels, thus saving on heat loss. New high efficient heaters have also contributed to energy reduction. High efficient drives and motors control a large proportion of our manufacturing.
Presently we are working with The Carbon Trust to further improve our Carbon Footprint and together with our appointed Energy Consultant Surveyor we are progressing to the next stage of assessing other areas to improve, particularly the replacement of lighting systems and recycling carpet waste through CRUK (Carpet Recycling UK).
Energy Conservation and Reducing our Carbon Footprint is an ongoing process where generally the benefits really can outweigh the costs.
Brian Whelan - Technical Director (Jan 2010)
