ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996             TAG: 9610140010
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: A-6  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER

CARPET COMPANY HELPS INDUSTRY CLEAN UP ITS ACT

RONILE INC. has developed a new process for recycling dye instead of throwing it out.

Making pretty carpet is dirty business, but a Rocky Mount company has helped the industry operate more cleanly.

Ronile Inc. manufactures and dyes carpet fiber. Carpet makers weave and sell it, mostly for commercial uses, such as office buildings and hospitals.

Before the weaving phase, Ronile's dye house bathes the carpet fibers in as many as six dyes. The tints - in various blues, yellows and reds - are placed into a machine. After the processing, colored yarn and brown residual dye comes out.

Those wastes historically flowed into a treatment plant on Ronile's premises at 510 Orchard Ave. and from there to the Pigg River.

Now, Ronile is on its way to becoming a cleaner company. Ronile said it has voluntarily reduced dye waste 70 percent by recycling much of its brown leftover dye instead of throwing it out. The new end product is a blend with fresh dye.

Ronile's recycling process cost "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to devise and install, but so far this year has saved $80,000 off the cost of purchasing dye, said Phillip Essig, executive vice president.

"We think it's the right thing to do," he said.

For its efforts, the company has received a citation in the first Governor's Environmental Excellence Awards for Manufacturers.

The winners were named last week at the annual meeting of the Virginia Manufacturers Association.

A similar award went to GE Industrial Systems in Salem for switching to a cleaner process to paint machinery housing. Two other awards went to Reynolds Recycling, a division of Richmond-based Reynolds Metals Co. dedicated to aluminum can recycling, and Hercules Inc.'s Aqualon Division in Hopewell, which produces cellulose derivatives used in food, drugs, paper and building materials.

At GE, a maker of industrial drive systems for steel and paper mills and other heavy industry, the company said it voluntarily pulled out paint booths that released toxins to the air and generated other wastes. In place of them, it installed a process that bakes a powdered form of paint onto the machinery housings.

The company told officials the system has cut emission of a major type of hazardous waste by 98 percent. It also cut the plant's water use by 67 percent and lowered power consumption 20 percent.

"We're absolutely astounded to get this [award]," said Tom Stack, manager of GE's environmental and health and safety issues.

The awards underscore the state's emphasis on the private sector's ability to solve environmental problems. Gov. George Allen told manufacturers he has streamlined government regulation to "unleash the talent, the innovativeness, the expertise of our entrepreneurs so that they can find new and better ways of conducting themselves and their businesses."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

LENGTH: Medium:   63 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ROGER HART/Staff. Phillip Essig is leading his company 
          in a recycling program that earned the factory a 1996 Governor's 
          Environmental Excellence award from the state of Virginia.