Italian nylon fiber manufacturer Aquafil opened its first carpet recycling facility in the United States. The new 116,000 square feet building in Phoenix, Arizona, has the capacity to turn 36 million pounds of old carpets into raw material annually, the company says.

Aquafil manufactures a polymer called Nylon 6, and operates in two main product areas: bulk continuous filaments for carpets and nylon textile filaments for garments. The company has 16 plants that employ more than 2,700 people in Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Thailand, China — and now the United States.