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| Recycling |
Flooring Industry Overview
Carpet waste dumping currently accounts for two per cent of all landfill waste within the UK and Europe, enough to cover 57,000 football pitches every year.
Currently the UK ranks 5th in the international league of carpet manufacturing and total annual production are in excess of 150 million square meters. Approximately 7 per cent or £70 million of potential extra revenue is lost annually in waste produced during processing and fitting.
Each year more than £0.75 million is paid by manufacturers toward landfill dumping.
Most carpets are constructed using nylon or polypropylene fibers that are secured by composite backing materials anything from glass fiber to PVC to heavy metals. All these materials are non-degradable and contribute to environmental pollution.
Landfill dumping or incineration of carpet and vinyl waste is frequently avoidable, it is the responsibility of suppliers, installers and customers to work together and to ensure that wherever it is realistic to do so, materials are either re-used or recycled.
There are several different types of recycling applicable to flooring materials and waste:
Re-use: Further use is made of the product. This may include some cleaning or re-working of the material.
Example: Pennine Magpie and Earth Square Projects, cleaning used carpet tiles for re-use.
Reconstitution: The product is cleaned, shredded or melted, and the material is used to manufacture something else.
Example: Using nylon pellets from old carpets to make components.
Remanufacture: Waste material is decomposed chemically, and the substances used to make new products.
Example: Making fresh caprolactum from old nylon carpet and using it to make new nylon for carpets.
Energy value recovery: Burning the waste as fuel to release energy.
Example: Using plastic waste from nylon recycling as a heat source for other stages in the process.
C3 and Recycling
C3 regularly transports the carpet tiles we uplift to the Pennine Magpie project in Yorkshire.
The tiles are washed and freshened up, then either donated or sold to new users.
C3 is currently planning a scheme whereby all our vinyl flooring offcuts will be retained and sent for reconstitution.
C3 retains all the cardboard cartons used to package new carpet tiles, we flatten them and deliver to a local re-cycling depot.
Our policy is to specify floorcoverings with a high recycled content ahead of other products as often as possible.
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