Two of the country’s leading flooring manufacturers, Altro and Polyflor, have launched the UK’s first vinyl flooring recycling take-back scheme. The new industry-funded Recofloor scheme will increase the recycling of waste vinyl flooring in the UK. Through the scheme, safety flooring offcuts and smooth vinyl offcuts from the installation process will be recycled back into new flooring. Uplifted, or end-of-life material, will be used in the manufacture of traffic calming products, such as traffic cone and road barrier bases.

Axion Consulting is the agent for the Recofloor scheme, which has developed from a WRAP-funded (Waste & Resources Action Programme) trial to increase the collection and recycling of vinyl flooring. As a free-standing industry scheme, the target now is to create a sustainable, cost-effective and efficient collection system. Waste flooring is accepted from all types of sources, from individual contractors to large construction projects. Axion’s role involves co-ordinating and managing Recofloor collection systems.

Registered Recofloor participants will be provided with bulk bags which can be collected from site when filled with vinyl flooring, or they can drop off waste at one of 19 designated sites across the UK. Recofloor is keen to increase the number of drop-off sites across the UK and to recruit distributors to provide a drop-off point for vinyl flooring waste.

Recofloor Project Manager Jane Gardner, of Axion Consulting, said both manufacturers have invested a lot of time and cost into developing internal recycling processes for vinyl flooring and they feel the time is right to set up an industry collection scheme. "We are very pleased that Altro and Polyflor, as founder members of Recofloor, have made this huge commitment to the sustainability of vinyl flooring. It is a major achievement and an important step for the industry,” she says.

According to Polyflor, its products have on average 25 percent recycled content. “This is great considering the vast number of ranges available and the volumes which are produced,” says Environmental Market Manager Sonia Baker. “In 2008, Polyflor manufactured and sold around 20 million square metres of vinyl flooring, with 12,005 tonnes of post industrial waste and 736 tonnes of post consumer waste being recycled back into new product. Through Recofloor, we are aiming to increase the amount of post consumer waste that is recycled back into our flooring, across all ranges.”

Richard Kahn, Chief Executive of Altro, comments: “Thanks to the installation of the world’s first in-house safety flooring recycling system we have not sent any waste PVC to landfill since mid 2007, and now recycle 100% of our factory waste PVC.”

Quelle: Axion

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