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C&A Floorcoverings Hits Recycling Milestone

The manufacturer retrieves old carpet and vinyl waste through a buy-back program.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 2/14/2006 12:00:00 AM

C&A Floorcoverings, a Tandus company, recycles any post-consumer vinyl-backed carpet, regardless of original manufacturer. Sustainable efforts over the past 10 years have led the company to a major recycling milestone—C&A has recycled more than 100,000,000 pounds of reclaimed vinyl and vinyl-backed carpet, as part of its Infinity Initiative.

The company, states press material, “is mining buildings for resources instead of the earth.” Post-consumer vinyl-backed carpet is recycled into 100 percent recycled content backing for new ER3 floorcoverings. The backing system contains a minimum of 25 percent post-consumer carpet; the remaining 75 percent is post-consumer and post-industrial waste.

To retrieve old carpet and vinyl waste, the manufacturer maintains Floore, a buy-back program offering customers financial incentives to return and recycle their old vinyl-backed carpet. The company guarantees all carpet returned through the program will be recycled in its entirety—nothing will be landfilled, incinerated, (including waste-to-energy), or disposed of in any other way.

“We know that recycling carpet is but one part of the sustainability ideal, but it underscores our commitment to developing holistic environmental solutions that make our other environmental achievements possible,” says Mac Bridger, CEO of Tandus.