VINYL is the main flooring choice for education and healthcare settings and for many hospitality, commercial and public buildings. Typically, large volumes are required.

This means that there is substantial waste, both from end-of-use uplifted flooring and from new installation offcuts. Most waste is traditionally disposed of through waste contractors that ultimately send the material to landfill or incineration. Yet vinyl material can be recycled up to 7 times without any loss of performance, making it ideal for a circular economy approach.

To put such an approach into practice, however, comes with multiple logistic and technical challenges. Success requires investment in machinery, technical improvements, publicity within the industry, engagement with contractors, and the provision of a collection service. And any collection service must be simple for contractors to use, low cost, and supportive of industry carbon reduction goals.

Back in 2009, flooring manufacturers Altro and Polyflor decided to collaboratively address this problem. Altro and Polyflor share a forward-facing sustainability journey that benefits the industry as a whole. The two firms understood the recycling potential of the PVC in their products and recognised that by working together to provide a collection service, they could create circular economy for the material.

The outcome was the Recofloor scheme: a simple-to-use, national take-back scheme that makes the most of reverse logistics to minimise any additional CO2 emissions. The scheme involved setting up the Recofloor team to engage with industry stakeholders and manage the collection service. Recofloor has now developed into an industry-leading circular economy scheme, with Altro and Polyflor receiving a constant flow of material for recycling. Since launch, over 7,000 tonnes has been diverted from landfill or incineration.

All clean, high-quality material collected through Recofloor goes through a recycling process. This involves sorting and granulating the returned PVC to produce ‘raw’ material for use in new PVC products. Both Altro and Polyflor undertake the recycling process at their own plants.

‘We put the returned material through a series of processes,’ explains David Lever, sustainability manager at Altro. ‘At each stage, we’re refining it further. The processes include chopping into short chunks, grinding into chips, and shaking to remove hard aggregates used for slip resistance.’
Some of the granules are then used directly for new flooring, with the remainder being sent to UK plastic product recyclers for further processing and use in products such as traffic cones.

‘When we receive the collected smooth vinyl offcuts or roll ends, we recycle this ourselves back into new Polyflor ranges,’ says Polyflor sustainability market manager, Sonia Goode. ‘Recofloor enables us to access and reuse this waste flooring as well as our post-production waste vinyl. Any clean, smooth uplift material we receive is sent to one of our third-party recyclers, where the waste is processed into other useful items – again reducing the need for virgin PVC and decreasing CO2e.’

Recofloor’s success has shown that it is both possible and practicable to collect flooring materials for recycling. As a result, the two companies are optimistic that it will be possible to recycle more of the material directly. Multiple trials are in progress, looking at ways to reduce processing costs and overcome technical hurdles such as the difficulty establishing the composition of collected flooring.

A further important factor in boosting recyclability is product design. ‘The easiest products to recycle are those that have been designed with recycling in mind,’ says Carla Eslava, Recofloor manager. ‘New recycling-friendly ranges – such as adhesive-free products – are gaining popularity as they can be fitted and reused if properly maintained, prolonging its life in the market. Plus, after its end-of use life they can be repurposed into new products closing the circular economy loop for PVC flooring.’

Though there is a cost in providing the service, Polyflor and Altro both see this as a price worth paying to ensure they are playing their part as responsible manufacturers.
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