DALLAS—To help consolidate the company’s post-consumer vinyl composition tile (VCT) efforts in the region, Johnsonite, the commercial arm of Tarkett, has formed a partnership with Texas Carpet Recycling and Corporate Floors to serve as the central collection point for the mill’s ReStart Reclamation and Recycling program.
Texas Carpet is the first and only full service commercial carpet landfill diversion company in the state of Texas. Through this partnership, it will bring together post-consumer VCT at its Dallas suburb facility in Grapevine, where it will then be transported to Johnsonite’s Houston facility to be recycled into new product.
Thomas Holland, president of Texas Carpet, noted, “Historically, customers haven’t had options for recycling installed VCT flooring and have been challenged to find separate recycling resources for everything in the building—from ceiling tiles and light fixtures to flooring and electronics. We have seen a real need for VCT within the healthcare and education markets and with that, the demand to recycle post-consumer flooring has increased. Together with Johnsonite we can now offer the first large scale recycling program for VCT flooring.”
He added the company offers dealers, contractors, end users and carpet mills a financially viable alternative to throwing away product and that it provides services throughout the region. Diane Martel, vice president of environmental planning and strategy for Tarkett North America, Johnsonite’s parent, said “The Texas Carpet Recycling business model will help us achieve our goals regarding recycling installed floors. Its team has a real interest in environmental stewardship, which is essential to our value proposition.”
In early 2000, Johnsonite introduced ReStart, which enables commercial flooring job scrap—rubber; vinyl and linoleum tile and sheet; wall base; floor finishing accessories, and tread-cuttings—to be collected and returned to the company to be repurposed or recycled for other products or uses.
Since its inception, Johnsonite has recycled over 900 million pounds of material both internally and externally including the diversion of 55 million pounds of post-consumer material from landfills.
Gilles de Beaumont, president of Tarkett Commercial Tile, said the company’s sustainability efforts extend far beyond the year 2000. “We began recycling product more than 50 years ago. Tarkett was the first resilient flooring manufacturer to reclaim samples. We continue that commitment today as we develop new ways to become more environmentally responsible, whether through product development or strategic partnerships such as this one.”
He added as the company continues to expand its sustainable efforts, the Texas Carpet partnership can grow to include more Tarkett products.
For more information on the recycling efforts of Tarkett/Johnsonite, call 800.899.8916. To learn more about Texas Carpet Recycling and Corporate Floors, call 817.552.1011.