Crossville, Tenn.—Crossville Inc. said it recycled 7,951,271 pounds of fired porcelain in 2019, bringing the company’s cumulative recycling total to nearly 134 million pounds since the 2009 launch of the Tile Take-Back program and subsequent TOTO USA recycling partnership.
These recycling initiatives are based on the company’s proprietary process for recycling fired porcelain products, including post-consumer materials. Through Tile Take-Back, Crossville is able to recycle previously installed tile collected from its distribution network, as well as scraps that result from tile cutting during installation, sizing or sample creation. Through its TOTO partnership, Crossville receives pre-consumer fired porcelain toilets that do not meet quality standards; prior to the partnership, these cast-offs were being sent to landfills for disposal, but now they are recycled for use in manufacturing new tile.
All 134 million cumulative pounds of the recycled material Crossville has diverted from landfills have been or will be introduced into the tile production process. This use of recycled material during manufacturing results in Crossville maintaining its status as a net consumer of waste for an eighth consecutive year. Net waste consumption is achieved by using more waste than is created during production.
Crossville’s total of 7,951,271 pounds of fired porcelain recycled in 2019 breaks out as follows:
- 4,560,984 pounds fired scrap product at the company’s plant
- 3,261,860 pounds of TOTO’s scrap porcelain
- 128,427 pounds of post-consumer waste from the Tile Take-Back program
Additionally, in 2019 Crossville removed 2,323,046 pounds of filtrate solids from dirty water and recycled back into tile production.