TEXTILES.ORG
InterfaceFLO, a global leader in the manufacture of innovative modular flooring, has signed a pan-European agreement with waste management specialist SITA. The sustainability leaders have joined forces to recover end-of-life carpet tiles from customers across Europe and maximise their use. Rather than being sent to landfills, the tiles will be returned to InterfaceFLOR to be re-used by the company’s social partners or fully recycled into new carpet tiles using the company’s pioneering ReEntry 2.0 technology.
In Europe alone, an estimated 30 million square meters of carbon intensive, oil-based carpet tiles are sent to landfills or incinerated each year, which is both environmentally and financially unsustainable. InterfaceFLOR has long campaigned for manufacturers to take responsibility for their products at their end-of-life; the company has offered a take-back scheme for its products since 1995, called ReEntry, which has diverted more than 100,000 tons of used carpet from disposal globally.
Lindsey Parnell, president and CEO of InterfaceFLOR in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, said, “We are really excited to be scaling up our ReEntry program with SITA’s logistics and recycling expertise. Like us, they see what many classify as waste as a future raw material and a business opportunity. And at a time when commodities are in short supply and costs are spiralling, it is even more important than ever to make maximum use of what we have.”
InterfaceFLOR’s partnership with SITA will initially operate in The Netherlands, and will be expanded over the next eighteen months to cover more of the EMEAI region. The company’s ReEntry scheme provides customers with three options for their used carpet tiles: reuse; recycling through the ReEntry 2.0 process or energy recovery.